Your initial 2021 draft grade

[Moose Milligan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know...we won't be able to grade this draft until a few years from now to see who panned out and who didn't.  I agree.  

But that doesn't mean we can't react to it now.  Some of you seem to hate this draft, others seem to think there are intriguing players here.

Use this thread to vote a draft grade and quibble on whether or not Elias & Co. did a good job.  Is Cowser significantly underslot?  What do you make of the lack of HS talent?  Do you like the strategy here?  Or what strategy?

 

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Definitely weird. I have very little idea about most of the draftees so reacting to it seems disingenuous to me.

I will say I've never seen any organization draft so many guys with no leverage. Given the history of this organization, it's hard not to wonder why that is. 

[Frobby]

My offhand reaction is D.    I don’t like the overemphasis on hitters and waiting until the 11th round to start drafting pitchers in earnest.   And it’s not clear why we needed to save money by choosing Cowser over Lawler or Watkins, since we didn’t appear to choose any overslot guys today.

I want to stress it’s my offhand reaction.   I could be completely off base.   I’m interested to hear what the pundits say, and how it actually turns out.  

[beantownrefugee]

I'll give Elias & co. some credit that they clearly have a plan and executed it with no ambiguity.  Namely, draft college kids with a track record (i.e., data), draft positional players to be top heavy on that side and use some of them to trade for pitching later, and let other orgs pay for the pitchers' development.  But man alive, when your manager states the obvious and says the team is in dire need of rotation help, and you don't use the draft to stock up on future pitching talent, you're really putting all of your chips on the value you're hoping you are accumulating on the positional side.  AND likely forcing yourself later to pay high salaries for the established pitchers you trade for.  

[Gentile4]

I give it an F. Elias apparently paid no attention to the myriad mock drafts and message board GMs. WTH, Mike.

[utvolzac]

F. Passing on Lawlar at 5 and then not going over slot on any high upside prep players is incomprehensible. 
 

What is the point of tanking seasons if your going to pass up on BPA with the high picks. Back to back years now we took middle round talent at the top of the draft.

If we have to suffer through 100 loss seasons at least take some impact players in the draft. Is that too much to ask for?

[BirdinBama]

B+. I think that our first two picks will be on the big club, and contributing, by 2023. Of course, I think Elias would have taken Leiter, or Mayer, had they still been available. Cowser was a great pick in my view. Elias was hired to rebuild this franchise, and he's succeeding. I find the negativity on this board astonishing.

With respect to pitching, we're deeper in the minors than we have been in a while. Rodriguez and Hall are knocking on the door, and we already have Means. Other guys are performing well, Bradish et al. It's not daylight yet, but it's getting there.

[MouncastleandMcCormick]

C+ for now.  I like Cowser, Rhodes, Norby, and Craig a lot.  To tack onto beantown's thoughts, they clearly sold out for their strategy, without hedging at all.  Approach this year was always going to be more important in light of the Covid data and scouting challenges.  Elias clearly thinks his team has some unique and valuable insights that trump conventional wisdom.  Honestly, I would be more comfortable with a bit of a hedge, but that's not the management team we have.  Hopefully, that ends up being for the best.

[Moose Milligan]

I agree with Froberto Duran.  I don't mind the Cowser pick and Norby picks, I'm also not in love with them either.  To borrow @Sports Guy's terminology, they're safe picks I don't mind a safe pick, especially during a rebuild that's off to a slow start.  If you're trying to stock the mid to upper minors, I get it.  Hopefully these two can advance quickly.

I'd have rather seen more upside/overslot pitching on Day 2.  While there are a couple of arms that were selected on Day 3 that are kind of interesting, I'm underwhelmed by the initial reports on these guys.  Drafting a bunch of senior signs, IMO, not very exciting and intriguing.  Yes, I know Covid played into that, some of these are guys that might have come out last year.  But that doesn't mean that there wasn't any younger, higher upside talent.

I posted this in the other thread:

Wouldn't have minded to see us do what the Angels did.  The Angels know what their problem is, they addressed it.  At first glance it looks like taking an M-16 to a mosquito, but that's perfectly fine.  If we're looking at this as a lottery ticket game, give me 20 scratchers for uncovering good pitching prospects all day, every day.

Could have done without the glut of outfielders.  More pitchers, more HS/upside talent.  

[byrdz]

I’ll trust Elias, Sig, and the Fangraphs rankings for now.

[Can_of_corn]

I was told a couple weeks ago that B is average now?

What scale are we using?

My initial take is below average but not failing so C? 

[joelala]

C for confusion. I’m personally disappointed because I wanted some shiny, high upside guys to follow, but it’s clear that there was a plan and that plan was stuck to. What the plan was, none of us save the FO knows.  We got lots of players who have track records and I’m wondering if we determined the market undervalued them because of their advanced age and we took advantage of that accordingly. 

[Ruzious]

I'm not gonna give them a low grade because I'm so far below being an expert, but... there was an obvious imbalance as far as picking OFers, and they went too old overall, imo.  Just picking Rocker would have taken care of the balance problem, and just picking one of the HS SS's would have helped with the age problem and helped with the position balance.  And while I don't believe they took the BPA in round 1, I do think they got a very good player.  And I like the 2nd round pick.  

Not getting pitching is a big negative.

I'm being very generous with a B-.  

 

 

[MDtransplant757]

I'm intrigued on this draft. The first two picks are safe, but offer OBP bats that during the last window we complained weren't really there when this team actually won games. The rest of the picks I feel if developed correctly could be solid depth, every day players or trade bait come a competitive window like what we saw with Houston getting Gerrit Cole from the Pirates. The overemphasis on outfielders is I think a bit much, but some of the later round pitching selections will probably be our over slot guys. Lot of interesting things to dig through and I like some of the college pitchers they picked later on in the draft. I'm giving a B for now, but there is some optimism if you want the team to do well come 2023 and have guys in the high minors to pick from.

[SteveA]

43 minutes ago, Frobby said:

My offhand reaction is D.    I don’t like the overemphasis on hitters and waiting until the 11th round to start drafting pitchers in earnest.   And it’s not clear why we needed to save money by choosing Cowser over Lawler or Watkins, since we didn’t appear to choose any overslot guys today.

I want to stress it’s my offhand reaction.   I could be completely off base.   I’m interested to hear what the pundits say, and how it actually turns out.  

Can't say it any better, and I'd probably write about 3 extra pargraphs to say the same thing.   Agree 100%.