Phillies 2018 Draft Day 2 Recap

For all pick analysis, visit the draft tracker which links to instant reactions for all picks.

Day 2 of the draft is always a bit crazy, the order of players coming off the board doesn’t make a ton of sense at times, but the players are good. It is really the meat of the draft before everything goes like a runaway train on Day 3. The Phillies draft was always going to be defined by Alec Bohm at #3 and probably not a ton of else. A lack of second and third round pick took away both two opportunities at upside talent, but also the bonus pool money to get creative. With Johnny Almaraz indicating the Phillies like the college pitcher depth in the draft, it looked like the Phillies were going to have a straight forward and fairly boring Day 2 getting value, but not a lot of excitement.

Round 4 did nothing to deter that line of thought. Colton Eastman is a very Almaraz style college pitcher. Eastman was rated by most as a 3rd to 4th round pick, he is a fairly polished back end starter with good secondary pitches and control. I don’t think it is the Phillies like Cal State Fullerton more that Cal State Fullerton makes pitchers the Phillies like. Either way, fast moving back end starting pitcher in the 4th round is a fine pick. The Phillies then went with a two way guy who will only go one way in Matt Vierling. He hit this year, but not spectacularly well. He has some tools, but none are plus. His complete face planting while hitting with a wood bat brings back some David Martinelli flashbacks. I hope I am wrong, but I am not optimistic, he is 93 off the mound though.

Though it was out of the stated plan the 6th round pick for Logan Simmons made sense. You take the probably slightly overslot high school guy before the slots get too low to make it work. Simmons is an old school style Phillies pick, big power and a big arm, and a lot of swing and miss. If he can hit he is a top 3 round talent, and while unlikely it is not a sure thing he moves off of shortstop. It is a fine risk to take in a draft starved for upside.

Then it got weird. It wasn’t Jhordany Mezquita weird, but taking a projection Puerto Rican lefty that stumps the broadcast is not “we like the college pitching depth”. Gabriel Cotto fits in the Simmons mode of this draft with some of the Mezquita creativity. This pick was all upside as Cotto is not much now. He is a huge projectable lefty who throws in the upper 80s with offspeed pitches that are present, but not notable. I suspect this deal will be underslot some and the Phillies will turn Cotto over to the pitcher factory that brought you such hits as Adonis Medina, Sixto Sanchez, Franklyn Kilome, Kyle Young, and more. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, but I suspect it is underslot as well.

The 8th and 10th round picks are college infielders who are senior signs. Lancaster has legitimate power and I could see doing some 3B with SS and 2B time at short season. Maybe he is some sort of bench player if it all breaks right. Stokes had three disappointing years before having a good senior year. He probably is a org utility infielder.

It seemed like the Phillies were gearing up for a big signing in the 11th round which is the custom (more on that later), but then the 9th round happened. Dominic Pipkin has seen his stock fall since the summer when he was throwing in the mid 90s in showcases, but he is still an 18 year old super projectable and athletic right handed pitcher with some feel for a good breaking ball. Given that the Phillies took him in the 9th round, they believe they can sign him. It isn’t quite making up for a missing 2nd round pick, but it is a good bit of the way there.

All in all it was a very good day for the Phillies given their circumstances. They probably saved some money on Bohm, but less than the teams behind them that reached for high school arms, and without the extra picks their options were limited. It was a higher risk draft than the Phillies have had recently, but there is a good amount of upside here too.

As for Day 3, the Phillies will make 30 picks, I expect a lot of them to college arms as they look for pop up relievers and just try to get Williamsport a pitching staff. They have found some interesting finds in the last two years so keep your eyes open. As for draft bonuses, everything after the 11th round (including undrafted FAs) has a slot of $125,000 of which none will count against your pool, anything over that counts against the pool. This means the Phillies first off should be giving $125k bonuses to entice juniors and low level high school guys to sign. It also means that normally round 11 is where the Phillies go with a $500k+ guy because the first $125k is free. It is unknown how much money they have saved up, but we should know fairly quickly. I expect a couple of high schoolers in the 20-30 range that could reasonably sign for under $250k, maybe 1-2 who will take the $125k. Then in the 31-40 range I expect some high schoolers who won’t sign but could be backups in case Pipkin changes his mind. Anyway listen to the stream if you can tomorrow it is a riot to follow along to the never ending stream of names and don’t get too worked up over individual picks.

Oh and unrelated to the draft, the Phillies reportedly signed a 6’8″ 17 year old French RHP

Nous sommes très fiers de vous annoncer la signature de Yoan Antonac avec l'équipe de @MLB des Philadelphia @Phillies ! Une occasion de plus de faire briller la région @Occitanie outre Atlantique. #Baseball @CaroleDelga @kamelchibli @OccitanieBSC @FFBS_BASEBALL pic.twitter.com/ijuNc2Yx3T

— Barracudasmontpellier (@MUCBarracudas) June 5, 2018