metafour

So it appears that Hagen Danner has converted to pitching:

While Nick Gonzales shouldn't be written off by any means, there are a few things that need to be clarified: 1) His lofty collegiate stats are largely seen as completely irrelevant in any scouting sense. He plays in a comical hitters' environment in a non-elite conference. The Cape-Cod performance proves that he can indeed hit at a potentially elite level, but no one really cares that he hit .450 or whatever HR pace he was on during normal collegiate play. 2) He is only potentially in play at #2 on an under-slot sense. This does not mean that anyone actually considers him to be the 2nd best player in the draft. 3) There needs to be some clarification on the comparison to Hiura: while Gonzalez is expected to be selected higher than where Hiura went, he is actually projected to be a lesser version of Hiura due to the fact that he isn't believed to have the power upside of Hiura. Remember that Hiura's draft stock was largely affected by the fact that he was DH'ing and recovering from TJ surgery in his draft year. He wasn't playing defense at all. I think that Gonzales is generally more athletic and thus has higher defensive upside than Hiura, but he is NOT seen as a "superior" version of Hiura. Both guys are bat-first players, and in this sense Gonzales is expected to be a lesser version of Hiura. Keep in mind that New Mexico State played a 3-game series against Texas A&M in Texas - and apart from Asa Lacy completely dominating him in this matchup (one scout said that Lacy made him look like a little kid) he was largely invisible in the series overall. He also went hitless in a game against Arizona State. These are obviously small samples, but its an important analysis to consider any time you see a player who is putting up video-game numbers against garbage competition. Nick Gonzales' upside will ultimately depend on how much power he ends up hitting for, which I'm sure will be the biggest point of contention in draft rooms. It is possible that his elite bat-to-ball skills translate to more power than people expect; if this is the case then he would be a very good selection at #5. However, if he only hits for average power...I'm just just not sold on that package out of an average second baseman, regardless of his hit tool.

Would you rather Kinsler or Christian Yelich?

Gonzales. I feel like they probably like Veen's swing a LOT.

I haven't seen any concrete proof, but I've read some people claim that he has average exit velocity readings. Take that how you will, but the Jays are one of the biggest "exit velocity" teams, and they also employ analytical draft models.

What risk tolerance? They actually didn't really show any discernible "trend" under Sanders and most of these draft sites have alluded to that. A guy like Manoah wasn't a "risk tolerant" pick: he was a pop-up guy without a long track record who also carried question marks because he threw almost exclusively fastball/slider in college and therefore there was projection on whether or not he even had a third pitch to remain a starter. The fact that he was a college pick doesn't inherently mean that this was a "low risk" selection. The year prior to that was the Groshans year - and the takeaway there isn't that they took a HS player, its that once you account how much money they paid to sign Kloffenstein, they actually spent something like 75%+ of their total budget in that draft on two HS players, one being a HS RHP ("the most risky demographic in the draft"). Even in this draft you are starting to see suggestion that they might prefer Meyer to Hancock: do you believe that its "risk tolerant" to select a 6-foot tall pitcher at #5 overall? Especially over a 6'4/6'5 guy like Hancock who has the "prototypical" traits? Even still, Veen isn't an inherently "risky" player as he is a bat-first player who has a track record of showing that he can in fact hit, and recognize pitches. Is he really that much more "risky" than Gonzales - a guy who profiles as an okay 2B defensively without elite projected power (on top of being a mid-major player coming from a hyper inflated hitting environment)? Gonzales' profile isn't model-friendly at all for the range where he was hyped to be selected in, hence why you're seeing talk of him kinda falling a bit. Risk isn't just relegated to College vs. High School.

BA just dropped a new mock. Anyone got the scoop?

Nah bro; the #5 overall pick is CURSED. We're f***ed.

This. He has arguably the best plate discipline in the HS class, has performed, and the swing is pretty flawless. There is no reason to expect he wouldn't follow a Bichette-like path to the majors - he isn't a "project" in any sense. The upside of plus contact, power, and plate discipline from a 6'4/6'5 frame that isn't even maxed out yet is what makes him a realistic option over the college pitchers. I don't think it really matters whether he can stick in CF because the bat and arm play at RF.

I don't think its "suspicious": because he's from Florida he was actually able to play in spring games and was dominant, which is when he started rising. It only looks like he started rising after all games had stopped because the media industry that reports on this stuff is naturally always behind what is actually happening in front offices, so there is a lag in reporting when a player's perceived stock rises or falls.

Is this guy above me okay? Do we need to call someone?

Having a high pick stops making any difference after probably the 3rd round. Even by the 5th round every team's board is going to look completely different; it makes no difference whether you pick 5th or 25th.

Okay, aaaand? If the teams themselves don't view it that way, then whats the value in how BA sees it? If Veen goes before Hancock/Gonzalez, then that doesn't really mean we got to pick between two "Top 5" players.

That viewpoint has changed. There is now a clear Top 3 (Torkelson, Martin, Lacy) and Hancock/Gonzalez are kinda defacto 4/5 with varying opinions across the league which means that there are other guys (Veen, Meyer, etc) who could be argued to belong in that grouping as well.

The exact same infrastructure is in place as it was when Sanders was here. A pick that high is going to be heavily influenced by senior executives anyways - notably Tony LaCava who would have been preparing for this pick while Sanders was here, and with Farrell as well. Shane Farrell will not be left in a room by himself to make this pick, period.

How is no one talking about this lol? To put it more bluntly: Kiley has us taking Zac Veen at #5.

The "losing athletes to NBA and NFL" angle is overstated. All three sports require vastly different athletic skill-sets and physical attributes to make it at the pro level, and while there is SOME overlap of legitimate crossover athletes having to "choose" which sport they go to, this is hardly some new phenomenon - as the sports have "lost" talent amongst themselves since forever, and it isn't relegated to just baseball losing talent (Joe Mauer was supposedly not only the #1 QB recruit in the country, but arguably the top football recruit period in his Senior class). The vast majority of athletes within these sports cannot transfer their physical skills and achieve success at the top level of another sport - just think about the majority of basketball players who are simply too tall to do anything in baseball; or the 330+ pound guys in football who's entire skillset revolves around pushing another human being around, a talent which has zero transfer over to baseball. Now, there IS a specialized pool of athletes who have the physical tools to "make it" among the different sports, but even then the determining factor in baseball has NEVER been sheer athleticism, and the amount of guys who can actually hit the baseball or pitch the ball for strikes is extremely small. The reality is that baseball doesn't have a shortage of high-level athletes - every team has a dozen guys in the minor leagues who can run and jump at an elite level...and can't hit the ball. Absolutely, if you increase the size of that talent pool there will be more guys who make it, but the fact is that these sports are all so vastly different that there is no legitimate fear of losing THAT much "talent". The game might die due to fan interest declining; but that has more to do with problems within baseball itself - not because there is talent leaving baseball to other sports. There isn't a shortage of talent in baseball at all.

The draft is 20 rounds next year; but Callis just said he's speculating it to be less (based off no inside info).

Ewwwww.

No, Todd. Thats not what it means.

A HS bat is not in any shape or form a "lower risk" than a dominant SEC starter. Veen isn't even the consensus best hitter among his HS peers.

You guys are taking this to an extreme that doesn't really reflect reality. Yes, there is a higher usage of relievers which means less value in starters in general, however, that just means that there is even more emphasis placed on finding GOOD starters because no one has enough relievers on their team who can eat an entire season's worth of innings for a team year in and year out. The fact that there are so few starters who throw 200+ innings nowadays just means that there are less AVERAGE starters who are being left in for too long to "eat innings"; it doesn't say anything about the value of GOOD starting pitching which will always remain a premium. The Washington Nationals just won a World Series with Scherzer, Strasburg, and Corbin putting up 6.5, 5.7, and 4.8 WAR seasons playing against a team who's best starting pitcher signed for over $300 million as a free agent with the Yankees - so where exactly is this notion of starting pitching being "less valuable" playing out in reality? The drop in HS pitching going in the first round doesn't really say anything about the value of starting pitching in general, as HS pitchers (especially right handed HS pitchers) have ALWAYS tended to "fall" on draft day - that isn't a new trend, it is probably just emphasized nowadays by the fact that College players in general have gotten better (as you mentioned). Shifting to the discussion at hand; from a pure baseball standpoint I fail to see how a Type-1 Diabetic who has never hit for in-game power (Mitchell) is any less risky than a guy like Hancock who realistically was a 1-1 talent who might only be getting to us because the situation at hand meant that he had a few bad starts and then the season ended. The same can be said for Veen who obviously carries added risk due to being a HS player, regardless of how nice his swing is. In the case of Veen, there is also something to be said about the timeline of our team/needs when looking at a college pitchers vs. a HS position player. That fact would be negated if Veen was legitimately just a better prospect than someone like Hancock/Lacy, and if you feel that way its fine, but that isn't something that is considered to be dogma within the actual scouting community/front offices. Obviously there is also the hypothetical of getting Veen underslot or whatever, but that is a different discussion altogether. Either way I don't think we can really f*** this up no matter what which direction we go.

He left FG to join the Braves and then went back to FG. I didn't get any sense that he was "fired" by the Braves, but that move also wasn't that memorable for me so I could be wrong. He took Keith Law's position at ESPN when Law moved to The Athletic.

I don't see any of those "risks" as being legitimate with Lacy. He has proven to be right up there with Hancock. Its three plus pitches (overpowering stuff) from a LHP who has absolutely dominated the best conference in the country. He throws strikes and isn't wild by any means. We're kinda getting into nitpick territory when you start talking "reliever risk" or "pitchability concerns" when the actual data doesn't back that at all IMO.