negotiating is a little different when dealing with highschool kids. harder? maybe, but other teams can get things done, so why cant we? you dont see any other team that isnt signing consecutive picks in the top 5 rounds. back to the topic of highschool players. you will almost always have to give them a bit more. why? because theyre giving up college. you have to give them slot money and add some to it. $275k for Dietrich this year (would have been around $300k in 2006, which is what most agents and players went by since bonus reco's went down 10% this year). so you take $300k and add on what it would cost to buy out a player from a college education and an opportunity to up his stock in the 3 years he spends in college. it's already $60k+ in tuition/housing money for those 3 years. $360k would be a starting point IMO, which is almost $100k above slot. i'm not too sure how much tim and drayton would be willing to go, but again, $100k is peanuts to a major league organization considering what the return could be in 5 years. Dietrich was even quoted as saying he wanted to sign. as for Eibner, slot would have been around $175k this year. $200k last year. that's not a whole lot, and he'd probably demand almost double that since he is a highschooler, and giving up an opportunity at Arkansas would cost more than that. how much? considering that he is a raw but projectable pitcher that committed to an SEC school, he's probably looking for $350-400k so let's say Dietrich was asking for $450k, and Eibner asked for $400k. that's pretty fair for highschoolers, and their advisors probably touched on a few things, mainly how the astros didnt have to sign a 1st or 2nd rounder, which gives them extra leverage. not to mention we have a crap farm system and we havent signed anyone for an outrageously overslot figure this year. $850k is my guess for these 2 guys...they were probably willing to do $500k+ for Chad Jones...but not these guys. with the system's history of developing pitchers throughout the years, $400k for Eibner would have been a very good investment. our ability to develop hitters is a bit sketchy, and maybe Dietrich doesnt pan out, but he's our #1 pick. we should have signed him out of sheer principle alone.
oh yea, we gave Koby Clemens (8th round) $380,000 and he wasnt even close to the prospect that Dietrich was.
I don't know what Dietrich and Eibner wanted in regards to a contract, but I do know that they were asking for more than slot money, you could hear that yesterday from Purpura himself when he said it could be safely assumed that the Astros offered slot money. Looking at the update blog from baseballamerica, teams were exceeding the slot price to get their picks signed. Why the Astros chose not to sign their top two picks this year?? I don't know, but I'm sure it wil get spun into how they gave their best effort to sign these players, but that we have to be fiscally responsible. The fact of the matter is that if you want to contend without throwing money around in free agency, then you need to build through the draft. If you want to rebuild the farm system you still need to spend money to get the best players signed and developed. If they thought that Eibner and Dietrich weren't worth above slot money, then they shouldn't have drafted them at the position they did. Just because MLB assigns the slot money value for each pick in the draft does not mean the player has to be signed at that, it is only a guide. If the Astros offer arbitration to Lamb, Loretta and Jennings, and they all sign elsewhere, they could potentially get five picks in compensation from those players alone (depending on whether they are graded type A or type B free agents). Add to that their own first and second round picks and they could potentially have seven picks in the first, sandwich and second rounds in next year's draft. Are they going to refuse to sign any of those potential picks because they don't want to sign at slot money? Way to go Drayton. Thanks for showing us your commitment to building a winning ballclub.
What, did you bug his office? Are you psychic? You have *no idea* what Tim Purpura did or did not do. That doesn't mean he's a good GM, and he's certainly turned in a poor performance this year, but this idea that he just sits around doing nothing but taking an occasional phone call is just stupid.
I think the better question - and one that you alluded to in your questions for Cat - is, if we didn't have 1st and 2nd round picks and have a crappy farm system, why didn't we draft players that we were confident would sign and join the system?
No, in the grand scheme of things (as in beyond just 2007), $100K represents a 28.5% increase over $350. Increase by 28.5% every year, and in just five years you're at nearly $1M for that 3rd rounder, and in year six you're over a million. In year 10 you're at 3.3 million. In year 15 you're at 11.7 million. What you're calling the "grand scheme of things" is actually myopic. If you're talk about the big picture, open your eyes and actually look at it.
Agreed! I'm certainly not intending to say the Astros did well with this draft. Because I don't believe they did (although I have to say I'm not qualified to hold an opinion on it). It's just that, "DRAYTON IS CHEAP AND TIM IS FAT AND LAZY!!!!1!!11! " is *not* the reason it was a bad draft.
It is amazing how far the Astros have fallen overall as an organization the last couple of years. We have on of the worst farm systems in the majors, and then we don't get a player in the first 4 rounds of the draft. It is just kinda sad.
I wonder if this is the nail in the coffin for Purpura at the end of the season. The terrible Jennings deal combined with the draft combined with the record of the team would be enough, you'd think, to get the man fired. I'm just not sure I like the alternative if Randy Smith ends up being hired. We'd be better off with what we got if that's the case.
I know. I wish we could've been one of the more successful franchises in McLane's tenure. Too bad we couldn't count on going into nearly every September with a chance at making the playoffs, making the playoffs six times, or even winning the first ever pennant for the hometown team. Stupid Drayton.
yea, except you and i both know that giving a 3rd and 4th rounder over slot value doesnt automatically mean that bonuses will exponentially grow over the next 15 years due to derek dietrich and brett eibner. if giving these 2 kids an extra 100k to sign means that all 3rd and 4th rounders will be getting $3.3 million in 10 years, then i have a 20 inch penis. its not the 3rd and 4th rounders who are causing the rise in bonus figures, and you know it. we've given over slot value before, why didnt we this year?
Who do I have him mixed up with? The guy who's been at the LSU practices--what was that guy's name? At any rate, my bad.
That's a good question. But I find it interesting that now you're conceding that we've given over slot value before. What happened to, "Drayton is cheap! What's $100k??"? I'm not saying this was done well, because I don't think it was. But neither Drayton's imaginary cheapness nor Tim's well-documented fatness are the cause.
Now you're just being ridiculous. Maybe Drayton isn't cheap, but this all comes back to Timmy's weight, much like this entire season. In fact, if Hurricane Dean strikes anywhere on the Texas coastline next week, it's a direct result of Tim passing through the buffet line for a second time.
i never said drayton was cheap. and i know its not because tim is fat, but he hasnt shown much negotiating skills. reading from the astros.com article, it doesnt sound like he was going to budge from his offers. he needs to do everything he can to get those guys signed. not signing them does not make this organization any better, and down the road, it does not make the astros better. i hope dietrich and eibner both become 1st rounders in 3 years. on another note, reading the articles right after the draft, both dietrich and eibner looked like they wanted to sign, and there wasnt any indication that signability would be a concern. purpura needed to get things done a long time ago. i can understand the 1st rounders waiting things out, but this is just rediculous.
This is because Drayton calls the shots. If Tim isn't budging from "his" offers its because Drayton has ordered him not to do so. Sure, Tim could try to pull all his hair out convincing Drayton otherwise... but that's what caused Hunsicker to go zany, and end up thinking he could turn the Devil Rays into a winner.
So whose responsibility is it exactly that we have a horrible team and won't be adding a single player from the first four rounds of this draft to our widely acknowledged terrible farm system? How many years do they get before they have to perform again?
Drayton doesn't want to pay the money to continue building this team for the future. The reason why we were so successful and made it to the playoffs six times and won the NL pennant was because we had an excellent farm system. Drayton is a businessman plain and simple, spending the money on Clemens and Pettitte was going to yield him instant AIS and more money. Not signing the draft picks is a clear indication that they don't want to continue to build a winner. You can spin it any way that you want, but if the Astros want to continue their success, they need to rebuild the farm system, which costs money. I've enjoyed the Biggio farewell tour and the gimmicks that Drayton has used to draw fans to the ballpark. I'd like to see what he is going to pull out of his ass next season if the team falters again next season.
