Nationals Arm Race

Dane Dunning headlines the 2016 draft class.

On Thursday 6/30/16, the big domino in our 2016 draft class Dane Dunning finally signed, which brought the Nats draft dollar shell game into more acute focus.

For those unfamiliar, here’s how the MLB draft now works with the new CBA-driven draft slotting and bonus system:  Every pick in the first 10 rounds is assigned a slot figure (here’s the 2016 slot figures directly pick by pick).  But you don’t have to spend all those dollars on each of those individual picks; if you “save” $100 by signing your (say) 4th rounder for $100 less than the slot value, that gives you $100 “extra” dollars to spend on someone else.  Any pick made above the 10th round can be paid up to $100,000 without having to count against the total bonus figure, which is important because if you give a 11th rounder $500k, that’s $400k that has to be counted against your top 10 budget.

So, the more important figure to keep in mind is this: $7,635,500.  That’s the sum of all the slot values of the 11 picks in the first 10 rounds that the Nats had this year.  An even more important figure is this: $8,017,275: that is precisely 5% above the $7.6M number, which is the “buffer” that MLB gives teams so as to go above their total slot values (along with a dollar-for-dollar tax penalty) without being penalized with lost future draft picks.

So, that being said, upon the Dunning signing, the Nats (by my calculations) had spent exactly $8,095,000 in bonus money, or $22,275 less than their upper end figure before getting penalized.

Here’s a list of those signees with dollar figures:

The team went way over slot to sign third rounder Jesus Nuzardo, paying him the equivalent of mid 2nd round money to buy him out of his Miami commitment and get him into the fold.  That seems like good value; he was projecting as a 1st rounder out of HS earlier in the year before hurting his arm.   The team went slightly over budget to get Nick Banks, a nominal amount in the end for a US collegiate National team guy who also projected as a first rounder at the beginning of the year.  Lastly they dropped $400k ($300k over slot) on their 11th rounder Armand Upshaw, a move that has been somewhat questioned based on his Juco Stats (he did have a 4-year commitment to Missouri that had to be bought out).  These two big over-slot deals means club basically ended up with an extra 2nd rounder and an extra 5th rounder.  That’s pretty good value.

The team went under slot (as has now become the custom) with a number of its round 6-10 guys to save the money needed for these overslot deals: they got their 9th and 10th rounders for just $10k each (Joey Harris and Paul Panaccione); with all due respect to these two guys, don’t expect much out of them beyond this year.  Surprisingly to me, they got 2nd rounder Sheldon Neuse to sign for more than $200k underslot; this was a guy who was named the Big 12 player of the year this year, was Louisville Slugger 2nd team all-american, was a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes award and was just give the 2016 “Brooks Wallace” award for best college shortstop.  Basically, he had a great year this year and I like this pick.

The side effect of their spending thus far is this: there probably are no more deals to be made.  Here’s a list of the rest of the draft class ( from round 12 to 40) with a quick yes/no flag as to whether they’re signed yet:

So who is left unsigned at this point?  It is a fair assumption that any HS player drafted in the 12-40 range is not going to sign at this point; there’s just no additional dollars to incentivize them and they’ve all got college commitments.  So lets talk about the college players left on a case by case basis:

(Note; in-between the original writing of this post and the publication, both 12th rounder Hayden Howard  and 15th rounder Ryan Williamson signed; the signing of Howard came as somewhat of a surprise to me because he still had some eligibility.  Apologies if I forgot to update a spreadsheet or table somewhere).

• 30th rounder Tristan Clarke: twitter handle is https://twitter.com/TClarke_9 but its protected, so no  hints as to his intentions.  He’s at a Juco now, but has committed to attend “UNO” which I can only assume is the University of Nebraska-Omaha and not the University of New Orleans.  It does not seem like he’s going to sign.
• 34th rounder Morgan Cooper: twitter handle is https://twitter.com/mojaycoop: he missed all of 2015 with TJ, was Texas’ mid-week starter in 2016 and put up mediocre numbers.  He could end up with two more years of eligibility if I read his history correctly, so he makes sense to return to Texas, get into the weekend rotation and improve his draft stock.
• 37th rounder Cory Voss: no idea what his twitter handle is, nor if he’s signed with a 4-year program out of his current Juco.  Tough one to find information on.

Of the HS draft picks:

• 19th rounder Jarrett Gonzales: I cannot find his twitter, nor much information; he’s apparently committed to Grayson Junior College, which would make him draft eligible again next year, so why not roll the dice and play a year of Juco to increase value?
• 32nd rounder Garrett Gonzales, the cousin of Jarrett and they’re both related to a Nats scout in the area.  Committed to Incarnate Ward.  Twitter handle https://twitter.com/gmoneyGarrett7 : this seems like a “favor draft pick” to an area scout who may not have gotten another guy drafted.
• 33rd rounder Ryan Wetzel, committed to Pitt State, twitter https://twitter.com/ryanwetzel21.  Does not seem likely to sign.
• 35th rounder  Tristan Bayless, LHP out of a Texas HS.  Can’t find twitter, can’t find his commitment, not in PerfectGame.org.  An enigma.
• 36th rounder  Jordan McFarland, an OF out of an Illinois HS committed to Arkansas.  No Twitter, little hope of signing.
• 38-40th rounders: the Nats take three local kids Noah Murdock, Matt Mervis and Sean Cook.  Murdock was the Virginia 3-A East Regional player of the year from Colonial Heights HS south of Richmond and is a UVA commit and has already announced he’s going to school.  Mervis is from Georgetown Prep, was 2nd team all-Met in 2015 and in 2016 and is committed to Duke; he was one of the marquee Maryland Prep players in this class.  So both of these were “good” picks.  Sean Cook was a 2nd-team All-Met ins 2016 but doesn’t have a rich pedigree in the scouting circles (he has no Perfect Game profile), and has been quoted as wanting to “walk on” at Maryland.  No offense to the kid, but this sounds like a “favor” draft pick as well to someone connected with the team.   We’ll have more detail on these local-connected drafted kids after the 7/15/16 signing deadline, summarizing everyone with local connections who was drafted.

Summary: I’ll be shocked if any of the remaining un-signed guys signs, so it looks like the class is complete.

Draft Class Stats (SpringfieldFan’s Draft Tracker has all of this data plus its own summarized data too)

• 41 players drafted
• 30 signed, 11 unsigned
• Breakdown of draftees: 10 high schoolers, 4 Juco players, 12 college seniors and 15 college juniors (counting Howard as a “college junior”)
• Breakdown by position: 21 non-pitchers, 20 pitchers.  Of the pitchers, 12 right handers, 8 lefties
• Breakdown by State: 9 of the 41 drafted kids are from Texas.  Another 3 from Oklahoma; this continues a trend we’ve seen where the Nats really, really focus on this SW area of the country.  Other states with multiple players picked: Florida (4), California (3), and Virginia (3).

Of those 30 who signed:

• 2 high schoolers, 2 jucos, 14 college juniors and 12 college seniors
• 14 position players, 16 pitchers.  Of the pitchers, 9 righties, 7 lefties.

If you have any information on guys that I don’t please chime in with a comment.

One additional comment; as we’ve now seen, the Nats have been  highly active in the 7/2 international market, blowing well past their allotted IFA bonus money to sign.  According to Baseball America’s rankings, the Nats signed the #3 prospect in the IFA market this year in Dominican SS Luis Garcia, the #14 player in Dominican SS Yasel Antuna, the #30 player in Venezuelan OF Ricardo Mendez, and another Venezuelan C named Israel Pineda (you know, since they’ve had such great luck so far with Catchers from Venezuela).  I don’t know anything about these players and neither does anyone else besides a handful of hard-core scouting pundits who actually travel to these countries to eyeball these players.  Still, they’re mostly 16 yr olds; HS sophomores.  It could be money down a rat hole, or they could strike gold.  We won’t know for several years in any case.  Its one of the reasons I stopped tracking the Dominican Summer League (and one of the reasons Luke Erickson stopped hyper-tracking the daily machinations of both the DSL and the GCL); call me when they get to the states in a couple of years and we’ll see  how they’re doing.

Carter Kieboom is the first pick of the Nats in 2016’s draft. Photo via PerfectGame

It was a strange first two days of the draft, with no consensus 1-1 overall, some very last minute moves, and some pretty surprising picks.  For me, the best player in this draft (NJ prep LHP Jason Groome) fell all the way to 12th and the Phillies picked a kid 1-1 overall in Mickey Moniak who seems to have the ceiling of a weaker Steve Finley.  We saw a consensus top-5 pick test positive for PEDs (Delvin Perez), and a sub-par CWS appearance cost A.J. Puk millions of dollars as he falls from everyone’s 1-1 prediction to #6 overall.

The Nats seemed to really depart from the draft strategy we’ve seen the Mike Rizzo-led front office follow in the past, where they normally focused on college arms with an occasional high-ceiling prep bat.  Here’s a quick look at the top 10 draft picks with some thoughts.

Pick by Pick: if they’re ranked on the four main rankings sites I like (Keith Law, MLBpipeline, BaseballAmerica, and BaseballDraftReport) I’ll note them as such.  Links to these three master rankings are at the bottom of the post.

• 1s/28: Carter Kieboom, SS/3B from Georgia HS.  Law #27, MLB #45, BA #44, BDR #14:  Brother of our budding C prospect Spencer Kieboom, Carter is thought to be the best of three baseball playing brothers.  Described consistently as a great hitter, one of the best prep hitters in the class, he currently plays SS but is projected to move to 3B.  He’s an overdraft according to MLB and BA but right in line with Law’s rankings (Law tends to favor toolsy prep players over lower floor/lower ceiling college guys).  My thoughts: very surprising first pick here; as we soon find out, the team is clearly focusing on bats this year and has no qualms about picking a guy who won’t feature for the MLB team for years.  Update: he’s *already* signed!
• 1s/29: Dane Dunning, RHP starter/reliever from Florida.  Law #25, MLB #59, BA #60, BDR unranked. Once again, Law has this player significantly higher than MLB or BA.  For me its notable that when projected 1-1 pick A.J. Puk got hit around in the CWS regional, it was Dunning who came in and pitchd 3 2/3rds of 1-hit ball to win the game for Florida.  It wouldn’t be the first time that a college coach mis-used a quality arm (see Illinois using Tyler Jay inexplicably as a closer most of last year).  Dunning goes before even his team’s friday starter Logan Shore and surprised the heck out of me.  Especially when you consider who was still on the board in terms of college arms (notably Anthony Kay and Dakota Hudson, both of whom went in the picks just after Dunning.  I’m talking myself into Dunning though; he was on my very early list for upper 1st round talents anyway, and seems like he was a better pro prospect than guys pitching ahead of him in the Florida rotation.  Florida is known as a great program for developing arms, and he comes to the Nats without a ton of use.
• 2nd/58: Sheldon Neuse, SS/3B Oklahoma.  Law #60, MLB #50, BA #129, BDR #40.  Interesting discrepancy of opinion on Neuse; MLB likes him a ton and thinks the Nats got good value.  He’s a 3-time all-Big12 pick who likely moves to third in pro ball and also throws out of the Oklahoma bullpen (so there’s a reliever fall back; he’s clocked at 94).  At the plate, he’s got a ton of power, profiles as a 3-true outcomes guy and drastically improved his walk rate this year.  The scouting reports also think his big arm could profile in RF, and his size could look promising behind the plate.  He sounds like a polished college hitter with some pop, not unlike last year’s 3rd rounder Rhett Wiseman.
• 3rd/94: Jesus Nuzardo, LHP from Florida HS.  Law #42, MLB #77, BA #50, BDR #58.  The Nats special; a Tommy John reclamation project.  Nuzardo was projecting as a mid 1st rounder early this spring before blowing out the elbow; if he comes back to form, then the Nats just stole a 1st round talent in the 3rd round.  You’d have to think that Nuzardo’s advisor will tell him that it makes more sense to join the Nats and their experienced TJ-rehab team than to head to Miami, but we’ll see what happens.
• 4th/124: Nick Banks, OF from Texas A&M.  Law Unranked, MLB #101, BA #88, BDR #148.  I love this pick; Banks led the US Collegiate national team in hitting just last summer, but his stats backed up after he had a minor surgical procedure.  Skills don’t erode overnight, and Banks was thought to be a mid 1st round pick who slid precipitously.  I think the Nats got an absolute steal here and Banks will be a stud for this team for years to come.
• 5th/154: Daniel Johnson, OF from New Mexico State.  BA #222.  Johnson was the WAC player of the year, hit for power and average.  Barely rated and seems like he’ll sign for slot or less.  Sounds like a nice little value pick.
• 6th/184: Tres Barrera, C from Texas.  Law unranked, MLB #194, BA #284, BDR unraked.  A Catcher who had the defensive flexibility to move around as the Texas team needed him.  This is more than just a filler pick at this point; i’m guessing he signs for a bit less than slot and could feature later on.
• 7th/214: Jacob Noll, 2B from Florida Gulf Coast.  BA #240, BDR #193: Nice slash line for a senior, even if it was in a weaker conference.  367/.427/.620 .  Classic senior sign; 6th-10th round, middle infielder, likely a nominal bonus to save cash for later.  Can’t argue with the pick.
• 8th/244: A.J. Bogucki: RHP reliever from UNC.  BA #263, BDR #388.  Nice stats for a guy at this point: 9.48 K/9 – 4.47 BB/9 – 50.1 IP – 2.86 ERA.  Good MPH on his fastball, looks a little wild though.  I wonder if he signs.  Still has a year of eligibility and he’s in that area where they’re looking for bonus savings.
• 9th/274: Joey Harris, C from Gonzaga; unranked anywhere.  Classic college senior sign who likely backs up Barrera at Auburn.
• 10th/304: Paul Panaccione, Sr. SS from Grand Canyon U.  See 9th round pick; likely a one-and-done middle infielder for Auburn in 2016.

First 10 rounds worth of picks breakdown:

• 8 Position players, just 3 arms.
• 9 College, 2 prep (typical)
• 3 clear senior sign/save on bonus money that I could tell (Noll, Harris, Panaccione)
• 2 more in Johnson and Barrera who could be targeted for under-slot deals
• Regional breakdown: 5 from SouthEast (Georgia, Florida, North Carolina), 5 from the South West (Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona), and one from the upper NW (Washington).

Conclusion: I like the first four picks, a lot.  Keith Law liked the Nats first couple of days too.    I like the focus on hitters after years of focus on arms.  I like the underrated pick up of Dunning over other “big name” guys who may be overrated.   I love the Banks pick; think its a steal not  unlike the situation where Rendon fell to the Nats because of a short-term injury concern.  I know practically nothing of anyone after Banks.

What do you guys think of it?

Draft Links of Use

• MLB.com Official 2016 Draft Central home page.
• MLB’s Awesome 2016 Draft Tracker; you can slice and dice the draft 10 different ways, search by schools and home states, etc.
• Official MLB 2016 Draft Order. Per my “evolving draft order” xls online, The Nats forfeited what would have been the #16 pick and now their first two picks are #28 and #29.  After that, they pick 58th, 94th, 124th and then +30 picks there after per round.
  
• Official Draft Bonus Pool totals for 2016.  Reds and Phillies have the most ($13M+).  Nats have $7.6M
• MLB Draft Database for all past databases.
• Fangraphs Sortable Draft Board; a great new tool Fangraphs has that lets you slice and dice their top draft board.
• Baseball-Reference Draft Tools: links to their draft database plus some custom reports.
• Baseball America’s 2016 Draft Order

Draft Rankings referred to within here:

• ESPN/Keith Law‘s June “Draft Big Board” (insider only)
• MLBpipeline’s top 200 draft prospects:
• Baseball America’s top 500 draft prospects
• BaseballDraftReport big 500.