By Brooks Parker | @Subber10
Astros’ fans, it’s been a long year. Major League Baseball and its club of owners took months to approve Drayton McClane’s sell of the team to Jim Crane. The approval was contingent upon Crane agreeing to move the team to the American League and leaving years of history behind. In the following months, Jeff Luhnow replaced Ed Wade and gave the fans a new hope for the future despite losing over a hundred games. With a shiny new front office that pledged to build the organization by spending on premium talent through the draft and international markets, MLB slapped a CBA on teams that limited spending in those areas. How were they going to secure top talent that carries a premium price tag?
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| Carlos Correa (Bob Levey/Getty Images) |
In steps Bud Selig with the first selection of the draft, and fans eagerly awaited for who could potentially be redemption for the 1992 draft when the Astros passed over Derek Jeter to draft Phil Nevin. Ironically, twenty years later, the Astros went the opposite way and chose the high upside high school shortstop, Carlos Correa.
Correa fits the profile of a draftee from the Astros Director of Scouting, Bobby Heck, absolutely perfectly. Correa is an up the middle athlete that has tools to develop with a phenomenal work ethic and personal make-up to be the face of a franchise. You would be hard pressed to find something not to like about a 17 year old kid that is bilingual, has grown up in poverty and all he wants to do is pay off his family debts with his bonus money. That has to be the definition of being unselfish. To make it even better, he is unselfish to the point that he signs for $4.8M dollars despite MLB saying he’s recommended in the neighborhood of $7.2M.
Did the Astros draft Correa for his potential under slot bonus to save money? Possibly, but Correa was arguably the best player in the draft simply on potential. He’s a long athletic short-stop who could potentially stick at the position and hit for plenty of power. Those types of players don’t grow on trees. He also has a chance to hit for average because of great hand-eye coordination and quick hands. Even if he grows out of short-stop, sliding over to third base isn’t such a bad thing as he projects for that kind of power and would likely be a gold-glove caliber defensive third baseman. You can’t blame them for taking that $2.3M discount. That discount is why the Astros were able to put on a clinic on how to beat this new slotting system. Instead of having to draft players in the following rounds who would potentially sign for slot, they had money to give and could take the best player available, even if it meant players who dropped because of signability.
With the 41st pick, the Astros drafted Lance McCullers Jr., a high school pitcher that Baseball America ranked as the 13th best prospect in the draft. McCullers also fits that Bobby Heck profile as a high character and athletic prospect. His father, Lance McCullers, was a major league pitcher and makes the third prospect in three years to be the son of a former major league ball player (Delino DeShields Jr. in 2010 and Jack Armstrong Jr. in 2011). Gatorade also named McCullers the Baseball Player of the Year for his senior season in which he posted a 0.18 ERA. He features a fastball that has reportedly touched 100 MPH and a slider that induces a ton of whiffs. Even if his mechanics prevent him from being the front-line starter that many project, he could easily slide into a closer’s role without skipping a beat.
In the second and third round, the Astros began to go with what most expected and drafted a potential slot player in University of Florida’s shortstop Nolan Fontana and Arizona State pitcher Brady Rodgers. Rodgers signed for slot while Fontana received a bonus just slightly over slot, but the team could afford it. With the fourth round selection, the Astros pulled another trick out of the bag with high school third baseman Rio Ruiz. He was rated as a first round talent early in the season, but a blood clot took him out of baseball for most of the season. Teams withdrew a lot of interest, especially considering that his price tag didn’t fall with his stock. His slot was $360k but his bonus blew that out of the water at $1.85M! His talent certainly warrants the money as he’s an athletic fielder who will stay at the position and still hit for the position. He is certainly a risk given his medical history, but you can’t fault the Astros for seeing a third first round talent still available with the potential to be able to pay him for his talent level.
The remaining picks that fell within the bonus pool of the first ten rounds went out with a little less drama as they were filled with college juniors, two college seniors, and one more high school athlete. The Astros are rumored to have had a pre-draft deal set-up with sixth round pick Brett Phillips. He was immediately labeled with the signability tag, but with his quick signing that included a bonus just shy of being $100k over his slot, the concerns seemed to have been a bit over hyped.
The Astros were able to save some more money with under slot deals to fifth round Andrew Aplin (Arizona State, OF), seventh rounder Tyler Heineman (UCLA, C), ninth rounder Daniel Minor (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, RHP), and tenth rounder Joe Bircher (Bradley, LHP). University of Florida senior, Preston Tucker, remains the only pick within the first ten rounds to not have signed yet. He is expected to sign because he is a college senior and lacks a lot of leverage.
With the picks that have already signed, the Astros are slightly over their bonus pool and have already committed to paying some tax on their overage. Despite their overage, Luhnow has said he expects to sign all of their picks within the first ten rounds and have the budget room to pay the tax but will not risk losing future draft picks. Even if Tucker were to sign at slot, his bonus will not put them at risk of losing picks.
In the remaining rounds, the majority of picks were spent on college athletes with a few Junior College and high school selections. While most college athletes taken in the later rounds don’t come with the hype, they certainly carry the tag of “sleeper prospect” with them as they develop. Luhnow has already labeled pitcher Aaron West, outfielder Dan Gulbransen, and infielder Austin Elkins as potential sleepers. Outfielder Terrell Joyce, who was drafted in the 12th round, could also carry that label. He has the frame for power potential and was drafted as a sophomore out of JUCO.
The most notable late round selections were the two high profile high school athletes Hunter Virant and C.J. Hinojosa. Both were considered potential first round talents; however, the budget restrictions couldn’t keep up with their bonus demands. Virant, a lefty pitcher, was drafted with the first selection in the 11th round and was the primary insurance for the event that McCullers didn’t sign. He remained an outside shot to sign, depending on the bonus that McCullers and Ruiz received. Hinojosa was drafted in the 26th round, and many fans expected him to sign because he grew up in the Houston area. However, with the athletic shortstop being committed to the University of Texas and wanting first round money, the possibility was very thin.
In short, the Astros put on a clinic in how to achieve top tier talent in the modern draft, even with spending limitations. All it really takes is a firm understanding of what the prospects you have to choose from want in terms of bonus demands. However, in a draft that there is a clear-cut number one overall pick, this strategy likely doesn’t hold the water that it did this year. But, if you have a handful, or even two, prospects that you feel are on level ground, draft the one who likely signs below slot and re-allocate the savings to other picks.
Correa wasn’t the clear-cut top prospect, but there is an argument to be made as such. That reasoning alone allowed the Astros to save $2.3 million dollars in budget room, so they could draft other high profile picks that dropped for one specific reason… bonus demands. So, instead of walking away with a first rounder and supplemental pick in the first day, they walked away with two projected first round picks and then added a third one the next day. Very few teams can say they walked away with anywhere near the amount of talent the Astros did.
To Jeff Luhnow, Bobby Heck and the Astros scouting department…Touché!
Brooks Parker writes for Crawfishboxes.com and was a Guest Columnist for Big Leagues Monthly | Magazine (July Issue).
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