Draft Podcast: Reflecting On The 2017 Draft

0:00This message is brought to you by the Capital One Venture X card. Venture X offers the premium benefits you expect, like a $300 annual Capital One travel credit, for less than you expect. Elevator earned with unlimited double miles on every purchase, bringing you one step closer to your next dream destination. Plus, enjoy access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. The Capital One Venture X card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply, lounge access is subject to change. See Capital One dot com for details. Your sausage McBuffin with egg didn't change. You're receded. The sausage McBuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for limited time. Price and participation may vary. Hello everybody. Jay J. Cooper Carlos Claus from Baseball America Draft podcast. And we are starting a series today. We're going to look back at some recent drafts. What do we learn from them? What do we remember from them? And we're starting with 2017. And we're starting 2017 for a key reason

1:03here. Carlos, I will kick it to you. Why are we starting with 2017? Well, we're starting with 2017 because this is the first my first official draft with Baseball America. I don't know if we can count my 2014 intern year when I was there. You were a Clinton. You were the Clinton intern. That does count to some level, but at least watch the draft in 2014 in the B. Office. But in 2017, I came on in March. So it was very late in the draft cycle. As we covered the draft that Baseball America, maybe right at the start of the draft cycle for most people who follow the draft. But for us, that's coming in very late. And so this was kind of me learning the process, really in a full-time capacity back then, Hudson Blinsky was our lead draft writer, John Manuel was around. He was very involved in the draft. It's actually funny now. I was looking back at some of their pieces around this draft class to try and refresh my memory on what our perception was of this 2017, excuse me, class and seeing bylined mock drafts from John and Hudson was funny. Now, I don't know if we ever

2:06had maybe for the first year in 2018. Me and you did some bylined mocks. I don't think I've ever. I've never, that is a challenge that I am quite willing to never undertake. I mean, because it is, it is so like I was deeply involved on the talking to scouts, going to, you know, like I saw a lot of the guys that previous summer, all that in a what can I do to help kind of roll. But when it came to doing mocks, I had no, that was that was Hudson and John and then it was was a you and, you know, like a minute with all of a sudden it was you. I think yeah, if you weren't helping me on those initial mocks, it was just a me. Yeah, I was doing for it, but I was never being like, oh, I need to put my name on one of these. No, you could do that. Yeah, I will give John and Hudson credit. Their final mock did have the first four correct. They went Royce Lewis, Hunter Green, McKinsey, Gore, Brenna McKay, and their first miss fittingly enough for this conversation Austin Beck and we'll get into that. Oh, we're going to talk Austin Beck. We're going to talk plenty of Austin

3:07Beck. But do you remember your perception of the 2017 class? I mean, for me, JJ, it was, it's kind of funny because I saw in person McKinsey Gore that's bringing and Austin Beck who were the top North Carolina prospects. They were both kind of consensus top 10 players in the class. They both went in that range. I remember watching McKinsey Gore absolutely dominate and then I talked to him after that outing and he was so pissed because he let up like one run and I think two hits, neither of which were squared up and he was absolutely furious. I was like, oh, I thought you just look great. And then Austin Beck, still to this day, one of the more fun high school looks I've ever seen of a position player as an absolutely loaded field of scouts. He hit two home runs, a double, showed off the arm, it was tremendous bat speed. And I remember it was a pivotal spring for Austin Beck too because he was injured. He had an e-Andrea believe it didn't play much this summer before. But I was convinced Austin Beck had to be a star because he was just tool check galore and absolutely dominated his high school pitching. But I don't really have too much of a memory of

4:10how we were reviewing the strengths of this class at the time. It felt fairly muddled at the top. And I'm sure there was the conversation about, oh, Hunter Green is one of the top players in this class. We've never seen a high school right-hander go first. And we had this conversation just a few years ago with Seth Hernandez. So what's your memory of the class and how we were kind of viewing it at the time? I felt like, okay, it was a very like prominent high school class because we had Hunter Green, we had McKenzie Gore. You had a number of these guys here at the top, you know, that you know, we talk about Royce Lewis. It was viewed as I feel like a very solid high school class. The college class, I would say like it was like that there was a clear delineation, right? Like there was Brendan McKay, who was a star. And then you had Kyle Wright kind of who had who kind of fit all the boxes that you were expecting to see in a top of the draft. Pidgeur, he went to Vandy, he was Vandy's ace, he threw hard, he did all the kind of those things

5:10that you kind of expected there. And then after that, it was like, okay, this feels a little more muddled after that college side. And we ranked the top five just serving remembers how our rankings were we had Hunter Green won Kyle Wright to Brenna McKay three McKenzie Gore four and then Royce Lewis five. And I would say like we're going to get into this like when you look at it now with the benefit of effectively 10 years, I would say the most important thing that we didn't know yet. Like this was going to be like when you get to 2019 or so, 18, 19, I feel like that this was a little bit of we were coming off of we had the we had the Akkunya, Otani, Tatees, Vlad Jr. We had this kind of wave, largely of international players. I feel like we had this was a little bit of a draft route is the way I would describe it where like we didn't know at that time, but you look back, I mean 2016 draft

6:13is a truly barren draft, especially when you look at that first round that first round for 2016 the year before was just ugly like and we're going to get into this further, but like on the heels of that to have a 17 draft where I think this is probably a good way to jump into this. Okay, you've got the rankings up there. What about on the college hitter side? Where did we have guys ranked? Okay, so our first college hitter was Adam Hazley, number eight overall. He was the only college hitter we had ranked inside the top 10 if you're not including Brendan McKay. Obviously you could have used to include him as one of the better two way players who've seen in college. At 12 we had Evan White. At 14 we had Kess and Hira second baseman and then at 15 we had Pave and Smith, a first baseman. So as we're kind of running this back and mentioning them, you've got two first baseman, a second baseman and a light hitting I would say at college outfielder, not a super appealing

7:15group just purely on demographics wise. I can go a little bit. And my second base was in quotes with Kess and Hira. Like even like the reports at the time were like we don't know if you'll be able to play second baseman. I believe we in fact actually listed him as second base slash LF because we thought there was a decent chance that he would end up in a corner outfield spot. That's a that is a really I would say that that kind of left a mark. Like if you'd like to go back to our full top 10 hunter green Kyle Wright, Brendan McKay McKenzie Gore, Roy Lewis, JB Bikoskis, Joe Adele, Adam Hazley, but over a month, Austin Beck and Alex Fado. No, that's June first. I'm looking at the wrong one. So you have the full one, I believe. Because I think that's the mag issue version, which maybe is the same. But but what I would say with all of this is there was some uncertainty with this. And I would say even at the top, like one thing I'll say, we also this was a two way guy draft, right? Because yeah, under green was we had listed as RHP slash shortstop. And this was I don't

8:21want people to forget like he was a absolutely legitimate shortstop prospect with real power. Even if he didn't pitch. Yes. And then you have Brendan McKay, who was a true two way player, really a lefty DH, a little bit of first base at Louisville. But like was again seen as if you said that Brendan McKay couldn't pitch. I don't think he's going top five. But he would have been a potential first round talent as a hitter. And then I will even say like Joe Adele was always going to be an out there. But Joe Adele did pitch some of that year. And he was, you know, he had right premium arm. I would say at least. So there was a number of these guys at the top who kind of had that mercenus. And I do the other thing. I think that was kind of worth remembering at the time was is that hunter green also hunter green was was throwing a hundred at a time when a high school pitcher throwing a hundred was a absolutely unusual shocking thing. And he did it. And he was doing

9:25it. We'd had we'd had Tyler Colock, you know, and Riley pint and Riley pint. But he did it in a different way than those guys. It was not that super effortful all out. It was much more easy, graceful athletic. I remember two at the time. There were questions about the deception of hunter green's fastball because he threw quite hard, but it was so easy that it actually got hit around a lot more than Scouts were expecting to at the time. And so there are questions of like, okay, how's that going to play in Pro Ball? If it's not missing as many bats as we expect it to right now. The other thing that jumps out to me about this class as we're talking about it. And I personally love it because the high school pitching is one of my favorites. And I feel like an under under drafted, just in terms of like the talent. But if you look at the top five players by war just in the first round, three of those top five players are high school pitchers. Hunter green is first followed by Trevor Rogers who went 13th overall to the Marlins. Then you get Brent Rucker, Tanner Halk on the college side in McKinsey Gore, who was third overall to the Padres. Those are

10:31top five players in the first round just on B war so far. And we'll see how their careers continue on. But I guess two of those aren't surprising. But what is notable is none of the other kind of consensus top five players are in that grouping. So the fact that you can look now and say, okay, hunter green and McKinsey Gore have kind of surpass what both Brennan McKay and Kyle Wright, who probably then and even now in recent drafts, we will say, okay, those are the safer profiles. You need to go with those guys closer to the big leagues, less chance to get injury, less less of a projection needed on them. But they both come into their own and pitch like at least middle rotation and for hunter green in particular, like top of the rotation type arms at their best. That's where I want to get to. I want to talk about Brennan McKay and Austin Beck and kind of the section we're going to have in each of these look backs is what have you learned from this. We'll get into that right after this quick break. Crafts, I think what people are seeing on the screen and what we'll explain to the podcast audio crowd right now is how I'm a little summer action with Fabletics and then you take us into fall and a little more layering. And here in the east, I'm still

11:35going to go to the shore in the fall. I love the shore in September. You come in from the beach, you throw on a sweatshirt like this, it's light, it's breathable, but you know what is so comfortable. Yeah, and for me, I love working out, but also I'm getting more into tennis, paddle, a little bit of pickleball, all that. I want lightweight, breathable, comfortable and affordable. Let's talk about that. The discounts for Fabletics are massive when you sign up as a VIP shop now at fivebloodics.com slash foul to get 70 to 80% off everything when you sign up as a new VIP. Take a quick style quiz. Be sure to select foul when prompted to unlock this offer. This is a limited time offer. So don't wait. Again, that's fabletics.com slash foul for 70 to 80% off everything as a new VIP. So Carlos, let's start with Brendan McKay. If you say like what have we learned from this draft, it's a lesson that I would love to say you don't, you know, you don't want to be true,

12:36but it kind of I think is like the Brendan McKay story is one the raised drafted him. He wanted to be a two way player and the raise were all on board with him working as a two way player. And again, he had the perfect profile to do it in some ways, which is starting pitcher DH first base, right? So you can do that in a way where every time we hear of, oh, he's a shortstop slash right hand a pitcher. You can't make that work. I'm sorry. You can try all you want. You there's no way to say he's going to pitch and he's going to play shortstop. Those two things don't work together. Arm-carewise first base DH and left hander, you would say, okay, if you're going to line this up, you're going to start a game every week. And that's what they did in the minors as a pitcher. And then you're going to take days off, but then you're going to hit and you could be a DH and you could be a little bit of first base and how many throws do you really make it first base in a normal day?

13:37All that right. It would seem to be set up. And this was a thing that the race were doing. Tanner Dodson is around this era too. The race were embracing, I would say kind of developmentally, the idea of developing two way players. And I would say that bread and macaes story journey is kind of why you don't see teams doing this as much developmentally. I know we still have a couple of Rangers. I have a couple of guys right now. But bread and macae injuries basically utterly derailed his career. I would say it's the way to say it. We don't know, but it was a shoulder injuries, lost time. Then we came back. The stuff just wasn't the same. And if you had it to do all over again, I do not know one could ever know if the wear physical wear and tear, the fatigue of doing both was a part of this. But bread and macaes success. Bread and macae as a first baseman, your kind of hope was he'd be okay. He'd be a okay starter,

14:42right? Not a star. The hope was he was going to be a star lefty. And who didn't throw all that particularly hard at the time. And then we lost the stuff a little bit. Then it became a much more challenging thing. Do you think that bread and macaes have to like kind of being derailed by injuries discouraged teams from kind of going down this path further? I would imagine so. And I also think the bread and macae kind of career path is why even when Jack Caglione was coming out of Florida, why I was so skeptical about the fact that he was a legitimate two-way player. I mean, he had the outfield position element to his game even that he played first base. Plenty in college. I just think more than anything, Shohei Otani is just an outlier. And because we're even seeing with Shohei, I know he's 32 years old now. He did have three seasons where he threw over 100 ratings. But we're even seeing with Shohei where the two-way factor is just challenging for him to do. To stay healthy and to

15:46manage that workload, even for him, it is a challenge. It's something that he hasn't been able to do consistently year in and year out full-time. Really, it reinforces to me that baseball is a sport of specialists. It is incredibly hard to succeed as a hit or a pitcher if that is the only thing you're doing. And I really do think Otani is the outlier who sort of proves the rule. I don't think teams should waste development time, waste the health of players, trying to do it both ways. I just think it's so difficult and the odds of you making it in either action or so low, tack on both to it. You're only adding more opportunities. You're really adding more opportunities, like you said, for overuse injuries, especially if it's a sort of Bubba Chandler, Mason Win. I don't know how frequently Mason Win is actually pitching when he got into propal. I think it was a pretty quick switch. But even Bubba Chandler had a year where he was hitting, he was playing short-stop, he was kind of juggling both. And just the arm care and the maintenance you're talking about. The amount of throw work, catch play that you have to do as a professional pitcher, I think is probably more than people expect. It's much more than just the official innings and

16:49pitches that you're seeing show up in the game logs and the box scores. It's tremendously difficult. If you're a hitter, you need as many ABs and reps as possible. If you're a pitcher, there's just so much that goes on behind the scenes, getting your body ready to throw, just adjusting to the pro schedule. Like if you're only a pitcher going from, let's say college, college to the pro game, you're throwing more frequently, you're expected to throw in a longer season. So that workload alone is a big jump. But then you're adding on all of the stuff you have to do offensively. The reps you need is a hitter. The reps you need defensively, or you're doing a lot more defensive work as a position player and pro ball. I do think that this is why I am always extremely skeptical of two-way players continuing that path in pro ball. I think in high school, it's great. It's great for you to be a natural athlete and to get reps. And at that stage, who knows what side your future is going to be on. There have been plenty of players who were two-way guys, Austin Riley, Michael Harris, two notable ones with the braves, who I expected. And I think the general scouting

17:51consensus was that they were going to be pitchers. And so in high school and in college, if you're a two-way player, I'm fine with it because we've seen basically all the best high school players in the country can help their teams on both sides of the ball. And in college, if you're good enough, I think the schedule demands, the pitching demands, and just the differences in the game can allow you to do both at a high level. So I'm fine with it there. But once you get into pro ball, I really do think we've seen enough players who were over-talented on both sides who've just failed or not been able to do both. That I feel like it is pretty important to kind of figure out where's the upside coming from? Are you better on one side or the other? Where do you need more reps on? And kind of focus on those areas? I do feel like, Shohei Otoni is a generational player for a reason. He was not a harbinger of things to come on the two-way side. Shohei Otoni existing does not make the path any easier for players just because he's doing it. And I think we really should be hesitant about putting like two-way likely outcomes on anyone. Maybe we'll get a generational player in a few

18:56decades, but I wouldn't bet on it. Okay. Austin Beck is the other, what I would say, when I say what things we've learned to lay out, you just kind of laid it out this, but I don't think a player of Austin Beck's profile has a chance to go top six, top seven today just because of as you laid out. Like this is a guy who I think partly because of the Austin Beck story, to be honest, is kind of what I think has taken teams off of this, but it's a little bit more data-driven now. This was a, again, we love Scouts, but this was a difficult evaluation because as you noted, Austin Beck, I won't say that he came out of nowhere. It's not like people were like, who's Austin Beck coming into that spring. But you had to- He was known as- So I can just read the first three lines of our draft report at the time and it'll give you good context. So I believe it was a Hudson at the time, Roa. As an underclassman, Beck was a known commodity for Carolina Area Scouts, thanks to Travel Wall and his own high school team. Then Beck tore his left knee as ACL, just as a

19:59junior year came to a close and missed the entire summer and fall as a result. When Scouts went in to see Beck hit in the cages during the winter, he was a different animal. And then we go into just the- The very plus and plus plus tools he has in his card. But yeah. So this was a player who went from nowhere near the top 100 players in the class coming into spring to a top 10 type talent by draft day. And I do think again, it's unfortunate for Austin Beck, but he is a cautionary tale. Right. Went out that year, is 17 and hit 211-293-349 in the ACL. Okay, adjusting to Pro Ball. Next year in 18-296-335-383 in the Midwest League, which was low away at the time. Probably his best stance in Pro Ball right there. The year after that, colleague, 251-302-411. He's a 20 year old in high A, it is the colleague,

21:02it's not a great year. But I would say like it wasn't something where he had completely gotten the bat blown out of his hands, but you weren't seeing the tools that we talk about, you know, here like really be evident in S. and then COVID hits last year. And really after that, like it really kind of like 198-251-369 the following year, a little bit of injury issues as well, start to crack in. And he's done basically 22s this last year with the A's. He has a double A year within 24 with the Dodgers. And that's kind of his last time in Affiliate of Ball. And what I would say is that this goes back to something that you and I talk about a lot on this. And I'll kind of kick it to you on this, which is that there is a lot of value to the showcase season, especially when you talk about a guy, like when you talk about Austin Beck, if you said you was playing in the CIF

22:03in, you know, he was playing at Orange Lutheran, he was playing at Huntington Beach, you would be able to say, okay, we didn't see it during the summer, but I've seen him five times against, you know, premium talents this spring. That's just not going to happen at North Davis in high school. No, it's not. And as we're recording the podcast today on the site, we had a team of high school, summer circuit, all stars go up in. And what I try to emphasize in that piece is just how critical this period is for the hitters in particular. Because like you said, when you're competing as a hitter over the summer, and a lot of these big national showcases, travel wall tournaments, all-star games, you're facing the best pitching in the country. And what you do in that time period is just so telling in terms of the pure hitting talent that you have, the contact rates you're able to manage against elite pitching. It puts everyone on the same sort of playing field in terms of high level competition. If you're coming from a northern state where you don't get a lot of reps,

23:04if you're coming from a bad area of the country where you're really not facing velocity much at all, it's just super useful in forming scouts like, hey, can you hit high quality pitching or can you not? Austin Beck missed that most critical window of his high school evaluation career. And he is one of, I think it's four players who were taken inside the first round who did not make the major leagues. He was the only player in the first 21 picks to not make the major leagues. The other three who joined him after that are Logan Wormuth at 22, Jaren Kendall at 23, then Chris sees at 29. And so I think the lesson really is you can't go inside the top 10 as a high school hitter if you don't have any sort of track record. And even as a immensely athletic toolsy up the middle position player because Austin Beck was a center filter who ran at a high level. He had a tremendous arm, he had tremendous raw power. Just that hit piece is a huge question mark. And I remember it also being a question mark for Joe Adele in a different way because Joe Adele was on the circuit, but he had a huge swing

24:08in misquestions. He had a lot of strikeouts on the circuit and then he came back during the spring and he dominated bad competition. So I remember that being a kind of a conversation piece as well, like how much does Joe Adele's spring against bad performance make up for the fact that he did struggle on the summer circuit? And if you look at Austin Beck's mind-lead career, he had three stints where he was a league average or better hitter if you're looking at WRC plus. It was that 2018 low A season, which is I think is best in it because it was the biggest volume of games. 123 games he had a 104 WRC plus the strikeout rate. I'm circling here 21.9%. Then in 2022, he had a 4 game stint in the complex league of recounting this. The WRC plus does clear the 100 threshold. The strikeout rate is below 30% in this stretch. And then his final one, 2024 AA with the Dodgers, he did nearly get over 103 with the 35.1% strikeout rate. And that's largely because he was tapping into that power with a little bit more frequency. But outside of that, it was a huge

25:08struggle for Austin Beck. And I do think the lesson is like, hey, to go in that range, at least, there are going to be plenty of players who go lower in the draft with either bad or no offensive track record in the summer. But that high, you had to be very, very careful about taking high school hitter. The other thing, the other two guys, I think that we should talk about as far as lessons learned and all is I would summarize this as you can't force that everyone loves to have college bats at the top of the draft college bats are safe, college bats are safe. When we talk about Adam Haisley, when we talk about Pave and Smith, who were really prominent bats, top bats in this class, those are two others that I would bring up as saying, I don't know, like, the game is changed now. And I do think it's one of the things that's tough we got to remember about this is 2016, 2017 college baseball, very different environment. Like we were out of the worst of the

26:10adjusting to the new bats where like we have the Chris Bryant year, where it's like Chris Bryant hit homers and no one else in college baseball did. We're not there anymore. This is a year that Jake Adams hit 29 bombs, Nico Holstizer hit 27. So we're not there, but at the same time, we're also not in an era at this point like we are now where everyone in college baseball is hitting for power. And I would say that was kind of the question with like both Pave and Smith and Adam Haisley, I would say it was kind of that with the way I would describe it, I kind of want to ask you kind of like what you know like that they were okay, maybe they're corner profiles, maybe they're like it was I felt like that they were like in hindsight they were, but I felt like at the time, there were little hints there that these could end up being tweeners. But what are your memories especially now what we've added to it since yeah, both of them you look at their profiles now and

27:14they just don't have the typical sort of tool sets or the tool set and kind of defensive profile combination that you would think of as a top 10 pick in the class, both them going seven and eight. I mean, even for college players like Adam Haisley always felt like a little bit and I hope I'm not doing too much like hindsight coloring of my views on the player at the time, but Adam Haisley was this very well rounded player who you were hoping hit for above average pure hitting ability and stuck in center field. I think even at the time there are some questions about whether or not he was fast enough or good enough defensively to stay in center field. And if he moves to a corner, then the sort of power question that he always had is something that becomes even more of a concern with his game. Paid Smith, I was just going to note our right up at the time said that he you know, he could stick in center as a pro, but may slide to a corner, which translation is normally when you read that is he has a chance, but he's going to have to really work at it and get better at it

28:14to be able to stay there. So that was a right up at the time. And then Paid and Smith, I think for large stretch of the spring and maybe even the entirety of the spring, he had more homeruns than strikeouts, but I think that was more representative of the fact that he didn't strike out a lot. It was not he was some huge home run hitter. He did have one of these sort of odd profiles for a first basement. He was a really good defender. He made a lot of contact, but he didn't have the sort of either offensive approach or raw power that allowed him to to access much in the way of damage. And again, you're taking a first basement out of college inside the top 10. I'm not sure how much people were projecting on his power to come at the next level, but like you really have to nail the pure hitting tool if you're taking that profile inside the top 10 picks. And so I don't know, like Paid and Smith maybe stands out the more of the two because Adam Haysley was selected right in a range where where we had him ranked, but guys like Nate Pearson, Shane Baws, Alex Fado,

29:19we had Kess and here a ranked right above Paid and Smith. I imagine the defensive profile put a lot into that, but yeah, I do think it is the case where even if yeah, you probably want college hitters. If those players aren't on the board and you don't have the supply, you really have to be careful about pushing those profiles up the board just because historically those are the demographics that pan out. I would say with this like in hindsight again, and I am not saying like we had Paid and Smith ranked ahead of Jake Burger. But in hindsight, you were talking about we had two first base profiles. Burger was 20 on our list. Paid and Smith was five spots higher than him. And if you look at it, I would say that Missouri State versus Virginia played probably, I mean, versus, yeah, you're a play to the part of that. Yeah, I would say that, that like, but I would sexually say also though, like the funny thing about it is, in this case, I do think the fact that everyone kind of didn't think that Burger was a third baseman kind of worked against

30:20him where it was almost like Paid and Smith didn't get to do this. He didn't at least play third base. Yeah, it is interesting when that happens when you're like, hey, we think you're going to move to first base versus the guy who's already at first base and is good at that position. Like, would you really rather have the guy who's already only playing first base? I think in hindsight, it's like we should have given more credit like, hey, Jake Burgers, at least able to go over there and play some first base throws with his left hand. So there's no scenario where he's right. He's very good. Like, that and that was part of it. But it's like, but like, but Jake Burger that year, like if you're just kind of comparing it though, Jake Burger hit 22 homers that year, Pavez Viv hit 13. And if you look at it, what's happened in the long run, Jake Burger has just way more power. And I would say if you said we had ways to evaluate power at that time, but I do think if you just fast forward that like six, seven years and you said, oh, we now have EV data

31:22on every one of these balls that you guys have hit, the difference between a burger and a Smith might have stood out a little bit more than it did at the time. I do think I remember the interesting debate at the time, again, when you talk about burger, like burger and Jeremy Irman were both kind of that same area. And Irman was kind of this power hitting shortstop who might not be able to play shortstop. Burger was this power hitting third base, been who not be able to play third base. Burger ended up being obviously the much better of those two. But it is kind of the challenge of this was that you were talking about something here where you had these two guys who you could kind of mix and match and compare to each other. The other one, I think we have to bring up, who's ended up being the best of this group. Like Brent Rucker was a very unusual profile at the time. This is coming on the heels, by the way, of the top the top ranked hitter by B war

32:24among all first Trump picks so far. And he's fourth overall behind Drew Rasmussen who didn't sign 31st over the race, Hunter Green and Trevor Rogers, that's the top three. And then you have Rucker. And I would say that with Rucker, it's kind of like funny, we talked about with Austin back and how like he rocketed up this despite the lack of showcase track record. In Rucker's case, I do think he was limited in some cases by the fact he had a great year that year. But he was a red shirt basically, he was a, you know, like he was, he was a red shirt junior. He like he hadn't he was a, there was defensive questions and it was like how fluky is this year? Because it was like, we didn't expect to see a year like this. Because he was also not a super high profile high school commit if I'm remembering correctly and reading from our draft report. He was not one of these players who everyone knew of in high school. He just gets to college because signability factors. I just think he was a kind of unharbleded high school recruit. And then you're talking about his

33:28college track record being shorter than maybe you would love. He was a, he was a 38th round pick the year before when he was draft eligible. And everyone was like, yeah, we're kind of, you know, he was viewed as kind of this org type player. Then he had this monster season. I think there was just this skepticism that kind of stayed with that that in hindsight, like again, I will say the defensive questions kind of to go back to kind of the Jake Berger thing. I think that even when he was a twin, the twins drafted him and never really kind of gave him a full-time job because it was like he's not good enough defensively in a corner, which he wasn't. And he wasn't a good first base. And he was the case where the A's kind of basically said, D-H. And once they did that, it was like, oh, I just get to hit. That's all I really want to, that's all that that's that's what I'm good at. And it's ended up really kind of blossoming that way. We're, we're going to dive into a little bit of the later rounds. But before we do that, I do want to ask you like, who else at the top or the near top of the draft, you think I would say, you know, I just

34:33want to note that we had two junior college players in the first round. They don't see that very often now. But what else stood out to you? I mean, is this too soon to move into the Dalton Varsho conversation? I think this is the perfect time to move into the Dalton Varsho. Perfect. Let's do that. Because I mean, Dalton Varsho, as we sit here today, is the best pick, best player from this this draft class. Overall, he was taken 68th overall in the second round by the D-backs. We ranked him number 100 at the time. And at the time, he was an unusual catching prospect who was very fast. His arm was questionable. We, I think, viewed him as a three to five round talent. So Kudos to the D-backs for popping him here. In the second round, he's been worth 18.7 war as of this recording. The D-backs actually have the best overall draft haul from this from this draft class. They are at the top right now with 26.2 war of their entire draft class. A bulk of that is

35:35from Dalton Varsho. Their other successful pick was seventh rounder Jose Caballero. These are, I mean, if you line up everyone who signed, again, like maybe we can talk about the side of that. What if scenarios? I don't care about what is scenarios that much because of those are players who, when they were picked, they, we knew they weren't going to sign. But if you, so if you're just taking the players who signed, the D-backs have two of the top eight best players. Jose Caballero has a nine more career. He cracks the top 10 of this list, which maybe speaks to some of the drafts of this year's draft class. But getting that return in any draft in the seventh round, I think is a massive win. And it does enough for the D-backs to kind of put them over the top here, over the twins. And I will say for the twins, them picking where they did having extra picks in the 30s. I feel like this has to be viewed as a pretty successful draft for the twins in hindsight, giving how the class panned out. But you can

36:37push back on that if you want. But I definitely think the D-backs are the big winners overall. I agree with that. No, obviously, I didn't get the value of a rooker. Although the D-backs also got very little of the value of Dalton Varsho. And I don't think they got any of Jose Caballero's Major League or value, but I will just think that and because they got Gabriel Marano, though, four Dalton Varsho. So they did get real value for him now. Yes. And I will say the accumulated was with different big league teams. I guess it's a more precise way to phrase that. Right. But I would say though, that's the difference between them. If you want to knock the twins here, yes, Roy Lewis, again, at the top of the draft, Roy Lewis has had a little bit of an up-and-down career, but he is a regular. There have been highlights, even with a lot of injuries. You definitely rather have him then say a Brendan McKay in the long run. But what I would say is this, but Brent Rooker, they get credit for drafting him, but they didn't get value for Brent Rooker. Dalton Varsho was a hit where they drafted the D-back, drafted him. And then he had real value when they traded him.

37:38And that's kind of one of those trades that kind of really did work out for both teams. Like, the D-backs were like, Varsho's really is this weird center-fielder catcher type, but we need a full-time catcher. And the Blue Jays ended up being like, we've got actually one of those in Alejandro Kirk, but we need as a center-fielder. And so Gabriel Marano, you go to the D-backs and Dalton Varsho, you go to the Blue Jays and everyone wins. But I would say with that, though, the thing that stood out to me is there aren't a ton of massive wins second through tenth round. But they are athletic. Every one of them, that would say the biggest wins. Dalton Varsho, Ernie Clement, who by the way, the crazy part of this is that Virginia team. We just talked about it. They had two of the top college hitters in the class. And those guys at the end of the day have been trumped by their teammate Ernie Clement, who was a Cleveland's fourth round pick, 132 pick overall. And then the raise, and again, this one, I think, I would say that most people

38:44would not kind of imagine that Taylor Walls has as much war as he does. The value of a defensive shortstop. But the raise took Taylor Walls third round 79th overall. And that ended up being another of these picks where when you look at long-term reggae, this is just not a class that you look back on and go, oh, there are, you're good. The story's not fully written. But it's written enough to say this is not a draft that you would go back. I would say in hindsight, this draft is ended up not being as good as it was thought to be at the time. Right. And I did want to circle back to the twins here, maybe fold in. We can start talking about some post 10th round wins essentially. But I don't want to get to that because we have a team that really did kill it after the 10th round. We'll get to that right if it's quick break. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat, the sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants, the tea that you always reach for first. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. And that's what Quince does best. Quince folks is on

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41:50Brought to you by the Capital One Saver Card. With Saver, you earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining, entertainment and a grocery stores. That's unlimited cash back on ordering takeout from home or unlimited cash back on tickets to concerts and games. So grab a bite, grab a seat and earn unlimited 3% cash back with the Saver Card. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital one dot com for details. So Carlos, let's move on past the 10th round. This was the twins. I think kind of the start of something that they became really, really good at. It's exactly what I wanted to mention. Their best player from this draft isn't Brent Rucker. It's not Roy Lewis, at least in terms of bigly war accumulated. It's Bailey Ober who they drafted in the 12th round. 346 overall pay. Signed him to 125,000 dollar bonus. And like you said, the twins, I feel like from maybe this point, maybe maybe as a few years earlier, I'd have to go

42:50back and look at all their drafts. But the twins have been one of the better teams really for much of the last decade, in my opinion, on getting value from college pitchers into three to 20 round range. Bailey Ober is one of those. And I think there are a lot of pitchers just in general that have found more success than their first round peers who have much better stuff at the time of the draft. And a lot of the time these players have won or several of the following traits. It's strike throwing ability almost across the board. Bailey Ober was a really impressive strike throw or throughout his career. I think he had 260 innings, less than two walks per nine is what we have in his draft report. Another common trait of these college pitchers who pan out are pitchers who are discounted because they had injury questions at the time, which is maybe something that we wouldn't actually think about. I think a lot of the time we're talking about college pitchers, we're talking about, oh, you can get this survivor ship bias angle, take the guys who are healthy and state healthy. I think a lot of the big wins, if you look at recent years, two or three rounds plus,

43:53their pitchers who other teams pass on because they had injury questions. Another thing is that these are players who don't necessarily throw hard now, but their players who teams can coax more velocity out of in Pro Ball. And then I would say the fourth one. And I'm not sure if this definitely was or wasn't the case for Bailey Ober, but it's also been the case for several of the hitters we talked about, Jose Caballero. It was mentioned in his draft report, but just make up competitiveness, ability to make adjustments and compete. So those four traits, I think we could throw out a litany of college pitchers over the years who have been able to overcome their draft day ceiling projections. Parker Messick is maybe a standout example of this. I think Cleveland is another team who's done a great job in this area, but Bailey Ober represents the twins best pick from this class and what we would continue to see year in and year out from that organization. But there may be even is a more exciting team to mention here for late round wins that isn't even

44:55possible in today's draft. I will say there is no question about this. If you say the award for the 2017 draft of doing more with less goes to the Houston Astros. And I don't think it's really to be honest, it's not close. Exactly what everyone is hoping for for the 2017 Astros wasn't it? Exactly. You know what? You know, a wobble love team that everyone, but no, I mean, I will say this is something that again, they were really good at. They didn't, this was their best year at it, but they let me let me throw you this, JJ. So the Astros ranked fourth in total war from this class. They're combined, be war with their first 10 round picks is negative 4.2. So let that do a whole whole. Like they value from any draft is coming from first round. Like generally, if you're not hitting on your first round, you probably didn't have a good draft. The Astros say no, no, no.

45:59They had three players worth more than five war after the 13th round, JJ, two of them after the 20th. We don't even draft 21st through 40 rounds, but they have a 21st at 26 in a 13th round pick that are just tremendous success stories. So okay, they took JB Bukaski's in the first round that year. And basically out of North Carolina, remember watching him pitch, I remember watching him pitch that year. And Michael Iess, who was scouting director for the Astros at that time, was at that game. That was firmly burned in my mind. Should've thrown that into the last mock draft. And then they also took Corbin Martin, they took JJ Madageevich. I would say the Astros at the top that year were kind of getting into their realm of like we like college hitters, we don't care what they look like. We don't care about the defensive questions. And that didn't always work for them. That's where they got the Madageevichs. They got the Seth Beers and all that just didn't really pan out. As you said, Joe Perez, like Tyler Ivy, Peter Solomon, Parker Mishinsky, Corey Jolkes,

47:06they they took guys who made the majors and the top 10 rounds. But no one in those top 10 rounds who really ended up, I would say that Bukaski's in Martin, all like they were traded to the D-backs. Well, along with one of the guys we're going to talk about, you know, in a trade, believe those, the Granky trade if I remember right. So they did get value of some sort for them. But just take us through what they did in the late rounds of that draft. Yeah. So in the 13th round, they take Jake Myers out of University of Nebraska. He's been more 7.3 war so far. They signed him for $125,000. I believe Jake was ranked at the very back end of the BA 500. We had him ranked at at 457. At least I got him because that was that was my area that year. I know that was my area. And at least I didn't completely miss. Okay. And then in the 21st round, this is where things really get exciting for the Astros.

48:09They took Chasm McCormick out of Miller's Village University of Pennsylvania in the 21st round. BREF doesn't have the signing bonus, but I believe McCormick signed for just $1,000. I think we have that on the BA draft board. I'll hop to double check and see if he was on the BA 500. I'm going to assume no, but also, no, after words. And then there are other big win here in the 26th round. Pick number 781, also signing for a whopping $1,000 signing bonus. Josh Rohos, second baseman out of the University of Hawaii at Manau, he has been worth 5.5 war. And so literally just these three players have essentially put the Astros into top five territory in this draft class. In terms of total work humiliated from players again, who signed? Anyone who wound up being some star who was 35th round pick and didn't sign? We're not counting for this exercise. That's above the reds who had the second overall pick and hit on the pick. So that just tells you, especially

49:11in a 40 round draft, if you're hitting multiple times on actual big ligures, those picks are not getting a lot of attention. Nobody really knows of those players, even us at the time. We're being drafted in that stage. It's not a sexy area, but it can be absolutely pivotal in terms of how your team is going to be able to compete in the value you're able to gain there. Again, they had negative war value from their first 10 rounds and their still number 4 overall and total war accumulator from this draft. It's insane. We had that year 1267 players that we had, right? Between stateless notes, all that. I'm sure there's more, but in our database of how we kept things together, they made it. Which again, and I'm not even faulting us, right? $1,000 players, you're not... I'm glad we got Jake Myers. Our write-up on Jake Myers isn't a...

50:14It's not terrible. I will say when I read it, it's like basically what it said was, hey, it does have writer, JJ by it. He was there lefty Sunday starter, but who also played center field, modest power disappeared as a junior, controls his own draws, walks gets on base, runs the base as well. He's a 70 runner, who plays a good center field and can throw. The tools were there, but I would say that the read was also difficult in part because he was also a pitcher, but also that hinted at his well-rounded game as athleticism, all that. But also, it does kind of fit in with this also in that we say that this isn't a great draft. I don't think as impressive those are, I don't think that you come away from it going, man, how did you get Jake Myers? That's not the guy that comes... This is not like, hey, let's share a story about Evan Longoria being drafted, or let's talk about the day that the

51:17Astros got Carlos Coreia or anything like that. This just wasn't a great draft. This was not a draft at the end of the day. This is not a draft that you... I think it's very useful to kind of be a reminder of, at the end of the day, not every draft is a really good one. We're going to rank them every year, but you also have to have that kind of natural skepticism. Give a little sneak peek. Like I said, we're going to go forward from this. That next year's draft, we're going to be saying some of the same things. This was not an era where... I do always wonder. I do have to wonder how much does 2020 play in that? We do have a lost year coming up here. I think the what if you could play with... Again, we mentioned for Austin Beck, like his first few years pre-COVID, it wasn't exceptional. It's not what you wanted to see from a player draft

52:18that high, but he was in the ballpark where you would like to be... If you could run that one back and say, if his reps at that time, a player with his background, probably more important than any player to get as many real game reps against quality pitching as possible with things to pin down differently. No, JJ, fun to exercise to look back at this, see what it takeaways are to pan down some names that maybe we've forgotten about. Just kind of refresh ourselves on. I do think the exercise of whether it's doing a redraft, whether it's just going back and looking and talking through, seeing what the caliber of player you're getting once you're sorting by war. What are the caliber of player after the first ten argon? Is always a good reminder of expectations for the draft. No, this was fun to talk through and I'm sure we're going to have a lot of fun with the future ones. I think I do want to end it with this, because again, each of these drafts, we were both involved pretty intently in them. I don't want it to be a backpack, a backpack exercise. I want to go the other way. Looking back at this, by the way, because Drew Rasperson, a guy we didn't talk about,

53:21we talked about Andrew guys, Drew Rasperson's one who was, you didn't sign that year, but again, Drew's going to be an injury guy who he's not having success. But who is the player from this class that you look at? I think it's got to be recently prominent that you look back on and go, oh, I was wrong about that guy. I mean, it's got to be Austin Beck for me. So again, for this class, I didn't have the full summer circuit. I didn't see a lot of them and I wasn't forming my own opinions. I was doing a lot of like kind of logistical help on this draft internally, but I would say him. And then I also really remember being excited about Brady McConnell because I believe I saw him at NHSI that year. He was excellent there and showed some tools. So he's another one I like to didn't pay out. And then maybe the most fun one who draft nicks and baseball, America fans will definitely remember, but Michael Mercado was one of the more exciting late risers. Super lean, had this really extensive pregame routine that he was doing before his, his starts that was

54:22really polarizing for scouts at the time. And I was really excited about him. So those would be three players who I liked who didn't pay an out. But again, I'll definitely have better, better options for this question. Won't be look at the 2018 class. How about you? I'm not saying like I was all on board, but I will say Mason House, who was the kind of guy who gives you sleepless nights doing this, you know, like there's always going to be some pop-ups who are like, oh, this guy's got, and I've really come to learn. I'm very, very now reticent to really buy in on pop-ups. Mason House is one of those reasons why because it's like, yeah, I'd never heard of him. And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, he's got to be in the top hundred. And then he's getting money. And then it kind of just all, and I, I, I, I feel like that I could, I might even highlight a couple of those guys, not to pick on them, but to highlight those that like that is kind of a kind of I feel like a continuing theme about this year after year. Kevin Smith in that range who ended up having a little bit of a bounce as a prospect in the

55:25miners after that. But the Maryland Shorestop is another one that I kind of was enamored by at least a little bit at the time. Yeah. Those are two that kind of really stand out. But I would say that, that overall, like, yeah, it's something where it's fun going back and looking through this and trying to remember, like, again, to try to remember what you were thinking the time. I do remember I was a big Brent Rooker guy. But that was because I was, you know, like, I just, I've been burned on this other time. It's just like, if you hit like this in the SEC, I just struggle to believe you're not going to be good. And then you're working on that one. So that's one I'm so sorry about. But this was also the other thing about this draft is is that I should think it's worth mentioning as we wrap it up. This was the draft that they, I would say that the Texas Rangers had like truly a, they were in a stretch here where like, so Chris C. was I think going to be like, if you had one guy who's going to pick out us like, oh, what could have been? Or you could say,

56:27Brennan McKay with the injuries. Chris C. who was the shortstop that they took at the very back of the first round, injuries really derailed his career. Barely got to play. But those, yeah, this is when the, this is when the Rangers were, I mean, not that they didn't just also go for it. But Bubba Thompson, Chris C. and then Hans Kraus, one, two, three at the top. Big swing. Got a big swing. You know, I mean, Chris C. in the end played a total of 266 games in his career. injuries really did derail it. But there seemed to be some things there in those few moments when he was healthy. So yeah, go wait a wrap it up. We're going to continue this series. I think you could probably figure out that 2018 will be next up on the baseball America draft podcast. Do check out also everything over at baseballamerica.com. If you haven't seen it already, James Anderson has joined us as our lead fantasy analyst. So if you're interested in fantasy baseball, I'll do check that out. And I think, you know, like it, there might be, there might even be go check out the story that might be a code there that still may be active, depending on when you're listening to this

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