I had missed BA's non-paywalled mock, and so now we've got two major web publications - Jonathan Mayo at MLB.com was the first - projecting Stroman to the Red Sox at #24. Among others, Keith Law has Stroman going to the Cards in the pick directly before the Sox, and the dudes at Sox Prospects think he goes in the teens to Washington.

Stroman is who I want the Sox to target. He seems likely to go in the mid-teens, but him going later in the first round isn't a stretch.

Stryker Trahan is typically projected in the mid-to-late first, and he's someone I'd like to see. Good power, advanced approach, may or may not stick at C but has enough bat to profile well elsewhere.

Joey Gallo is frequently discussed with the Sox. Best power in the draft, but swing/approach needs plenty of work. I'd stay away.

Gavin Cecchini is in the draft, and considered better than his brother. Given that Garin looks pretty good and the relationship, I think the Sox would strongly consider Gavin at #24. He's questionable to be available there, though.

Victor Roache is a Sox-type pick. Missed most of the year with an injury, but great power and some patience. I'd like to see it.

I could see the Sox going after Nolan Fontana at #37. His discipline/eye are awesome, but he showed a surprising lack of average/power this year. Very likely to stick at SS though, so if he can develop a better hit tool and/or power, he could be quite a player.

Zach Eflin or Lucas Sims would be Sox-style HS arms. I'd be fine with either if the Sox like them.

Sounds like a tall Danny Herrera. Remember him?

The younger Cecchini is one of the five players attending the draft in person so I would be surprised if he hangs around long enough.

I have nothing of substance to offer on the draftees but I think an opportunity exists. With the major rule changes on signing bonuses etc... I think there may be a greater than usual split among teams in terms of good and bad drafts. I can see some confusion and uncertainty for teams while others will strike successfully.

I have nothing of substance to offer on the draftees but I think an opportunity exists. With the major rule changes on signing bonuses etc... I think there may be a greater than usual split among teams in terms of good and bad drafts. I can see some confusion and uncertainty for teams while others will strike successfully.

I think the opposite. The new rules have neutered the draft. Since everyone is working under very strict slotting rules, there's not a huge ability to game the system. It's really going to come down to who can identify the best talent, which in a pure baseball sense is wonderful both from a competitive standpoint and a talent redistribution perspective. It hurts the small market teams who want to plow money into the draft, and it hurts the big market teams that do too, but the draft itself is in a better place.

Holy cow, the draft is tomorrow and this is the first BBTF thread on it?

Crazy, isn't it?

I think the opposite. The new rules have neutered the draft. Since everyone is working under very strict slotting rules, there's not a huge ability to game the system. It's really going to come down to who can identify the best talent, which in a pure baseball sense is wonderful both from a competitive standpoint and a talent redistribution perspective. It hurts the small market teams who want to plow money into the draft, and it hurts the big market teams that do too, but the draft itself is in a better place.

I think you're right in the long term but I think the short term may create opportunity. I'm of the belief that any time there is significant change such as this that teams will not necessarily act as they should while they figure out the rules and such. The big thing at work here is going to be the ability to identify players who are signable. I think over time teams will come to grips with this (as will draftees and agents) but for this year some teams will be much better at it than others.

The biggest issue right now is probably going to be the expectations of the draftees. A lot of guys are potentially going to be in situations where they're not able to get nearly as much money as they could've gotten in a similar spot in last year's draft, particularly guys who used to get overslot deals to buy them out of football commitments to college and the like. This year and maybe next year will probably end up thin on talent that signs simply because there's going to be an adjustment period before players take what they can get rather than spurning it due to comparisons with previous draft signings.

The draft preview at Sox Prospects is pretty good. Apparently, they have a good history of identifying players the Sox may take.

I like Stroman, but if he's only a reliever, is he really worth a first round pick? Do people think he can start?

As best as I can tell - and I did not do a ton of research - the only reason Stroman doesn't project as a starter is his height. He has two good secondary pitches (a slider and a change), and he has thrown deep into games without any trouble this season for Duke. He's short, but he's not small, at 180-190 lbs.

I am really skeptical that a guy with starter stuff, who has been carrying a college starter's workload just fine, and who has a reasonable pitcher's frame, should be ticketed to the bullpen because he's two inches shorter than Roy Oswalt.

I quite doubt Johnny Cueto is taller than Stroman by any notable degree, for instance.

The WEEI blog is running little features on various players that the Sox may be looking at. There is a ton of good stuff within each piece. If you are interested in the draft, I recommend checking these out.

Matt Smoral - LHP "Smoral’s injury will hold him out until after the new signing deadline of July 13, which makes him a mildly risky pick in the first round. But based upon his projected talent, Smoral may be worth the risk."

Tanner Rahier - SS "While Rahier will likely be more of a gap hitter than a home run hitter, his good bat speed gives him decent pull power, which has led some reports to project him as a player capable of around 20 home runs per year."

Zach Eflin - RHP "With Eflin’s tools on the mound comes an intriguing background story, as Eflin grew up using baseball as an escape from his home life with his alcoholic mother. He made it his goal to get a scholarship to play baseball in college. He’s secured that scholarship, but pro baseball may beckon given the likelihood that he is taken in the first day of the draft on Monday."

Marcus Strohman - RHP "After being named All-ACC on May 21, Stroman earned second-team All-America honors Thursday, after leading the nation in strikeouts with 136."

Corey Seager - 3B "Corey is the younger brother of Kyle Seager, who currently plays third base for the Seattle Mariners. However, Corey is already taller than his older brother, as he stands at 6-foot-4 compared to his brother’s height of an even six feet."

Marrero?

Missed Stroman by 2.

Not happy with Marrero. Scouts must love him, cause the stats sure haven't. My how we've come a long way.

Let's hope the next one is better.

And they draft a college lefty with a 7 K/9. Yes, yes, he was a two-way player, and they generally get better. But he needs to get significantly better.

Maybe they're saving up. Hopefully they're saving up.

You don't need to take a guy who totally sucks to save money.

Yuck.

MLB.com video scouting reports: Deven Marrero, Brian Johnson

Marrero's draft ranking was pretty consistently in the teens. A guy with his glove and reasonable hitting tools isn't falling to #24 unless he does something wrong at some point. I dunno. I'm not really up for knocking the pick when I haven't even seen him play.

Though I do feel more okay about knocking a guy with a terrible college K rate and a fastball rated "fringe-average."

Pat Light.

Light looks like he has a little bit of upside, but he's clearly an overdraft (81st on the BA board, 53rd on Law's). That's another money-saving choice.

These overage penalties are kind of absurd. I wonder if the Sox are saving money hoping that other teams pass on top players, thinking they'll be able to get them cheaper later, i.e. this looks more like an auction draft than a snake draft.

Anthopoulos is stealing the Sox' lunch money in this draft.

Boy I hope I'm wrong and I'm certainly no expert, but on the surface this draft looks disastrously awful for the Red Sox.

Per BA, top guys left on the board are Anthony Alford (huge tools HS OF with college football commitment), Ty Buttrey (big high school righty), and Tanner Rahier (plus power HS shortstop, projects to 3B).

Law would add Hunter Virant (projectible HS lefty) and Carson Kelly (two-way high schooler with more upside as a power-hitting 3B).

I'm not despondent about the 31/37 picks, but the Sox need to be using those cheap college signs to add more talent from the later rounds. Hope tomorrow morning justifies my hope.

I guess if the Sox take a tough sign or two we'll know they've saved some money. How much could they have saved? Here are the slots for the picks used:

24 $1,750,000
31 $1,575,000
37 $1,394,300

Low ceiling or not I think Merrero will take all of his slot. He was rumored to go as high as #8 and a couple other spots in the teens and had good pre-season rankings as MCoA has noted. I don't see savings there.

The other two slots could potentially yield a lot. With all the talk of MLB saving money with restrictive pools, it has been glossed over that the individual slots were raised across the board. Slots in the 30s were always high relative to say slots in the teens (the expected return drops off a cliff, but the bonus slot declined more gradually). In a weak year those goosed up slots in the 30s look really out of whack. In fact, one of the people I read recently (Goldstein maybe) had heard teams complaining the players likely to be picked in these spots were not worth the new higher slots. Sox drafted like they were one of them I guess.

I could say getting Johnson and Light to sign closer to the old slots of ~1M. That could net them in the ballpark of an extra 750k. The 5% non-penalty overage could net them another ~350k if I recall. It's not hard to see where the Sox could have an extra 1M to play with on day 2. That would make things more interesting than day 1 from an upside perspective.

Thinking about the draft I still like the Marrero pick. Like I said in the draft thread last night I have a bias in favor of guys who start a year highly touted then have off years, it feels like a "buy low" scenario. The other two picks disappoint me not because I know a damned thing about anyone in the draft but because neither pick seems like a roll the dice and hope for a big payoff pick.

This gets back to what I was saying in #4 and #8. We may find that the Sox wound up with a good draft because they were able to sign more picks than most teams because of this approach. Alternatively the decision to go with what appear to be low upside guys may bite them.

So according to Extra Bases the scouting director Amiel Sawdaye said they liked Johnson and Light because they are big. Would've been interesting if Stroman had fallen to 24 what they would have done with that in mind.

Keith Law agrees with Jose:

Both the Red Sox and Rays (below) landed solid college position players who had no business dropping that far in the draft. Marrero hit for two springs and two summers at ASU before running into mechanical issues with his swing this year, but never lost his defensive ability and should be able to regain what he lost at the plate.

Alex Speier in depth on Devin Marrero.

In 1994, the Red Sox selected Nomar Garciaparra out of Georgia Tech with the No. 12 overall pick of the first round. The next 17 drafts yielded just six college players who were drafted as shortstops and then reached the majors at that position (rather than either adopting a utility role or moving to another position) for a stay of at least 50 games.

Jamie Callahan, 17-year-old HS RHP. Certainly got the upside, and he seems like a guy who will require the full slot bonus to forego college, but not a guy worth bidding way over slot for.

Another Florida pitcher, RHP Austin Maddox is round three's selection.

College closer. I remain not terribly whelmed.

I like the Callahan pick. 17 years old throwing 93-94 already sounds like there is upside if they can get him signed.

The other picks are as you say, not so exciting.

And I feel compelled to point out I had heard of roughly none of these guys as of Sunday morning.

The Sox have liked drafting college closers - Papelbon turned out well, Wilson and Weiland turned into guys with non-zero value. Masterson was a starter in college, but projected as a closer on draft day.

And they drafted Hanson and Cox as well (though without the success).

13 players in Baseball America's top 100 are still on the board probably for signability issues in most cases; 8 high schoolers, 3 JuCo kids and 2 4 year kids.

Oh, make that 12 as the Sox take the highest rated player on BA's board. Ty Buttrey, a High School RHP from Charlotte, NC. He is the #38 player on BA's draft board and #35 on MLB's.

Ty Buttrey falls to the Sox in Round 4. BA ranked him #38 overall. Tall frame, a bit wild, but can throw in the mid 90s.

There's the big upside pick I hoped the money was saved for. Sweet.

Just to catch up;

Marrero - drafted 24, ranked 14 by Baseball America

Johnson - drafted 31, ranked 39

Light - drafted 37, ranked 81

Callahan - drafted 87, ranked 144

Maddox - drafted 118, ranked 119

Buttrey - drafted 151, ranked 38

Or in another way the Sox had

Pick 24 - Got 14
Pick 31 - got 38
Pick 37 - Got 39
Pick 87 - got 81
Pick 118 - got 119
Pick 151 - Got 144

They've gotten consistency relative to the BA rankings though they've taken a bit of a circuitous route to get there.

Keith Law had Marrero at #13, Johnson #28, Buttrey #34, Light #55, and Callahan and Maddox off his top 100.

And the Sox save money in round five with Mike Augliera of Binghamton University. I can't find him in BA's top 500 list.

College senior. Slot for the late fifth round is $200k, I'm guessing this is a guy they want for $10k or something.

They really didn't think the incentives of this system through when they created it.

I think the goal was to place a hard cap on bonuses and salaries for amateur players, in order to limit expenditures and make owning a baseball team even more ridiculously profitable. So long as the incentives don't produce publicly embarrassing results, I don't think they really care.

Unranked college junior in the 6th round, unranked college senior in the 7th. Clearly the Sox are using these rounds to save money for bonuses for other guys.

Whatever you want to say about the particular players chosen in the Sox draft, they clearly had a plan for how to spend their money under the new rules.

Unranked college junior in the 6th round

If they offer 10K and he goes back to school the team loses the whole slot number from its pool right? So the player does have some leverage.

Edit: Well, juniors do.

Unranked college junior in the 6th round, unranked college senior in the 7th. Clearly the Sox are using these rounds to save money for bonuses for other guys.

What are the slot values for these guys, though? Seems like the savings would be almost negligible at this point...

The Red Sox are allotted about $900k for the 5th-10th rounds. So if they can sign six guys for, say, $25k apiece, they'd save $750k for bonuses elsewhere.

And an unranked college senior in the 8th.

(They have names, you monster! They're people, just like you!)

Ok, Mike Augliera (5th), Justin Haley (6th), Kyle Kraus (7th), and Nathan Minnich (8th). Is that moustache on Minnich ironic?

Is that moustache on Minnich ironic?

I hope he keeps it all the way to the majors. Baseball needs more mustachioed players.

The Sox actually drafted a fifth-year senior in the 9th round (SS Mike Miller), then another senior in the 10th (C JT Watkins).

I'm hoping they've saved enough to add one more signability pick in the later rounds.

If they offer 10K and he goes back to school the team loses the whole slot number from its pool right? So the player does have some leverage.

Edit: Well, juniors do.

And apparently Haley, the only college junior the Sox drafted after the 4th round, has agreed to a slot deal.

10th round pick is high school OF Jamal Martin. Looking at the video, he is only 5'8" by a very generous accounting.

The Sox actually drafted a fifth-year senior in the 9th round (SS Mike Miller), then another senior in the 10th (C JT Watkins).

And Watkins, being at Army, has a two year military commitment, meaning he'll be 2-3 months short of his 25th birthday (born 8/30/89) by the time he could start his minor league career. I have no idea how that would work. Do they sign him now and wait two years? There's also this:

...father, Danny, holds scouting position within Boston Red Sox organization...

These are mostly college seniors with zero leverage that would've normally gone in like the 24th round or something. The Sox can pretty much say "Here's 20k, take it or go work for living," right?

Okay so you take these guys early and then the signability guy late. That means that if you lose the signability guy, you don't lose a big part of your budget because his slot value is so low, which means he doesn't have as much leverage as if he had a high slot. Is that pretty much the idea? And is that really better than just drafting good players from top to bottom?

That means that if you lose the signability guy, you don't lose a big part of your budget because his slot value is so low, which means he doesn't have as much leverage as if he had a high slot. Is that pretty much the idea?

Not quite. A team's budget is determined by the sum of the slot money for their 1st-10th round picks. After the 10th round, any salary up to $100k is fine, and any salary over $100k comes out of your budget for the 1st-10th rounds. So it's effectively zero downside to drafting a signability guy after the 10th round. For the full details, see the Alex Speier article linked in the original post.

And is that really better than just drafting good players from top to bottom?

Well, you can't draft the best player available every time because you would totally blow your draft budget. Further, the typical value of a 7th round pick at slot money is very close to zero - 7th rounders aren't good players. Leveraging those picks to get another supplemental round talent is a good trade, in general.

I'm curious to see who these expensive players are going to be...

I'm curious to see who these expensive players are going to be...

It sounds like many of the college seniors are signing for around $5k...

I'm curious to see who these expensive players are going to be...

Maybe I don't understand... the over-slot players are Ty Buttrey (4th round, projected supplemental) and Carson Fulmer (15th round, projected 2nd-3rd). Marrero, projected to the middle of the first round, may also require a bit of extra cash. The Sox have reportedly already signed their 5th and 7th-10th round draft picks (all college seniors), to undisclosed but surely nominal bonuses. I think the math works out.

Sox have signed 3rd rounder Pat Light for $1MM (~$400k below slot) and 2nd rounder Jamie Callahan for an as yet undisclosed bonus.

Speier tweets that the Sox announce signings of Ty Buttrey and ten others, with Buttrey getting the money redistributed from Light and the college seniors. Callahan is reportedly signing for slot money.

Deven Marrero signs for $2,050,000. According to Baseball America this leaves the Sox $331,700 over their slot for the first ten rounds though they are believed to have saved "a third of that" with tenth round pick JT Watkins. Florida pitchers Brian Johnson (1st round) and Austin Maddox (3rd) can't be signed until the CWS is over so potential impact (good and bad) exists there.

That BA database is really annoying - they have a total of above/below slot money remaining, but they don't say who's been signed for how much. (Is that data available to subscribers only?)

Trying to reverse engineer it, we definitely know that Buttrey signed for about $1M over slot, and we know that Light signed for about $400k under, and Marrero $300k over. Callahan signed just above slot. That leaves $600k of savings to still be accounted for. If Watkins' bonus isn't in the database yet, the Sox must have saved ~$600k on the bonuses for their 4th-9th round selections. The bonus pool for the 4th-9th round totaled $790k, and junior Justin Haley probably signed for close to slot money ($160k), so the Sox must have gotten their college senior picks to sign for about $5k apiece.

The Sox now need to sign Johnson and Maddox to slightly below slot combined, but I have to assume they wouldn't have announced these signings if they didn't already have agreements to get that done.

The only question remaining is if they can get Johnson and Maddox to sign for super-cheap to free up money for 15th rounder Carson Fulmer. Fulmer was projected as a 2nd-3rd round talent, so the Sox would probably need to save another $500k to have a shot with him. That would require signing Johnson and Maddox to a combined $1M, about half their expected bonus total. That seems like a pipe dream. So we're not getting Fulmer.

Dammit... I did it wrong, then in trying to fix the post I outlasted my editing time.

IGNORE post #64, it sucks and is ugly. Trying again, sorry for the double post:

------------

Trying to reverse engineer it, we definitely know that Buttrey signed for about $1M over slot, and we know that Light signed for about $400k under, and Marrero $300k over. Callahan signed just above slot. That leaves $600k of savings to still be accounted for.

(2050-1750) + (1000-1400) + (300-1300) + (600-570) = 930
(930-330) = 600

If Watkins' bonus isn't in the database yet, the Sox must have saved ~$600k on the bonuses for their 4th-9th round selections. The bonus pool for the 4th-9th round totaled $790k, and junior Justin Haley probably signed for close to slot money ($160k), so the Sox must have gotten their college senior picks to sign for about $5k apiece.

(785-160) - 600 = 25
(25/5) = 5

The Sox are allowed to outspend slot up to 5% of their total budget ($344k) without taking any penalty besides the paying of a tax to MLB. That means that even though the Sox are currently over-slot by $330k, they're not actually over their real budget. Assuming Watkins signs for basically nothing before joining the army, the Sox have about $130k of wiggle room in their budget to be sure they can sign the Florida pitchers.

The only question remaining is if they can get Johnson and Maddox to sign for cheap enough to free up money for 15th rounder Carson Fulmer. Fulmer was projected as a 2nd-3rd round talent, so the Sox would probably need to save another $500k to have a shot with him. That would require signing Johnson and Maddox to a combined $1.6M. That seems doable, but we'll have to see.

(344-332) + (125-5) = 132 ~= 130
(1600+400) - 500 + 130 = 1630 ~= 1600