metafour

Orelvis Martinez just homered again. #10 on the season.

I doubt it. Those late round picks look entirely like courtesy picks. No different from the Rangers drafting Will Taylor. They likely saved money on their 1st rounder (Jackson Merrill) but they immediately went with James Wood with their next pick - who I believe was flaunting a first round price tag and shouldn't be a slot signing in the 2nd round. I don't think the couple SR's they took afterwards should present enough to get either of those two big HS pitchers signed. If they had that sort of money saved up, they wouldn't have waited till the 18th and 20th rounds to make those picks.

I can't imagine we have the money saved up anywhere to sign him, so this looks more like a token pick or perhaps an insurance policy of some sort? But if we DID somehow pull this off and squeeze this kid in somehow along with everyone else, then it would be a pretty massive signing.

Also: LMAO @ the Orioles. They reach and take Colton Cowser 5th overall. Underslot pick to go big later, right? Nope. They proceed to draft almost exclusively college players, with a ton of senior picks. The draft just concluded for them and they didn't land a single obvious/noteworthy above-slot pick. Even us, with no 2nd round pick and one of the smallest pools in the draft, managed to land Irv Carter as an obvious above-slot upside pick.

The Angels just finished their draft: 20 pitchers selected, 0 position players.

This is actually kinda scary.... Blue Jays draft picks: #19 Gunnar Hoglund Kiley McDaniel Ranking: #20 #91 Ricky Tiedemann Kiley McDaniel Ranking: #90 #121 Chad Dallas Kiley McDaniel Ranking: #122 #152 Irv Carter Kiley McDaniel Ranking: #120

Not just Solometo and Chandler, but also Lonnie White who has late 1st round talent. This is a freakishly good draft. Cherington/Sanders are nailing it.

Yup. Steve Sanders is awesome. Their draft is great.

Canadian HS RHP Calvin Ziegler from Kitchener went #46 to the Mets.

Yup. Savings from Davis go right there. I like Davis and Solometo, good use of money from Sanders/Cherington which isn't surprising at all.

Manuel Beltre just homered!

It's quite silly to suggest that a kid who's peak so far was pitching 33 innings in Low-A has "elite command". Pardinho certainly looked good from that standpoint prior to his injury, but Rusty is right: the stuff itself wasn't incredibly impressive, and something like "elite command" is only attributable at the MLB level. I'm interested to see what the reports are post-TJ.

Joe Mack went about where his range suggested - he was a late 1st round pick in most rankings. He didn't really fall or anything.

You're missing the point - there aren't even 29 consensus first round talents in this draft. Unless you're sitting there with someone who LEGITIMATELY fell to #19, this scouting department is strong enough to find a player they like at #19 who also saves money. Kind of like when they "reached" and took Groshans while saving money, who in fact wasn't even a reach at all. They obviously have a wide net of players they like, which means that they can shop them against each other and see who offers the most bang for their buck. Someone like Jay Allen may go at the very end of the 1st round if he doesn't go at #19 (or he may go the very next pick) so there is incentive for some of these kids to cut an under slot deal. Note that by "under-slot" I don't mean that they're going to take a 2nd round talent or someone completely off the board at #19.

Players fall for signability in literally every round of the draft - saving just $~$350K gets us to right at around $1 million for the 3rd round pick, which is the slot value at the end of the 2nd round. That's enough to entice a legitimate HS pick to sign in the 3rd, not even taking into account further signing-bonus manipulation (ie: maybe they plan on punting in the 9th/10th rounds? Maybe they can save even more than $350K at #19?).

Really? I don't think it's weird at all and in fact it makes perfect sense to me. Going under-slot would mean being able to "buy" a bigger talent elsewhere (most likely immediately in the 3rd round) which would help offset the lack of a 2nd round pick. It makes sense to go under-slot at #19 in this particular draft because we're already picking in the range where consensus is non-existent, with lots of players in that range being similarly skilled depending on who you ask and what the preference is.

New mock draft from Fangraphs. College players appear to be the hot late trendy connection with the Jays. As well as further indication that they prefer to save money at #19 if possible. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mock-draft-3-0-the-morning-of/

But in this case Allen would be playing baseball full-time. He's only a "multi-sport athlete" now - when/if he's drafted in the first round and signs, he's going to be a baseball player. Alford's situation was very unique/peculiar in that we paid him to barely play baseball up until he finally gave up football.

Can you post the writeup?

Kiley McDaniel mock draft 3.0 - with some rumored players after the 1st round as well. https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/31782968/2021-mlb-mock-draft-30-kiley-mcdaniel-predicts-first-two-rounds Thatcher Hurd is a HS RHP (#68 overall on Kiley's ranking), Hunter Parks is a JUCO RHP.

Kiley McDaniel just updated his Top 200 rankings and he has an interesting name all the way up at #16: https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/31770656/kiley-mcdaniel-final-2021-mlb-draft-rankings-top-200-prospects And a few potential Jays targets:

Because that's how these woke-pariahs operate. Crappy "lawyer" (who apparently barely understands the legal system) turned s***** sports writer (how? why?) who's only quality is to turn to his/her victim-group status as a means of currency. You see, him/her is always right and shouldn't be questioned because him/her is trans, don't you understand that? And if you disagree with his/her idiotic takes, its obviously because you're a tRaNSpHoBe. Sherly Ring isn't qualified to report on his/her local junior-college baseball team, let alone the MLB. But of course, everyone has to go along and pretend to give a s*** what this emotionally unstable and deranged individual has to say.

New Fangraphs mock draft: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mock-draft-2-0-3/

Callis and Mayo over at MLB.com have been pumping Solometo to the Jays in their last few mocks and the recent Prospects Live mock also mentioned it as a very strong (and growing) connection. It definitely seems to have wheels at this point, but of course, at #19 they can go in so many directions depending on what happens in front of them that even a "strong connection" can be nullified in an instant. One of the comments I remember seeing from Callis was that scouts were struggling to find 29 "first round talents" this year, and we kind of pick in the range where things get extremely jumbled. For example, MLB.com has Solometo 17th - whereas BA has him 28th. Most of the players in that range past even 12-15 seem to be highly variable depending on who you're asking and what their preference is. There may be some decent depth, but there definitely doesn't seem to be a set order in terms of the first 19 picks - which means that it makes sense to try to save some money while also taking a high-upside player you like. I'm not sure if Solometo would save any money like Mason McRae suggests, but that does seem to make sense for someone like him considering the expected randomness after our pick wherein the next team up for him might be the Padres who are also apparently high on him, but pick 27th. They've used this strategy before with the Groshans pick. If you feel really strongly about a HS kid who also saves you money, then it's a major win-win if you actually hit on that pick, especially with no 2nd round pick for us.