By Chris Glover
With the rule 4 amateur draft underway once again, it seemed like as good a time as any to kill a couple of hours over at The Baseball Cube’s draft research tool. While looking over the past few years of data, I was struck by something that may be well known, but wasn’t evident to me: the Rays haven’t had a single player drafted after 2007 reach the majors (David Price, Matt Moore and Stephen Vogt were the last players to do so, drafted in 2007).
The list of players drafted between 2008-2011 who are already in the majors has now reached 143, though admittedly a sizeable portion of the list has only enjoyed a cup of coffee as a September callup or injury replacement thus far in their careers. Still, every other major league team has had at least one player from the last four drafts make it to the show, led by the Detroit Tigers with 10 such callups (how much legit major league talent the group will have outside of Alex Avila and Jacob Turner is however debatable). The highly rated Blue Jays front office have set the standard in the AL East, with seven players reaching the bigs already, though again, how many of these outside of Drew Hutchison will turn into anything more than utility/bullpen types is questionable.
When looking at these lists you must consider opportunity, as you are going to see more callups from teams with weaker squads or those who suffer an inordinate amount of injuries. For example, you wouldn’t want to hold the lack of a callup in previous years of an Alex Cobb or Jesus Montero – who were blocked by quality players ahead of them – against a front office.
With the Rays though, I’m not sure that is the case. Looking at Rays Prospects top 30, you find just four players drafted in 2008 or 2009: Tim Beckham (9th), Tyler Bortnick (27th), Jeff Malm (29th) and Luke Bailey (30th). Given the multitude of injuries over the past few weeks, Beckham may well have found his way to St Pete’s if not for his untimely suspension but even with a possible uptick in power and improved defense, it’s fairly evident he has an uphill struggle just to avoid the dubious honor of being one of a handful of first overall picks to never make an MLB roster (alongside former Ray Matt Bush, of course).
2009 was not a good draft and the Rays may well have done well to pick someone who ultimately didn’t sign (LeVon Washington, picked 30th, is currently in the Indians organization but doesn’t generally figure too high in their own prospect charts) until they used the pick on Justin O’Connor who is yet to impress so far. You can cherry pick names like Jason Kipnis (63rd), Will Myers (91st) or Brandon Belt (147th) who were available with the Rays on the clock, but only Myers was a serious option for the Rays at 30, and he brought strong signability issues, eventually costing the Royals $2m to lock him up (the Rays apparently refused to go over the recommended slot of $1.1m for Washington).
The class of 2008 has provided big league quality already with the likes of Eric Hosmer (3rd), Buster Posey (5th) and Brett Lawrie (16th) all already well on the way to ranking among the top-10 of their position. Posey, of course, is the name which is generally brought up when critiquing the Beckham pick, and not totally unfairly, given that many outlets had Posey as the man to take heading into draft day.
This should not be construed as a major criticism of the front office, but more a reminder of just how hard the draft process is, and the pressure a front office is under when a lack of hits in the amateur market means significant minutes for players discarded by other teams, with resources to go out and grab a Roy Oswalt simply not available. As much as we all bristle whenever anyone questions the team’s ability to compete long term, we can see that misses in the draft, even if few and far between, can quickly leave a hole in the team’s production line. With the front office constantly walking a tight rope, you can at least understand the perception that the Rays cannot continue to succeed without a larger payroll (though I personally maintain that this overly simplistic viewpoint is misleading and success can be had for less money, it’s just harder to maintain, as shown here).
The good news, of course, is that the Rays have been as, if not more, successful in acquiring talent from other teams’ farms with Hak Ju-Lee, Chris Archer, Brandon Guyer and Alex Torres all ranking in FanGraphs’ top-15 Rays rankings having arrived in the Matt Garza and Scott Kazmir deals respectively. Throw in some decent talent from the 2010 class along with 2011’s historic class (in terms of quality depth, at a minimum) and you can probably suggest the Rays have avoided any lasting impacts from these two potential off years.
Whether the comparatively expensive Pena and Scott signings this year were a symptom or the cure for these rare misses is arguable but with the depth and quality of farm talent looking more promising in a couple of years, they should hopefully be enough to fill a rare void in the Friedman production line. With Upton likely gone this year and Shields starting to get pricey ($9m in 2013), the Rays can’t afford for too many more big swings and misses if they are to continue this unlikely run of success.
2012, Round 1 Selection: Richie Shaffer (3B, Clemson)
It was a quiet night for the Rays front office after running the show last year, as the Rays held just a single pick (25th), which they used on Richie Shaffer, third baseman (for now) out of Clemson. The best links on Shafer and immediate reactions are below:
“While there are holes to his swing, his bat is his best tool. He has plus power and can hit the ball out to all fields. He’s played both infield corners, showing off a plus arm from third, but his range might be better suited for first. He’s not a bad athlete and his power bat and arm might profile well for right field. Shaffer is always going to have some swing and miss to his game. But his ability to be a power-hitting run producer will make many teams interested in living with the strikeouts.” MLB.com
“He’s one of those guys who has a chance to get here relatively quickly. We never move guys too quickly, but on a relative scale pretty quickly.” Andrew Friedman
“He’s one of the guys we thought in this Draft that stood out, that brings real power and power now,” R.J. Harrison
“Some scouting directors thought he was [the] biggest impact college bat” Jim Callis, Baseball America
“Shaffer moved up as much as any college bat this season, showing improved defense and a patient approach at the plate. He makes good contact and has above-average power and, if he stays at the hot corner, could be a David Freese-style addition for the Rays . . . could hit the majors by the end of 2014.” Jason Churchill, ESPN
Awesome write-up, Chris!
Thanks Merrill. I love the draft and could spend hours pouring through the old picks!
I think that the 2008 and 2009 drafts were weak because the Rays spent all their money on MLB payroll those years, thinking (correctly) that it was our time to shine in October. The Beckham pick was clearly always about money. I am sure they thought Beckham would be a very good player, but there was really little doubt that if money wasn’t a factor Posey would have been the #1 pick. The Rays seem to have decided after the 2007 season that it was better to spend the money they had to build a MLB bullpen for 2008 and try to win now than to pay a $6 million signing bonus to a college catcher (or to Pedro Alvarez) who wouldn’t have been able to help them in 2008, even if he was very likely to be a big part of the team by 2010. Can’t really fault them for that.
I think money is always a draft consideration for the Rays and, always has been a draft consideration for the Rays. I am not sure you can tie the picks in 2008 and 2009 to the money the Rays spent on the Major League club. I think they just have to be conscious of huge capital investments in minor leaguers. Think about it. For example, they took Dewon Brazelton third overall in 2001 instead of Mark Texeira because of Scott Boras.
2001 is a different animal. You of all people know that you can’t really compare any Namoli’s group did against what Sternberg is doing.
My only point was that money questions in the draft aren’t necessarily new and don’t seem to be related to the big club’s roster costs.
It’s an interesting angle and one I hadn’t thought about. We (well, I) tend to think of signability more in terms in the value an individual player wants and how that fits into your pool of draft cash, rather than the cash of the club as a whole. Of course, it’s a business just like any other so if you spend more in department A, department B may well suffer. That said, I think management know how important the draft is and I would venture that they would have dipped a bit deeper if they really felt Posey was a realistic sign and for not that much more cash.
In the end of course, Beckham, Posey and Alvarez all signed for essentially the same money (~6m) though I recall that Beckham’s bonus could be spread over a longer period (5 years?) as he was two sport athlete and the old rules used to allow that provision to encourage athletes into baseball. Many mock drafts at the time had the Rays taking Posey and it possibly just came down to the fact that his upside was seen as limited, particularly given his lack of experience behind the plate. It was easy to dream on Beckham and I think it was just one of those picks that didn’t go their way.
The interesting part of the tale for me is two fold : (a) the fact that this is one of only a handful of mistakes we can point to, even in hindsight is pretty amazing and (b) it shows just how hard it is to compete without any money as Posey could be worth 3 wins per season over the likes of Jaso/Shoppach/Molina (depending on what you feel about Molina’s framing skills) and still hasn’t even hit arbitration yet. It’s so hard to recover that kind of lossas it takes a lot of Farnsworth/Rodney deals to make up for potentially losing a 4 win catcher for his cheap years.
Sorry, all my replies turn into mini essays!
Yea, I think its important to remember with the Rays that they just don’t have unlimited amounts of cash to spend any given year, at least if they want to meet payroll and keep the lights on. If they draft Posey or Pedro, they have to pay a ~$6 million signing bonus up front, and then also probably pay a major league contract right away. There is a big difference between paying $6 mil today and paying $6 mil over 5 years, and also a big difference between the major league contract and the minor league contract. If there was a Strasburg or Harper in 2008 you probably fork out the cash and figure out how to borrow enough to pay for it, but not for Posey.
Drafting two guys that would be hard signs in 2009 also makes perfect sense considering the huge bump in MLB payroll that year. Then you look at the MLB payroll in 2010 and our draft and you have a pattern.
Posey is an interesting question. I think there is this myth that Boras has the same bonus price for every team. I think it would be more exact to say that Boras tries to game the draft by incentivizing certain teams not to take his clients. Either Buster didn’t want to play in Tampa (that seems odd since he was at FSU when he was drafted) or Boras concluded there was more non-baseball money for Posey long-term in San Francisco than there was in Tampa. So, I think the bonus SF paid might be less than the bonus we would have been asked for.