DRAFT NOTEBOOK

By ALLAN SIMPSON

 

By comparison to baseball’s annual first-year player draft, the NBA and NFL drafts are cut-and-dried affairs. They take place out of season, have limited number of rounds—two for the NBA, seven for the NFL—and have clearly defined player pools, with all but college seniors required to declare for the draft several weeks in advance.

 

The baseball draft, by contrast, is more of a moving target as it takes place at the height of the college season. It stretches out for 50 rounds and involves players from almost every demographic: high school seniors, junior college freshmen and sophomores, college juniors and seniors, and anyone aged 21. All such players are eligible for selection, whether they declare or not.

 

With such a large player pool, it’s one reason why more than 1,500 players are picked annually. The biggest reason for so many rounds, though, is the baseball draft is all about projection—or predicting the future worth of unfinished products. Unlike its counterparts in football and basketball, it is extremely rare in baseball that a drafted player is considered a finished product, ready to step right into the big leagues. Only 20 players of roughly 60,000 selected since the baseball draft’s inception in 1965 have gone straight to the majors, and many of those were publicity stunts.

 

The baseball draft is so unpredictable, at times, that a 62nd-round pick like Mike Piazza can become a Hall of Fall talent while roughly a third of all first-round picks don’t even sniff the big leagues. But just trying to project the future worth of unproven baseball players is only one aspect of the draft that makes it a big guessing game for baseball scouts.

 

One of trickiest issues scouts must deal with is signability. Unlike the NFL and NBA drafts, where players selected do not have the option of returning to school, baseball players are not under the gun to sign. Many don’t—about 40 percent of those that are drafted each year. With such leverage, teams can’t simply draft players on the basis of ability. After all, there is no point in a team drafting a player if they can’t sign him.

 

“The baseball draft is the most difficult of the drafts to figure out, because you’re dealing with projection and there are so many variables involved,” a major league GM said. “It’s not cut-and-dried. There are a lot of factors that need to be considered, especially when you must consider players that aren’t in the mainstream talent pool.”

 

While the most appealing demographic in the baseball draft are college juniors and high school seniors, it’s often some of the other players that can make the affair so tricky and unpredictable, yet intriguing.

 

Call these other players the draft’s wild cards. We’ll take a closer look at some of them and how they may impact the early rounds of this year’s draft.

 

COLLEGE SENIORS

In the last 10 years, six college seniors have been drafted in the first round—the last being South Carolina catcher Landon Powell in 2004. Most seniors are drafted because they (1.) come cheap--in 2003, the Royals selected college seniors with their fifth through ninth-round picks and paid them $1,000 apiece—and (2.), are good organization-type players or roster fillers. In most cases, seniors were low-round picks as juniors or weren’t drafted at all.

 

But every year, there are a handful of seniors who become legitimate draft picks, and this year is no exception. Among the most attractive are pitchers Don Czyz (Kansas), Doug Fister (Fresno State), Matt Long (Miami, Ohio), Brandon Magee (Bradley) and Tim Norton (Connecticut), and outfielder John Raynor (UNC Wilmington). None will be picked in the first round but all have legitimate chances of being drafted in the first five rounds.

 

Fister (6^th round, Yankees) and Raynor (12^th round, Orioles) were significant drafts a year ago and have improved their stock with solid senior seasons. Long was drafted in the 34^th round by the Giants, while the others weren’t even picked a year ago.

 

No senior’s stock may have improved more than the 6-foot-6 Long, who underwent Tommy John surgery midway through his sophomore year and missed most of last season. He chose not to sign with the Giants and used the offseason to build up his arm strength. As Miami’s closer this year, his fastball has been consistently clocked at 94 while he has complemented it with an outstanding curveball. His stock has improved so much that he is expected to be the first true senior drafted, possibly as high as the second round.

 

FIFTH-YEAR SENIORS

Fifth-year seniors are a different animal from true seniors. They are eligible to sign before the draft, either with the team that drafted them in 2005 or with any team if they weren’t drafted a year ago. It often takes some digging on the part of scouts to distinguish a true senior from a fifth-year senior—a player who red-shirted a year at one point in his college career.

 

The catch with a fifth-year senior is that his season must have ended prior to the draft in order to take full advantage of the rule. That is not an issue for small-college players or Division I teams that fail to advance to the NCAA tournament, but with the Division I season now extended deep into June, a number of fifth-year seniors aren’t afforded the leverage of negotiating a contract before the draft. It’s a double-edged sword for them as their team can still pursue national championship aspirations but they have no choice but to go back into the draft like any senior, and negotiate only with the team that drafts them.

 

While only 10-15 fifth-year seniors are signed each year prior to the draft, Giants righthander Tim Worrell, in his 15^th big league season, is an example of a player who was the beneficiary of the fifth-year rule.

 

Among some of the top fifth-year seniors this year are pitchers Eddie Degerman (Rice), Daniel McCutchen (Oklahoma) and Rocky Roquet (Cal Poly), third baseman David Freese (South Alabama) and outfielders Jackson Brennan (Gonzaga) and Quinn Stewart (Louisiana State). Degerman (Red Sox, 42^nd round) and McCutchen (Cardinals, 12^th round) were drafted a year ago and remain under control to the teams that drafted; Roquet, Freese, Brennan and Stewart were not drafted, and will be free agents once their seasons are complete—so long as its before the draft.

 

It’s likely a bidding war, of sorts, could develop over the 23-year-old Roquet, whose fastball has been in the mid-90s this spring in his role as Cal Poly’s closer. With Cal Poly unlikely to advance to post-season play, Roquet will have the option of signing with any club before the draft, or go back into the draft. If he returns to the draft, it’s possible he could be drafted in the first two or three rounds.

 

Degerman, who has gone 9-0, 1.18 with 111 strikeouts in 84 innings as the No. 1 starter for Rice, and McCutchen may not have the option of signing beforehard as their schools have had strong 2006 seasons and are likely to still be playing when the draft is held.

 

COLLEGE SOPHOMORES

Few players are in a better leverage position in the draft than college sophomores, who have an extra negotiating year if they choose not to sign. Angels righthander Jeff Weaver passed on an offer from the White Sox as a supplemental first-round pick in 1997, pulled confident that he wouldn’t lose any bargaining power by returning to Fresno State for his junior year. He didn’t as the Tigers took him in the first round a year later and paid him slot money—roughly double what he was offered a year earlier.

 

Among the leading draft-eligible sophomores this year are pitchers Kris Johnson (Wichita State), Ryan Reid (James Madison), David Robertson (Alabama) and Tony Watson (Nebraska), catcher Mitch Canham (Oregon State), first baseman Luke Hopkins (New Mexico State) and shortstop Ryan Wehrle (Nebraska).

 

The 6-foot-3, 195-pound Johnson took a medical red-shirt in 2005 when he underwent Tommy John surgery after making only four starts. He’s been brought back slowly this season, pitching only 34 innings in 10 starts, but has displayed a clean, repeatable delivery with a fastball in the 89-93 mph range. He’s a longshot to go in the first round this year even at less than 100 percent physically, and could return to school for another year if he’s not picked in the first round—knowing he may be a prime first-round candidate with another year under his belt, with leverage that would be the equivalent of a normal college junior.

 

JUNIOR COLLEGE PLAYERS

There are two kinds of junior college players: those that were drafted in 2005 and remain under control to the teams that drafted them, and those that weren’t selected a year ago. Each year, about 60-65 draft-and-follows are signed—less than 20 percent of the junior college players that are eligible to sign—and the list of past DFEs have run the gamut from an Adam Loewen, the fourth overall pick in 2002, who signed a major league contract the following spring with the Orioles for $4.2 million, to several other lower-round picks who would have become first-round picks had they not signed just prior to the draft. In 2002, four draft-and-follows from the 2001 draft signed seven-figure bonuses.

 

The potential exists this spring for three draft-and-follows from 2005 to resurface as potential first-rounders, if they are not signed before the draft. All DFEs have until May 31 (the start of the closed period) to sign, or go back into the 2006 draft pool. The three commanding the most interest are pitchers Pedro Beato (St. Petersburg, Fla., CC), Bryan Morris (Motlow State, Tenn., CC) and Sean O’Sullivan (Grossmont, Calif., CC). Morris (Devil Rays) and O’Sullivan (Angels) were third-round picks in 2005, while Beato (Mets) was a 17^th-rounder. It is anticipated that all three clubs will make a concerted run to get their players signed—even if it costs $1 million or more.

 

Both Morris and O’Sullivan have performed like legitimate first-rounders at various points as junior college freshmen, with fastballs in the mid-90s. But they have raised doubts with some inconsistent outings. Scouts have attributed their uneven performance to playing a regular position in the field in addition to taking a regular turn on the mound.

 

Former Tennessee righthander Luke Hochevar isn’t a draft-and-follow in the true sense of the word, but he might be the ultimate wild card as this year’s draft approaches. He remains property of the Dodgers, who drafted him as a supplemental first-round pick a year ago and are desirous of signing him even as the two parties reached a stalemate on contract negotiations last fall. Hochevar and agent Scott Boras left more than $2 million on the table.

 

Hochevar renounced his eligibility and didn’t return to Tennessee for his senior year. He is currently pitching for Fort Worth of the independent American Association. If Hochevar doesn’t sign with the Dodgers by May 31, it’s likely he would resurface among the top 10 picks as the initial reports on Hochevar have been favorable.

 

TWO-SPORT STARS

There have been some classic tug-of-wars through the years between baseball and other sports—primarily football—for the services of multi-sport stars, with Bo Jackson and John Elway among the most celebrated cases. This year will be no exception.

 

Notre Dame wide receiver Jeff Samardzija is this year’s Exhibit A. He is being heavily courted by baseball teams, who are enamored with his size, athleticism and 96 mph fastball while also mindful that he has been projected as a first-round talent in next year’s NFL draft. While most teams aren’t prepared to take the huge risk that Samardzija will ultimately pick baseball over football, some are prepared to roll the dice, draft him possibly as high as the supplemental first round, pay him accordingly (though with a heavily back-loaded contract), let him go out and pitch until Aug. 1 and take their chances from there.

 

Meanwhile, there are two high school players with similar two-sport intrigue, who scouts say are talented enough to be picked in the first two rounds in June. But it’s more likely they’ll be passed over altogether because of stronger ties to football than baseball. Washington high school product Jake Locker, an outstanding prospect as both a pitcher and outfielder, is heavily committed to playing quarterback at Washington. He is expected to start at QB for the Huskies and already has aspirations of an NFL career. Mississippi high school product Justin Woodall, also a top two-way prospect on the baseball field, is a near-lock to bypass a potentially promising career in baseball to play safety at Alabama.

 

 

Those are just a few of the complicating factors that baseball teams must contend with as they gather their scouts together over the next few weeks to line up the top prospects for this year’s draft. It might be advisable that they have a large quantity of red flags on hand to tag a few of this year’s wild cards.

 

Allan Simpson’s draft notebook will appear weekly through the draft.