Melewski's interviews with Rajsich and Duquette

[Hutman]

Looks like Steve's been busy. A few interesting nuggets here.

http://www.masnsports.com/steve_melewski/2012/05/gary-rajsich-set-for-his-first-os-draft-as-scouting-director.html

http://www.masnsports.com/steve_melewski/2012/05/dan-duquette-talks-about-next-weeks-draft.html

[Rene88]

I like their approach in not skipping on the 1st round talent :

Under the new draft rules starting this year, which were set in the new collective bargaining agreement between the players and owners, each team will be allotted a set budget for its picks in the top 10 rounds.

The Orioles are allotted $6,826,900 for 10 picks over the first 10 rounds and they are allotted $4.2 million to sign their first-round pick. If a team can save money on a pick, they can spend it elsewhere in the draft.

This year, according to Rajsich, finding out some exact signability amounts for players who may be taken in those 10 rounds is pretty critical.

"We are going to try and take the best guy unless the signability is skewed so far out of whack that it just becomes a non-factor for us," Rajsich said. "But so far, I haven't seen that or heard that on anyone. The signability for some of these players is changing every day. They say one thing to one club and something different to another. It's an evolving process.

"You can try and save money with your first pick but you are probably not taking the best player available to you and that is risk number one. Risk number two would be, the guy you are saving the money for might not be there when you pick next. It's risky."

[oriolekid]

"I feel like our scouts and staff have done a great job seeing the right people and being in the right ballparks all year. We're just lining them up now and we feel good about how we are preparing for this. Take the (top) pitchers for example. We've probably seen all of their starts for the last three months," he said.

Good so if we take Zimmer over Gausman, or even Wacha at 4, I feel very confident that the O's took the right arm because only a fool can't decipher between the top college arms if they've seen every single start they've made on the season.

[paulcoates]

We've got about 120 guys (ranked) on our board right now. We'll make some tweaks (before Monday)."

Is this normal? This is only a couple rounds of players.