At the end of the day, the bat is what decides if you are a MLB player or not. Lots of guys that can play defense, but if you have a bat, you can always DH or play first base for someone.
I assume a player has been tried at enough positions by the time they are drafted to put them in their best place. Perhaps a high school bat is still flexible enough develop defensively and be less of a bust risk but I would rather try to pick him up post draft.
Zach Dezenzo and a billion other draftees say " hi" This take is amazingly. . I'll say " uninformed" to he nice. Until minor leagues, no level of baseball has any interest in development. They are interested and only interested in winning and where a player can help them do that now.
Your last sentence is completely wrong. If you don’t think D1 baseball programs have any interest in player development then you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.
Cam Smith -- who looks like he could win multiple gold gloves in rightfield after learning it in spring training-- says hi.
I never played baseball outside of little league, but as long as you can judge a flyball and have some athleticism, you should be able to play the outfield. Cam has elite athleticism.
There are like 300 D1 baseball teams. My guess is that there are ~50 D1 pitching coaches who can really develop talent. My guest is that there are 150+ D1 hitting coaches who can really develop talent. Mostly any D1 pitching coach who is great won't be in D1 long.
That’s fine I guess (even though I don’t agree), but that doesn’t affect my point: from little league to D1, almost without exception, player development is a huge priority. There may be individual moments (like the CWS where a coach leaves a guy in to throw 150 pitches) where winning takes clear priority at the expense of player development, but they are the exception, not the rule. Frankly, it’s a ridiculous assertion to say that “no level of baseball has any interest in player development”. Anecdotally, just in the last 2 years, I have had exposure to little league (from tee ball on up), select/travel ball, high school, small college, and D1, and at every level player development was a HUGE focus; in almost every case it was more of a priority than winning.
I'll go out on a limb and say the Astros will have 3 Jim Stevenson picks on Day 3 and then sign an undrafted guy from a small school in Missouri
https://www.mlb.com/amp/news/mlb-pipeline-mock-draft-june-26-2025.html Updated MLB.com mock has Houston taking Kayson Cunningham. I will be very surprised if he lasts that long but would be a great pick if he’s available. There have been plenty of drafts where a talent like Cunningham goes in the top 10.
Yes...the rule of thumb is you can move guy from the IF to the OF but not the other way around (1B excepted, and often that's not even possible)
The As pretty much hit the jackpot two drafts in a row. Some real natural hitters between Kurtz and Wilson.
I'm not sure I really recognized the fact that the draft was shortened to 2 days until now. Typically, 11th round picks have been among the most interesting. As the start of the 3rd day, and the first picks that don't factor into the bonus pool until the bonus exceeds $150k, they're usually a good time to take a chance on overslot players. Examples of notable overslot Astros 11th round picks include Nehomar Ochoa, Ryan Clifford, Ryan Gusto, and Patrick Sandoval. When the Astros have picked players at slot in the 11th, they've been less successful. Chad Stevens (2021) was released last year. Jason Schiavone (2024) is hitting .168 in Fayetteville. You have to go back to Brandon Bielak (who got 25K more than slot) and Dean Deetz (nuts) to find major leaguers that didn't get significant bonuses, in part because they've used the 11th round to go overslot so often. Without the extra day before the 11th, I think it'll be harder for teams to line up overslot bonuses in the 11th. There's still bonus-pool advantages to doing so, as the first 150K doesn't count towards the pool, so I wouldn't expect overslot deals in the 11th to be eliminated completely. I think it does make it more likely that teams take their overslot picks in the 4th-6th round, as the Astros did with Jaworsky and Powell. I also think we might see more high schoolers and Juco players get overslot deals as UDFA.
Good teams that work hard will still be able to lineup overslot deals after the 10th rd. Bad teams might struggle with this for awhile. This will be an advantage for teams like the Yankees/Stros/Dodgers/Red Sox etc... who have good relationships with a lot of different agents.
Overslot UDFA count against the pool so I would be surprised if that becomes really prevalent. I think we will just see less manipulation overall and more HS guys getting drafted in the 3rd-5th rounds with a lot fewer big overslot guys in rounds 11-20. It’s also worth noting that NIL has meant more money for big time college players which probably leads to fewer overslot signings. It’ll be interesting to follow.
That's fair. I think some teams will be more likely to game the draft less as it gets more complex to do so. The other change is that the 3rd round is now on the 1st day, which might push some overslot bonuses from round 3 to 4. I don't think you'll see huge bonuses for UDFA, but you might see some Ochoa types where the teams take college seniors they like in the 9th or 10th rounds, but don't necessarily have players lined up right away to spend the savings on. They can then shop with that money after the draft is over and there's more clarity on who is available and willing to take 200-300k to go pro. Maybe it'll be more that the 18th-20th round picks are signable overslots rather than contingency picks as teams line up deals mid-draft.
I hope your last sentence comes true, it has always been very annoying to me to see draft picks used on players that teams have no intention of signing (whether the current trend of 19-20 rounders being contingency picks or the older trend of rounds 35-40 being used on unqualified legacy players). Especially when teams then follow up the draft by signing half a dozen more guys.
