The 3rd day of the draft is where things get truly crazy. There is no time per pick, it is just a conference call with a constant stream of names and draft Ids. Each team will take 30 baseball players today and will probably only take about 6 hours. At some point the draft tracker will die and we will all be clinging to the conference call feed trying to catch just hints of a name.
The Phillies come into today with an unknown amount of money saved. I think a couple of their picks will be a little overslot, but we also know they ended with two seniors so they should have saved some money. They also have just over $400,000 they can use with a 100% tax on it (teams can go over pool by 5% with a 100% tax on the overages). All picks today have a “slot” of $125,000. You don’t save money for going under, but any money over goes against your pool.
Based on the past I suspect the day to go something like this:
Rounds 11-14: High school overslot player, and then priority college and high school picks they want to give $125,000 to.
Examples: Josh Stephen, Justin Miller, Darick Hall, Skyler Hunter, Edgar Cabral, Zach Coppola
Rounds 15-30: Populate the Williamsport roster. This sounds like a bigger waste than it will be. The main needs for both the Crosscutters and the GCL team is pitchers, particularly relievers. Expect a lot of college two pitch starters who are going to immediately move to the bullpen. You aren’t expecting to hit on all of them, but if you can find 1-2 guys who can be middle relievers you are doing great. They also probably take a 5th OF, a veteran catcher, and probably a utility infielder. They also will probably take 2-3 difficult but not unsignable high school players in this group.
Example: Will Hibbs, Austin Bossart, Jake Kelzer, Trevor Bettencourt, Kyle Young, Will Stewart
Round 31-40: This is where you grab maybe 1-3 more org guys and then you start taking all of the HS guys and college juniors that are near impossible signs. Last year the Phillies didn’t sign anyone out of this range (the money went to Josh Stephen and Kyle Young), the year before they signed HS LHP Nick Fanti and Canadian HS OF Ben Pelletier.
It is going to be a crazy day. I won’t have a post per pick, but expect coverage all day.