You have any vids on Cunningham? Like I said last week, I regret not seeing him live. "best hit tool" "maybe not power yet" "will play MI"
Apparently I have to make the effort to google things for myself....damn slackers https://www.mlb.com/video/2025-draft-kayson-cunningham-ss [delete] that's the worst highlight video I've ever seen
Potential Astros draft I would really like with one month to go: Round 1, Pick 21: $4,122,500: Alabama P Riley Quick (underslot) Round 3, Pick 95: $803,900: HS SS Cooper Flemming (overslot) Round 4, Pick 126: $594,500: LSU OF Ethan Frey
Time for Dana Brown to shoot up his thigh with crank - and go on a LONG all nighter until the draft is over and come away with some potential contributors.
If they work it right they should be able to come away with 2 premium talents in the 25-75 range of the draft and that should be the goal. Not having a 2nd rounder really sucks because the draft is very strong in that range. My belief is that the draft is defined by the top 5 picks, and beyond that the real differentiator is usually in the 2nd-3rd rounds.
There's the "no-brainers" and then there's a whole lot of other people. How good's your scouting? I will say that the Dodgers (assholes) have been great at the draft...they're picking AS players in the 3/4th rounds. They don't win just with money.
This post got me thinking, and with the rain today I had a little time. I've always thought that while having a top pick is obviously nice, the draft is defined by finding the studs later in the draft. It's hard to put too much into the last two drafts because there are a LOT of players who were drafted in 24 and 23 who will make it big but just haven't yet, so started a very rough analysis with 22 2022 Draft Top 5 1-1 J Holiday, Looks like a solid pro at the very least, still a lot of ceiling 1-2 Druw Jones, still just 21 and at High A, but doesn't sniff top prospect lists anymore 1-3 Kumar Rocker, career will likely be defined by health, still has a chance 1-4 Terrmar Johnson, top 100 prospect still generally, only 21 1-5 Elijah Green, having another awful year at high A, not highly thought of at this point Other Notables from 22 and their draft round C Horton 1-7, looks like a potential Ace Neto 1-13, solid regular at the very least ** D Gilbert** J Beck, Comp, looking better and better for the Rox Dalton Rushing 2nd ** J Melton 2nd** C Simpson Comp B Roman Anthony Comp Drake Baldwin, 3rd Kerkering 5th Victor Scott 5th H Birdsong 6th 22 is still a draft that is probably too early to truly dive into, but only 1 of the top 5 looks like a for sure solid big leaguer at this point, and the best player from the draft is just as likely to be Horton, Rushing or Anthony as it is Holiday 2021 top 5 1-1 Henry Davis, 400+ at bats of a .596 OPS to this point, 25 years old, but catchers do develop late a lot of times 1-2 Jack Leiter, 25 year old who seems to be figuring it out if health will let him. Very low floor Very high ceiling still 1-3 J Jobe, Potential Ace but just went under the knife for TJ which is a shame, cause he could be legit 1-4 M Mayer, 5 for his last 12 with 3 of the 5 leaving the park. Just came up obviously but looks like a player 1-5 C Cowser, Very good last year, struggled so far this year but he is basically at the end of his spring. Kid is a player So in 21 the only guy that looks like a bust is the 1-1 and it's too early to call him that. Could be 5 players there but likely without a stud Other 2021 Notables with MLB guys first and top prospects following J Merrill, 1-27. Stud A Abbott, 2nd, Looks every part of an Ace Schwellenbach, 2nd, Ace James Wood, 2nd, Stud Manzardo, 2nd, Looks like a solid regular as a floor, could be really good Mason Miller, 3rd, High Leverage Stud Hunter Goodman, 4th, probably the best player on the Rockies already and yes, I know that isn't necessarily saying much Bryce Miller 4th, Ace if health continues to allow him to be ** Arrighetti, 6th** very high ceiling Noah Cameron, 7th, looks like a strong mid rotation guy Notable prospects who haven't made it up yet, or if they have for very little: Lawlar, B House, A Painter, Carson Williams, Bubba Chandler It's very likely that the top 5 players from this draft all come from 1-27 and below, and likely the top 10 players from this draft come from 1-13 (Painter) and down 2020 Top 5 1-1 Torkelson, Big power, low floor still. April of this year may have saved his career 1-2 Kjerstad, probably needs a change of scenery (Like LF at Daiken) to make it, already 26, solid last year but can't get consistent time 1-3 Max Meyer, Solid Mid Rotation with potential for more 1-4 Asa Lacy, oops 1-5 Austin Martin, oops Other notables G Crochet, 1-11, Ace Pete Crow-Armstong, 1-19, Stud Soderstrom, 1-26, Having a great year and only 23 years old. The park is playing a part, but has the look of a bigtime player Westburg, Comp A Jared Jones, 2nd, health is only issue Masyn Winn, 2nd ** Alex Santos Comp ** our first pick Spencer Strider 4, Ace Prospects remaining to be seen: R Hassell, M Abel, N Yorke Again, the top 5 players here all coming from outside that top 5 but all the top player here other than Strider come from first two rounds 2019 Top 5 1-1 Rutschman, up and down with the bat, very good player although not what they thought they had 1-2 Bobby Witt, nothing needs to be said 1-3 Andrew Vaughn, bust 1-4 JJ Bleday, hanging around MLB 1-5, Riley Greene, underrated in my opinion, very very good player 3 of the 5 would be welcomed on any team in baseball, and it's gonna be hard to say the top player in this draft didn't come from the top 5 with Mr. Witt sitting there Other notables CJ Abrams 1-6 Lodolo 1-7 Langliers 1-9 Corbin Carroll 1-16, Stud George Kirby 1-20, Ace Volpe 1-30 M Busch 1-31 ** Korey Lee 1-32** Gunnar, 2nd, Stud ** Kessinger 2nd** S Steer 3rd Michael Harris 3rd Pepiot 3rd Tyler Fitzgerald 4th Brenton Doyle 4th ** Hunter Freaking Brown 5th** What a draft! While Witt is the player and Rutschman and Greene are also studs, the amount of very high end talent taken later in this draft is amazing. This is truly a draft that no matter where you picked you had a chance to draft difference makers, if you were good enough to find them
2018 Top 5 1-1 C Mize, Career interupted by injury, and while he isn't one of the top 3-4 pitchers from his draft, looks very good at the moment 1-2 J Bart, Bust until he wasn't 1-3 A Bohm, Solid mlb player 1-4 Madrigal, oops 1-5 J India, has had his moments, at the very least will carve out a good career Other Notables Logan Gilbert 1-14, Ace Liberatore 1-16, looking very good B Singer 1-18, solid N Hoerner 1-24, borderline all star Casas 1-26 ** Seth Beer 1-28**, always wanted an Astros shirt that said Beer on the back, but alas Bo Naylor 1-29 McClanahan, comp, Ace if health ever allows again X Edwards, comp B Boob Itch, Comp B, looking more and more like an Ace R Jeffers 2nd, solid regular at the least Cal Raleigh, 3rd, likely 2nd right now in AL MVP Race ** Jeremy Pena 3rd**, All Star level SS right now, the only rookie to win ALCS MVP and World Series MVP, not a bad 3rd rounder Taj Bradley, 5th, solid starter, still has top of rotation potential S Kwan, 5th, All Star level of L Butler, 6th, coming out party last year, looks like a legit player for sure Rasmussen, 6th Joe Ryan, 7th, borderline Ace level SP Jarren Duran, 7th, all star level of Skubal, 9th, one of the best R Olson, 13th, mid rotation starter L O'Hoppe, 23rd, borderline all star potential catcher At least 15 players from this draft that all 30 teams would take before any of the top 5. If you were building a team with players just from the Comp pick down you would have a hell of a start C Raleigh and either O'Hoppe, Jeffers or Naylor 2B X Edwards SS J Pena OF Kwan, Butler and Duran Rotation: Skubal, Bubic, J Ryan, Taj, R Olson with McClanahan on IL. Irvin and Rasmussen in the pen 2017 Top 5 1-1 Royce Lewis, Stud when health allows which isn't much 1-2 H Greene, Ace 1-3 M Gore, Looking very good 1-4, B McKay, oops 1-5 Kyle Wright, oops Other Notables Pavin Smith, 1-7, underrated bat J Burger 1-11, more potential than production Baz, Ace if health allowed ** Bukauskas 1-15** C Schmidt 1-16 Heliot Ramos 1-19 David Petersen, 1-20, having a great year Rooker, Comp A Varsho, Comp B Not a great draft at any level. Lewis was the right pick but can't stay healthy. Greene is the best player from this draft. 2 of the top 5 once again were nothings 2016 Top 5 1-1 Moniak, hanging around at least he will get a pension 1-2 Senzel, never made it 1-3 Ian Anderson, health played a role but never really made it other than flashes 1-4 Riley Pint, oops 1-5 Corey Ray, oops Other Notables AJ Puk 1-6, another high end arm that health is holding back Cal Quantrill 1-8, hanging around Josh Lowe, 1-13, underrated player ** Whitley 1-17** G Lux, 1-20, mainly listed because he hits RHP well and, well ya know Ragans, Comp, Ace level at times Will Smith (the catcher), Comp, Stud Lodolo, Comp Bryan Reynolds, 2nd, All star P Alonso, 2nd, Stud Bo Bichette, 2nd, feel like a disappointment to a lot of Jays fans but still a very very good player Luzardo 3rd D May 3rd Z Gallen, 3rd, Ace at times Corbin Burnes, 4th, Ace S Bieber, 4th, Penal league Ace T Edman, 6th, all star level player Gonsolin, 9th Nate Lowe, 13th Goes without saying that all the best players from this draft all came from outside the top5, and at least the top ten players from this draft came from outside the 1st round all together 2015 Top 5, had to work back to this one since it had such an impact on the Astros 1-1 Swanson, oops....has had a really good MLB career without a doubt though 1-2 Bregman, needs no comments 1-3 B Rodgers, also needs no comments lol 1-4 D Tate, oops 1-5 Kyle Tucker The two studs have rings with the good guys logo on them Other notables Benintendi 1-7, looked good until he didn't Ian Happ 1-9, underrated pro Josh Naylor, 1-12 Taylor Ward, 1-26 ** Daz Cameron Comp A** Austin Riley, 2nd, stud ** Eshelman** Brandon Lowe, 3rd, would look good at Daiken about now Helsley, 5th Alexis Diaz, 12th Cedric Mullins, 13th Jeffrey Springs, 30th Ty France 34th Top two players from this draft were 1-2 and 1-5 with only Riley coming close after that. Not a deep draft wtih Stars, but the later part of the 1st round turned out a lot of solid pros. Not the depth after that you see in a lot of drafts So going back to 2015, really only 15 and 19 would you say the top players came from the top 5 picks, and even both of those years there were busts in the top 5 MLB is the toughest draft without a doubt. Obviously when you have a top 5 pick it's extremely important that you hit on it, but only 22 out of 35 of those players taken top 5 have turned in to solid mlb players, if they made MLB at all. I think the key is to find one of those studs after round 1. There are several in pretty much every draft, and if you can be the team to find one even if it's one every 3 years, those are the picks that can define drafts. One more thing, I think Dana kind of goes by this theory also. I say that because it doesn't seem like he takes many "safe" picks, if that even exists. Dana take the higher upside lower floor guys. He likely feels like he can go get a solid player where he needs one, but it's never going to be possible to go pay for a true Star, so he drafts for that upside in hopes of hitting on a few at some point
I remember a certain guy around here railing on the Stros, repeatedly, for taking Tucker over Benintendi
Interesting stuff. My thinking is that bench players and middle relievers are easy to come by outside of the draft; they’re cheap to sign as free agents and cheap to trade for. So teams could never draft a single player that sticks on their bench or middle relief corps and they’d be fine, as long as they develop the core plaers. My perception is that the odds of getting a core player are MUCH higher in the top 5 picks than they are later in the draft; I’m not sure if your analysis shows that or not. I also perceive that relative to the slot bonus amount, more core players come from rounds 2 and 3 than they do in the middle of round 1 and after round 3; I have not done much analysis on that so I could be wrong. I agree that Dana Brown approaches the draft looking for core players. He would rather draft 9 busts and 1 star than 10 guys who each spend 5 years in the majors as bench players. And I agree with that approach for the reasons I listed earlier. But there’s risk there because it means you could go for fairly long stretches of picks/drafts without getting much big league value. The good news is that Brown appears to be hitting above the odds, and the Astros appear to have a very effective formula for identifying and developing pitchers in the draft.
The primary reason the draft has not elevated to a prime television event is because the prospects do not immediately impact the teams, so fan interest has been muted, and mlb feels it a waste to promote and highlight guys who may never make it, but I gotta say, that has changed. Lately, the top prospects have been promoted within a year to two years. Benes, Kurtz, Cam, Caglianone, Anthony and more to come. And although most of the prospects have gotten stuck in the mud in the majors, they have been getting promoted like never before. It may be high time for mlb to put some shine on the event and players and see what happens.
Certainly a lot more of this in the last couple of years. The biggest problem with making the draft a big TV event is almost no one knows the guys being drafted until after the draft. College baseball, while I love it, simply isn't a sport that is followed by a large number of people. The percentage of NFL fans who watch college football has to be well over 90%. The percentage of NBA fans who watch college basketball might not be quite that high, but it has to be close The percentage of MLB fans who watch college baseball likely is under 5%
The percentage of football FRPs who log NFL minutes in the first year after being drafted is damn near 100%. The percentage of basketball FRPs who log NBA minutes in the first year after being drafted is damn near 100%. The percentage of baseball FRPs who log MLB minutes in the first year after being drafted is damn near 0%. The percentage of baseball FRPs who log MLB minutes in the second year after being drafted is damn near 0% ... maybe under 5%.
I can't believe Astros lose their 2nd round pick and compensation pick by signing Walker. Those rules don't seem very fair. Lose a superstar, sign a worse player, and lose extra compensation?
Well the rules are designed to disincentive big market teams who go over the CBT threshold from signing players with QO’s attached. Normally teams who sign QO players have the financial might to also sign any star players they already have. Houston’s situation is unique; they got a 4th rounder when Bregman signed with Boston (which would have been a 2nd rounder had they not gone over the CBT in 2024), but lost both a 2nd rounder and a 4th rounder when they signed Walker (which only would have been a 2nd rounder had they not gone over the CBT in 2024). Really that is all fallout from Crane going over the CBT last season to sign Hader. I think the plan the GM had was to stay under the CBT but the Hader signing made that pretty much impossible. They need to stay under the CBT this season so the same thing doesn’t happen this offseason when they lose Framber.
4 of the top 14 picks from the last draft already in the majors. Chase is next to make it 5. They keep coming. The thinking has changed.
