Question for the talent evaluators of OH

[cnmilton]

Now that the majority of the Os draft have been signed, how much did Elias move the needle with this years draft class? Do you think he did a great, good, or adequate job? Were the Orioles able to make up at least a small bit of ground on the rest of MLB?

Just curious to hear what the more experienced and knowledgable people think of the draft.

 

Personally, from a arm chair qb like myself, it looked like the Os did a solid job adding athleticism and upside. But, again, that's a viewpoint from a normal fan. 

[TheOtherRipken]

I’m not a good true talent evaluator - that would be Luke or one of the other geniuses on here but a pretty avid fan for a long time - I really liked the draft this year.

Elias went college heavy hitters and grabbed a lot of toolsy guys with a lot of short term upside. Unlike some past regimes where I constantly felt like the Os were trying to outsmart everyone in early rounds and take totally out of nowhere players, Os early picks were all folks that appeared on some national top player lists - we will see if it pays off, but its interesting to see.

Adley immediately will be ranked top 100, and Gunnar Henderson has a ton of hype behind him. If rumors are true and Gunnar gets moved to third, it adds a sorely needed true 3b prospect to the org.

Stowers was a nice pick and the other top 5 guys are good toolsy projects. 

Will be curious to see if we can convince any of the late High School guys to sign but it seems unlikely.

[Luke-OH]

4 hours ago, cnmilton said:

Now that the majority of the Os draft have been signed, how much did Elias move the needle with this years draft class? Do you think he did a great, good, or adequate job? Were the Orioles able to make up at least a small bit of ground on the rest of MLB?

Just curious to hear what the more experienced and knowledgable people think of the draft.

 

Personally, from a arm chair qb like myself, it looked like the Os did a solid job adding athleticism and upside. But, again, that's a viewpoint from a normal fan. 

I don’t know if we can say he did a great job yet, but the needle has been moved. A good deal of that is Adley Rutschman, players like him aren’t easy to come by. He’s the real deal. 

I think they got good value on Henderson, Stowers, and Hernaiz especially. Also Daschbach (if signed), Elliot, and McSweeney on day three. I don’t know much about the DII and DIII players, but it’s possible they find a hidden gem there.

 

[LookinUp]

Also not a real talent evaluator, but it goes without saying that when you take the best player in the draft, you've moved the needle a bit.

Beyond AR, what we're all hoping is that Elias and Sig's method of using data to identify players gives us a better probability of hitting on more guys than whatever methods were in place before. I have no idea if it does, but I love that two players who may look very similar in the box score can be meaningfully differentiated by smart people who know what information to focus on. That's why so many of us are all-in with Elias. The results have match up to the hype, but we have good reason to be optimistic that they will over time. 

[cnmilton]

One of the things that I liked that Elias did was his focus on up the middle talent. One of the things that the top 10 draft choices all seem to share is a solid defensive profile, with athletic range. I don't remember any of the drafts in the last 20 years with this much focus on up the middle players.

[JMU_Birdfan]

This seems like a great first draft by Elias. Obviously AR makes this draft great regardless, but you can tell Elias had a plan/strategy going into the draft and stuck to it. 

[HowAboutThat]

I was looking for just a question like this, so I could piggyback my own on to it.

The signing period is not yet over, but do we know what the average percentage of successful signs is, and whether we have exceeded that? I think that as of yesterday we had signed all of our top 10 draft picks, but I’m talking about overall.

[Luke-OH]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

I was looking for just a question like this, so I could piggyback my own on to it.

The signing period is not yet over, but do we know what the average percentage of successful signs is, and whether we have exceeded that? I think that as of yesterday we had signed all of our top 10 draft picks, but I’m talking about overall.

It’s not a case of more is better, the last 20 rounds of the draft is based a lot on need in the lower minors. So the percentage of guys that sign in that last 20 is mostly planned by the team, they start drafting HS guys who won’t sign when they run out of places to put people.

It looks like there is a good chance they sign 100% of their top 20 round picks, which isn’t rare, but an above average outcome.

[HowAboutThat]

BTW

is it “Goo-nahr”

is it “Guh-nahr”

Is it “Guh-nr”

or is it “Gunner”

[weams]

48 minutes ago, Philip said:

BTW

is it “Goo-nahr”

is it “Guh-nahr”

Is it “Guh-nr”

or is it “Gunner”

[Babkins]

17 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

It’s not a case of more is better, the last 20 rounds of the draft is based a lot on need in the lower minors. So the percentage of guys that sign in that last 20 is mostly planned by the team, they start drafting HS guys who won’t sign when they run out of places to put people.

It looks like there is a good chance they sign 100% of their top 20 round picks, which isn’t rare, but an above average outcome.

I've seen this mentioned in a couple of the threads about the late-rounders, and I am curious to know whether there's any actual long-term strategy in this. I know that some players are drafted multiple times by the same team (Mussina comes to mind, having been selected by the Orioles in the eleventh round in 1987, and then again in the first round in 1990, after his stint at Stanford). Is there any sort of intention, in selecting, say, an unlikely-to-sign Bobby Zmarzlak in the final round this year, to establish interest or a relationship with him for the next time he's draft-eligible? I ask in full acknowledgment of the fact that it's a slim chance and impossible to know at this point whether they'll ever have the opportunity to draft any of their currently unsigned late-round targets again.

[Babkins]

18 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

It’s not a case of more is better, the last 20 rounds of the draft is based a lot on need in the lower minors. So the percentage of guys that sign in that last 20 is mostly planned by the team, they start drafting HS guys who won’t sign when they run out of places to put people.

It looks like there is a good chance they sign 100% of their top 20 round picks, which isn’t rare, but an above average outcome.

 

19 minutes ago, Babkins said:

I've seen this mentioned in a couple of the threads about the late-rounders, and I am curious to know whether there's any actual long-term strategy in this. I know that some players are drafted multiple times by the same team (Mussina comes to mind, having been selected by the Orioles in the eleventh round in 1987, and then again in the first round in 1990, after his stint at Stanford). Is there any sort of intention, in selecting, say, an unlikely-to-sign Bobby Zmarzlak in the final round this year, to establish interest or a relationship with him for the next time he's draft-eligible? I ask in full acknowledgment of the fact that it's a slim chance and impossible to know at this point whether they'll ever have the opportunity to draft any of their currently unsigned late-round targets again.

I've also seen folks on the board use the term "follow pick" in reference to some of the late-round guys, and I'm hoping someone can define that. Please and thank you.

[Luke-OH]

2 minutes ago, Babkins said:

 

I've also seen folks on the board use the term "follow pick" in reference to some of the late-round guys, and I'm hoping someone can define that. Please and thank you.

It's not really that much of a thing anymore, because of this...

"In 2007, changes were made to the amateur draft which effectively eliminated the draft-and-follow. As of that year's draft, teams had to agree to contract terms with drafted players by August 15th, meaning that teams had barely two months to make a decision about signing a particular player. Any player unsigned at that date automatically returned to the draft pool for the following year. This change was done to prevent situations in which certain draftees did not know whether they would be going to school or playing professional baseball until literally the day on which classes were to start, something which was deemed to be neither in the interest of the schools nor of the player/students. It was also thought that by limiting the time during which negotiations were conducted, there would be pressure for players to sign for lower bonuses, allowing for a more even playing field among teams."

https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Draft-and-follow