The MLB draft is extremely hard to judge in the immediate aftermath. Some of the college players we may know about their careers in a couple of years, but as we saw with Mitch Walding recently, it can take 7 years before we actually know what the Phillies have in some of their draft picks. Even if we just want to judge on talent acquired vs talent expected to acquire we have a couple of large obstacles. The first is we are at a huge information deficit when compared to the teams. The second is that we don’t know at this point who they will actually be able to sign. With both of those in mind, here are some thoughts coming out of 3 days of drafts.
Not a Lost Of Wasted Picks
Standard draft strategy is to take some players late who are near impossible to sign just in case something falls through. This year the Phillies took only 1 sure to go to school signing in 39th round pick HSer Mat Nelson. Nelson is the catcher on the team that was coached by Roy Halladay, he is going to go to Florida State, but the gesture is nice. There are some tough signs in the group ().
2 GCL Teams Is a Lot to Fill
The Phillies added another GCL team this year, which means with Williamsport they probably need 90 healthy players for those teams. Right now they have a touch over 70 in the complex, but some of those players are hurt or will be cut. This means the Phillies both had to fill bullpens and benches at those levels, but also they had more room to work with in potentially adding more developmental arms and players. Something that gets lost at times in the draft is just how many roster spots there are vs amount of playing time. In the GCL with teenagers it can be easier to balance some of the playing time, but inevitably there is a guy on the bench or a couple of guys in the bullpen who are on the team to be role models and be there in case things go to hell in a game. The Phillies filled a lot of these teams with their crazy amount of Latin American signings, but the lack of wasted picks points to a org trying to fill every bit of roster spot.
HS Pitching Plays to Org Strengths
The Phillies have not been great at player development over the past decade. However, if you were to point to one thing the organization has been really good at, it is low minors pitching development. Starting with guys like Franklyn Kilome, Edubray Ramos, and Ricardo Pinto the Phillies have had a lot success with low money Latin American pitchers. Recently on the Latin American side the Phillies have started spending more, turning guys like Francisco Morales over to their player dev people to turn into impact players. The Phillies have only slightly done that with drafted players, with Kevin Gowdy (2nd rd 2016) being the only high round player they have done it with so far, instead adding a couple players like Kyle Young, Bailey Falter, and Ethan Lindow per year. This draft the Phillies went with a many pronged approach. They got the high round talent in Dominic Pipkin in the 9th round. They took some just big tall projectable arms in Gabriel Cotto (7), Daniel Carpenter (15), and Jake Smith (21). They also took some shorter athletic arms in Jonathan Jones (28) and Jaylen Smith (29), while rounding out with a more traditional high school arm in Brandon Ramey (30). They may not sign them all, but 7 high school arms in the system would be an interesting test for a staff that has had great results so far.
Intriguing Day 3 Picks
- Waylon Richardson (40) – Ricahrdson missed all of the 2018 season after Tommy John surgery, but in 2017 he pitched 30 innings while allowing only 1 earned run. He doesn’t sound like an easy sign, but going for a flier in round 40 is always good.
- Corbin Williams (24) – Sounds like there is no impact in the bat, but elite speed and good defense in an athletic frame is interesting. Likely ends up as a similar player to Zach Coppola, but you never know.
- Matt Kroon (18) – You know you like a guy when you take him in back to back years. As a junior, Kroon likely isn’t going to get more than $125k as a senior next year. He has legitimate major league tools as a bench player.
- Ryan Rijo (37) – Rijo’s whole team put up video game numbers and his were even more absurd. He is a massive human being probably destined for DH.
- Jaylen Smith (29) – Smith stands out among the HS pitchers taken by the Phillies both because he is left handed and 5’11”. The Phillies have had success with short left handers (see JoJo Romero and Ranger Suarez) so it will be interesting to see if they can get Smith signed.
Tough Signs
Caveat that I don’t know player demands, but these are the guys who have a chance to cost too much for the Phillies to entice them to go pro.
- Jake Smith (21) – Big tall lanky righty is all projection now, and with a 4 year college commitment to get bigger and stronger, I could see taking more than $125k for Smith to go pro.
- Jake Kinney (33) – Big tall righty reliever with some arm strength, but a commitment to transfer to Florida State.
- Logan O’Hoppe (23) – New York HS catcher has a strong commitment to ECU that has family connections. He is apparently know for his strong defense, but also had a good offensive season.
- Brandon Ramey (30) – Ramey doesn’t have the stuff or projection to get a big bonus now, and maybe not enough to get a big bonus later, but it still will probably take a bit to have him not go to school.
- Mat Nelson (39) – This was mostly a symbolic pick, but Nelson is going to Florida State and has already announced as such.
- Jonathan Jones (28)/Jaylen Smith (29) – It doesn’t look like their commitments are as tight as some of the others, but there may be some two sport angles, and no HSer is a safe sign.
There is a chance that a few others have high demands, but the Phillies didn’t take anyone outside of Nelson with high demands.
Thoughts
I like the Phillies draft overall. They didn’t have two high picks, and once Bohm and Madrigal were there for them they weren’t going to be cutting any massively discounted deals. In Bohm they got what should be the draft’s best offensive player, and it does seem like they may have saved a little bit of money. They went a bit riskier than they have and they went off the board a lot, getting guys who look like they should sign and have some positive attributes to contribute. I like the Pipkin pick a lot, he is the highest upside high school arm they have added to the system since Kevin Gowdy, and before that you need to go back to Shane Watson and Mitch Gueller. I don’t know if bets like him and Simmons will pay off, but the upside isn’t just fringe major leaguer if they do, it is potentially an impact player. It will be interesting to see if they can up near the 30+ signing mark out of this class, or if some of the high school guys ended up being far reaches.