2020 Orioles draft review: Elias ends up with three first round talents

[linedrive]

On 6/12/2020 at 8:21 PM, Tony-OH said:

My educated guess is Elias hopes to build up a stable of position players and then trade for starting pitching that is either ready or nearly ready. Plus, the strength of this organization is in it's pitching prospects with Rodriguez and Hall potential TORs.

I'd like to think you're right, but what did the Manny Machado trade get us? I know it's still early, but did we get anyone who could be a top of the rotation starter? Kremer? If not, what would it take to get back a #1 starter? How much would we have to give up? I'd like to be optimistic, but It's hard to imagine a scenario where we obtain a starter that could bring us a Championship.

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, linedrive said:

I'd like to think you're right, but what did the Manny Machado trade get us? I know it's still early, but did we get anyone who could be a top of the rotation starter? Kremer? If not, what would it take to get back a #1 starter? How much would we have to give up? I'd like to be optimistic, but It's hard to imagine a scenario where we obtain a starter that could bring us a Championship.

Dave Van Horn,  Kjerstad's head coach at Arkansas, says that Asa Lacy could have gone 1:1.    He is that good.  

[weams]

On 6/15/2020 at 6:40 AM, O's84 said:

Jeez, this thread reminded me of the days when JTrea would take on the entire board.

For seven days straight with no sleep. 

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, weams said:

For seven days straight with no sleep. 

 

[survivedc]

2 hours ago, linedrive said:

I'd like to think you're right, but what did the Manny Machado trade get us? I know it's still early, but did we get anyone who could be a top of the rotation starter? Kremer? If not, what would it take to get back a #1 starter? How much would we have to give up? I'd like to be optimistic, but It's hard to imagine a scenario where we obtain a starter that could bring us a Championship.

The Machado trade didn’t bring back peak value, to be fair. I would anticipate trades similar to the ones the Astros have made over the last few years, giving up 3-4 guys in their top 30 prospects for top pitching. 

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Let's also remember that it looked like Verlander was slipping and Cole had never proven to be a #1 starter before the Astros got them.  

 

[linedrive]

41 minutes ago, survivedc said:

The Machado trade didn’t bring back peak value, to be fair. I would anticipate trades similar to the ones the Astros have made over the last few years, giving up 3-4 guys in their top 30 prospects for top pitching. 

3 or 4 years ago we couldn't have done that, but I think we are getting closer. Hopefully teams who have a #1 starter we covet will agree. 

[Frobby]

57 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Let's also remember that it looked like Verlander was slipping and Cole had never proven to be a #1 starter before the Astros got them.  

Cole did finish 4th in the Cy Young award voting in 2015, though he wasn’t as good in 2016-17 before the trade.   

[Beef Supreme]

2 hours ago, RZNJ said:

Let's also remember that it looked like Verlander was slipping and Cole had never proven to be a #1 starter before the Astros got them.  

Verlander's 2016 was his best season in four years: 2nd in Cy Young voting, league leading 1.001 WHIP as well as 254 strikeouts, 3.04 ERA. He was pitching very well at the time of the 2017 trade; I advocated for the Orioles to trade for him at the time. One of his final starts for the Tigers he was pumping near 100 mph in the 7th on consecutive pitches! While neither 2014 or 2015 (when he was injured) were very good seasons, he had reestablished his reputation as one of the league's top starters when Houston acquired him.

[Sports Guy]

I’m obviously late to the party here (and sorry if some of this is being repeated, as I didn’t read the thread) but I didn’t quite get the angst of the Kjerstad pick.  
 

You first have to remember that Elias, Medjal, et al scout differently.  They look at different things like exit velocity, launch angles, etc...you also have to remember that while he has swing and miss in his swing, that it really doesn’t matter provided that he can hit for a decent enough average.  The big power hitters are striking out 150-200 times a year now.  If he hits 260+ and hits 35+ homers, the walks will come.  He may not be a guy with a walk rate of 10% or higher but we saw Mancini go up to 8.8% last year.  Why?  Because the hit tool and power were there and teams had to stay away from him some.  We haven’t seen any indication that Kjerstad is some wild, free swinger like Jones was, so I think if he hits 260+ and hits those 35+ homers, we would likely be looking at an 850-900 OPS guy.  The other thing is, we have no idea how this year could have changed the perception of him.  Perhaps by the end of a normal year, he’s battling with Tork as the best pick.  Everyone points to Martin but if Martin is nothing more than a second baseman with middling power, how valuable is that?  
 

Big Ben questioned Martins ability to play on the left side of the IF because of his arm.  If he ends up playing SS or third everyday in the majors, the Orioles will have likely made a mistake.  If he is a second baseman or an average-ish OFer, they could have made the right call.

 

I wasn’t a fan of the next 2 picks.  I felt that there were higher upside arms available and that guys like Jared Kelley and COLE Wilcox were sitting there and should have been taken (at least one of them).  However, again going back to how strange of a year this is to draft and evaluate, I just think we don’t know.  The public rankings really mean very little at the end of the day.  Teams have very different boards.  
 

Elias may have screwed up in this draft..it’s possible.  The MLB draft is such a crap shoot.  I think they got some good talent and perhaps they got players that would have been way higher on the boards had they played full seasons this year.  Maybe Elias and his staff saw things other teams didn’t.  Time will tell.

 

 

[Jammer7]

On 6/12/2020 at 9:56 AM, Roll Tide said:

Not really .... If a guy struggles against high school pitching I'm betting they struggle at college of the Milb level. IE....If a guy can't handle HS fastball he probably can't do so at AAA or the majors

That is just not true. “Struggles” against HS pitching can be due to many things. Depends on where you play HS ball. At Stoneman Douglas, which is just outside Miami, it’s about as competitive an environment as it gets in HS anywhere in the world. And teams usually do not often pitch to big hitters like Mayo.

What exactly is a “high school fastball?” The guys who hit well all summer on 86-96 mph, usually struggle to hit against slower fastballs of the average HS pitcher, which often hovers around 80 mph or less. These pitchers often throw a lot of junk out of the zone. I’ve seen Riley Greene, Jud Fabian, and many others, struggle to hit against sub-par pitching. Talented competitive kids will chase out of the zone because they are used to being, and expected to be, productive. They want to win, and they try to carry the load. Slow bats hit average HS fastballs, but cannot compete on elite travel ball or showcases. 

So, a guy who hits .500 in below average competition is a better prospect than a guy that hits .350 in Florida, Texas, Georgia or California? Yikes. HS stats are not totally meaningless, but they are a small part of the profile and need to be taken in context. 

[Jammer7]

Overall, I like this draft. I think the Orioles drafted two first rounders (Kjerstad and Westburg), two second rounders (Mayo and Baumler) and two third rounders (Haskins and Servideo).

@Tony-OH, is it more so that you think Mayo and Baumler may have ended up being drafted in the first round in 2023? I can agree with that. Both are very talented undervalued kids by the public lists. I think these were very astute picks, and it shows the Orioles believe in their player development group. 

I am higher on Westburg than some, but I believe he was on the verge of a big year as well. He clearly made an effort to clean up his mechanics and approach. I think he looked stronger, and more compact in his swing. He will likely add some good weight and be an athletic above average 3B to cover ground on shifts. To me, he is just scratching the surface of the player he can become. 

Servideo could end up as a first round talent, if the Spring 2020 version is who he is. Look at all of the “solid college shortstops” who get taken in the first 50 picks each year. “Sure handed, solid defenders” with 50 grades or below for hit and speed, and a 45 grade for power. Many of these guys end up never making it to the big club. If they do, they are utility or low impact types. Cadyn Grenier comes to mind. Servideo could be an impact guy with speed and a gap to gap approach, providing energy and a spark. Or, he may not make it past AA ball. A solid 3rd round pick.

I have to laugh when I read some of the remarks about this draft. For decades, we have wanted to have smart talent evaluators, cutting edge technology, a great development environment and respected shrewd decision makers. We finally have all of those. We even have a rocket scientist running our modeling, who has been successful in two other exemplary organizations. And people still question their intelligence and call this a stupid draft.

They do not play it safe. They gambled a bit here, no doubt. They had a plan, and they executed it. I wanted Dax Fulton, Jared Kelley and/or Cole Wilcox, but they would have taken up a large amount of slot money. The rest of the draft would have been underslot guys. We’ll see in a few years which approach was better. Elias wanted to add more quality depth to the system, and I think they accomplished that. I remain a big fan of Martin’s offensive game, but I think we look back in the years to come and find that Kjerstad has more production and was a better value. 

@Sports Guy it’s nice to have you back! 

[Frobby]

Jim Callis weighed in on our draft with Melewski today:

“I thought it was one of the deeper drafts, one of the best drafts,” said Callis. “If I remember correctly, we had Kjerstad ranked 10th on our draft list. I did hear a lot of Baltimore media getting asked, ‘How could they take the 10th guy at No. 2?’ Well, there was not that big of a gap between 2 and 10.

“Now, they got a great deal. They got him for over $2 million under slot, which allowed them to do some other things. Plus, this guy hit from the start in the SEC and was the best lefty power hitter in the draft on the college side. And I think 6 to 10 were jumbled up for a lot of clubs. You could argue they got the sixth-best player. Because he was going to go lower, they got a great deal. You have to get talent and they took a talented guy at 2 and poured that money into Mayo and Baumler.

“If they had taken Austin Martin at two, you look at what he got from the Blue Jays, they wouldn’t have saved the money to get those guys. All six of their picks are interesting. You don’t usually get six guys that are close to the top 100 and sign them all.”

Callis said there were things to like about each O’s selection.

“Kjerstad is the best lefty power hitter in the draft. Westburg, another SEC performer. Shortstop with power, profiles at third base if he doesn’t stick at short. Real interesting guy. Hudson Haskin, a really gifted center fielder. Didn’t fly under the radar, but in a normal year he might have gone higher. He’s a tooled-up center fielder who as a draft-eligible sophomore played a year and change. So, he wasn’t as heavily scouted as guys who had been around for three years. Anthony Servideo really came on this spring. Had a great spring. Slick fielder and showed a lot more with the bat. Coby Mayo has the power and arm strength you want at third base. And Baumler is a projectable, athletic pitcher who no one thought was going to be signable and the Orioles got him.

“These aren’t just like interesting guys that go into the top 30. They’re all guys with a good amount of upside. It was a pretty impressive haul.”

MLBPipeline.com’s new O’s top 30, rates Kjerstad No. 3, Westburg No. 7, Haskin No. 14, Baumler No. 19, Servideo No. 21 and Mayo No. 25.

https://www.masnsports.com/steve-melewski/2020/09/jim-callis-with-props-for-os-draft-plus-other-notes.html

[hoosiers]

That deserves its own thread.  Strong validation of our draft strategy by a leading draft analyst.

[weams]

I agree. If Frobby posts it, I'll take care of cleaning up this one.