Looking ahead to the 2018 draft

[andyb]

Yeah... and it's amazing how much worse he seems to look now than he did last year on October 1st

I know you are being a little sarcastic with that comment, but I will say we have seen more evaluations from scouts that question his hit tool and other aspects of his game. We all did not see every Lakewood game last year and we all are not professional scouts. So we DO have more information from other talent evaluators and that information has come since the end of the season.

[zambonir]

Dollar-related makes it sound like they couldn't afford him. It was value-related. Any judgement will ultimately have to be of the whole class. And 3B didn't look like such a big position of need in the spring of 2016.

I think it's very premature to know how these drafts have gone but I also think it is interesting that Almaraz is still here, at this point that means Klentak is comfortable with the transition and didn't have a big enough issue with his previous drafts (which includes the Moniak year since at least half of the prep for that was under the Gillick/Amaro front office) to make a change.

[kmc1019]

I did a poor job of conveying my point about 2018 draft and the uninspiring performances of Moniak and to some extent Haseley. I'm not advocating for a "speed to majors" pick but rather hoping we can come out with a player at #3 that causes excitement after their first season in the minors, a la Bo Bichette or Heliot Ramos by comparison.

Senzel right now is 5x the prospect that Moniak is, and Haseley - we can claim he was "tired" - just did not do anything at Lakewood or even Williamsport that makes him look like a 10-year starter on a strong major league team, which is what the goal of any top 10 pick must be - and which Randolph, Moniak and Haseley have all failed to project in their young professional careers.

At a minimum, the way the Phils' scouting staff and brass are evaluating and prioritizing the "Hit" tool must be called in to question.

[julio]

...that makes him look like a 10-year starter on a strong major league team, which is what the goal of any top 10 pick must be...

Goals are good things... but how many top 10 picks actually become "10-year starters on strong major league teams"? How would we evaluate a player to determine whether he qualifies? WAR? How much cumulative WAR? Careers of 30+ WAR (e.g., 3 WAR/year for 10 years)?

I looked at the top ten picks for a 15-year period (1996-2010), just to see what "normal" looks like. From those picks, over 15 years, there are 24 players who have amassed 30 or more lifetime WAR - 1.6 per draft year, on average. Translated to percentages, that's 16% of all top ten picks that meet this standard. In only one of those 15 years (2005) were there more than two of the top 10 picks who met the standard. The modal number (most common number) was 1, which was the result in 9 of the 15 years.

You've stipulated a good goal - but should it be an expectation?

[EDmuch]

Yes is the answer

[Philsmania]

I did a poor job of conveying my point about 2018 draft and the uninspiring performances of Moniak and to some extent Haseley. I'm not advocating for a "speed to majors" pick but rather hoping we can come out with a player at #3 that causes excitement after their first season in the minors, a la Bo Bichette or Heliot Ramos by comparison.

Senzel right now is 5x the prospect that Moniak is, and Haseley - we can claim he was "tired" - just did not do anything at Lakewood or even Williamsport that makes him look like a 10-year starter on a strong major league team, which is what the goal of any top 10 pick must be - and which Randolph, Moniak and Haseley have all failed to project in their young professional careers.

At a minimum, the way the Phils' scouting staff and brass are evaluating and prioritizing the "Hit" tool must be called in to question.

This topic came up a couple of months ago but Haseley wasn't bad this past season. He certainly didn't put up MVP numbers but it's not like he fell flat on his face, either. Now, Moniak was bad. Haseley wasn't, however.

[tom81]

Haseley put up slightly better numbers than Rhys Hoskins did in their 1st year of pro ball at the age of 21. It is way too early to judge Haseley.

[zambonir]

Well, sure. Basically, it's almost as hard to hit on a Top 10 draft pick as it is to win a World Series. But that's still the goal. And it is pretty rare to miss completely on a 1-1, especially a position player. So, perhaps, three years from now, we can lament that it happened.

If in fact these guys all flop, it does seem like a cruelly appropriate ending to the Monty/Gillick/Amaro years. The one/only good thing about the collapse of that era was the high draft pick for several years, and Almaraz was still their hire. Ironically, Wolever's last two first-round picks are looking good.

[DougLindsay]

Senzel is Joe Randa. No problem passing on that for a higher risk/higher reward.

[EDmuch]

Really Doug ??? So how did you reach that conclusion?

[Austinfan]

Let's be fair here, it wasn't "dollar related' in the sense of saving money.
It was get better value out of the 2nd round by using extra money, too bad Gowdy had TJ surgery.

[zambonir]

It was the Correa/McCullers strategy.

Hey, you just never know.

2014 a disaster for Astros' three straight top overall draft picks

(And then they got Bregman for the Aiken comp pick. And nobody cares about Appel, or even Giles, now.)

[Austinfan]

And if you find an Altuve for $10K, all is forgiven!
Hey, don't we have a $10K prospect who might be as good as our #1 pick?

[andyb]

And if you find an Altuve for $10K, all is forgiven!
Hey, don't we have a $10K prospect who might be as good as our #1 pick?

And what does this comment even mean?

The article points out some of the risks in any draft pick. It also talks about Correa being great before the broken leg. But if the main point is that all draft picks are risky, then the cumulative haul of those 3 picks (Correa (with the underslot signing letting them get McCullers, Appel (getting them Giles) and Aiken (getting them Bregman) is still pretty good.

It is kind of amazing how you just revert to asking why should we just sign $10K prospects when the vast bulk of evidence shows that top draft picks are a really good value. The problem here is that the Phillies apparently chose poorly with Moniak. The signing of Gowdy was a good, if unlucky move.

But I guess we should forfeit all our draft picks and confine ourselves into only signing $10,000 international prospects. That seems to be your advice.

[Squire]

I agree that Moniak v. Senzel wasn't dollar related in that they gave Moniak 6.1M and Senzel took 6.2 from the Reds. So we only saved 100K which we probably could have recouped by actually negotiating with Cole Irvin rather than giving him 382.5K over slot in the 5th round.

[julio]

Tweaked the thread title... it's not so "further" any more!

[Austinfan]

What it means is that there's a lot of luck involved as well as skill.
And in the end you have to look at the overall performance of player acquisition and development over a number of years.
Houston made some mistakes, some good decisions, and got lucky.

[andyb]

And is anyone actually disputing that each individual draft pick or international signing has some luck involved? All one can conclude is that you don't think signing any high-priced talent is worth it.

It is definitely worth observing that Moniak, the number one pick in the draft, has not done anywhere near as well as expected. Of course one needs to evaluate the organization (and any young pick over time). But one could also say that none of our past number one picks has really done that well relative to the expectations of where they were drafted. And those picks coincide with a new farm director making those picks and 2 of the last 3 with a new GM. A miss at 1-1 is a big, huge miss.

So I guess we can't question this at all. And only $10K signings are worth it (though of course that would not have been enough to sign Altuve or Sixto).

[Austinfan]

The first pick is often a curse, especially in drafts with no sure #1 pick.
You see this in all sports, because there's a lot of pressure to play it safe and take the consensus pick.

It all comes down to your overall drafting, you can miss a high 1st if you find a Hoskins (Howard) in the 5th rd.
And the returns don't come in for five years, if Moniak adds 20 lbs of muscle and becomes a better fielding Yelich and Gowdy bounces back from the TJ surgery, then suddenly the FO are geniuses.

[zambonir]

One certainly doesn't have to look any further than the team we are watching to recognize how important high draft picks are (and the Astros and Royals and Cubs too). The '07-'08 team and beyond was built with them, and the '13-17 team was a result of the great hollowing out/failure to produce any. Now, if just one of these guys hits besides Nola that's a decent four years, but we'll see. I don't know that I hold Moniak to a higher standard as a 1-1 instead of say, the 5th pick, but you still have to hold the Phillies to a higher standard since they could have taken any guy they wanted, and they didn't take the consensus #1 pick (not that there really was one).