2014 MLB Draft

[GTNavyNuke]

The draft starts tomorrow (5 June) and goes to Friday. Two years ago I put together a spreadsheet which list the Perfect Game listing of GT commits and the Perfect Game ranking. I also list what the draft position was for a high school senior who had committed to us (HS), the draft position for a GT Junior (Jr) and a GT Senior (Sr). If there is MLB in the listing, that means the player went to the MLB when drafted, otherwise elected to go or stay at GT.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/mn0b4c4sdectc4d/GT_Baseball_Draft_4_June_2014.pdf

Anyway, I'm no expert but here's who I would expect to be drafted this year:

• GT seniors -
  • Dusty Isaacs has a reasonable shot - he was 1497th out of HS and not drafted last year. I think / hope he gets drafted based on being our go to reliever with a good (1.92) ERA.
  • Matt Grimes is borderline. He was 128th in HS but 948th as a Jr. His ERA this year was 4.39 which hurts. I think Hall may have started Grimes over Parr in the last Washington game to give him a little more exposure.
  • Mott Hyde is borderline. He was drafted 1326th out of HS and not drafted last year. His .282 ERA probably isn't high enough. But we'll see.
• GT Juniors -
  • AJ Murray may get a late draft but it will be too low to be worth leaving. He was 1450th out of HS. But he needs to get better at batting with only a .283 batting average.
  • Heddinger (3.98 ERA) needs to get the ERA down. Josh was pitching a lot better at the end of the year.
  • Cole Pitts is hurt (Tommy John) and had a 3.18 ERA. I expect for him to come back and have a great year.
• GT Commits
  • Kel Johnson is 47th by Perfect Game. Since 2008, we have had 10 top 100 Perfect Game ranked commits. 5 have gone straight to MLB (minors of course). I really hope he comes to GT because he has a lot of power hitting which is what we need. No way to tell though -- looking at past years, the Perfect Game ranking doesn't match up all that well with draft position. These baseball rankings make the football rankings look very accurate. But of all the Juniors and commits, he is the one most likely to get drafted high enough that he can't say no.
  • Daniel Gooden, LHP ranked 143 by Perfect Game will probably get drafted. But too low in the draft to make it worthwhile. Playing in college is a lot better than the minors to learn your craft.

Anyway, that's my WAG. It will be interesting to see what happens. Since they are doing 2 rounds tomorrow, we should have a pretty good idea by tomorrow night. And then wait to see what the players want to do.

In summary, I don't think we lose any Jrs and the only commit in question is Kel Johnson (50/50).

 

[GTNavyNuke]

The first two rounds will draft 74 players. So I guess by the end of the fourth round, we should know who we may lose. Does anyone know the expected signing bonuses?

 

[Stinger90]

http://georgiatech.blog.ajc.com/2014/06/04/clay-is-techs-top-draft-prospect/

 

[Squints]

The first two rounds will draft 74 players. So I guess by the end of the fourth round, we should know who we may lose. Does anyone know the expected signing bonuses?

http://www.mymlbdraft.com/2014-mlb-assigned-draft-pick-values/

 

[GTNavyNuke]

http://georgiatech.blog.ajc.com/2014/06/04/clay-is-techs-top-draft-prospect/

Bittersweet. Bad for us and good for him hopefully. Losing him and Isaacs is really going to hurt since they were our two best. Oh well, people like Parr step up.

I didn't have him on my list since he's a sophomore. But as the article says "If that happens, Hall expects that he would receive a large enough signing-bonus offer to leave Tech. Clay is eligible as a sophomore for the draft as he turns 21 on June 21."

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Since 2008, we've had 9 juniors drafted with a 343 draft or lower. Only one, Brandon Thomas stayed (136) and his senior year he was drafted 254.

 

[Stinger90]

Bittersweet. Bad for us and good for him hopefully. Losing him and Isaacs is really going to hurt since they were our two best. Oh well, people like Parr step up.

I didn't have him on my list since he's a sophomore. But as the article says "If that happens, Hall expects that he would receive a large enough signing-bonus offer to leave Tech. Clay is eligible as a sophomore for the draft as he turns 21 on June 21."

From what I see so far, we have 3 (pitchers) early signees for 2015 right now. Let's see who else comes.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

No impact to GT in the first two rounds ...... ACC drafts of note:

#3 Carlos Rodon (NC State) - well deserved. Hope he does well
#13 Trea Turner - NC State
#19 Nick Howard - UVa - notice three UVa players in first two rounds (74 players).
#27 Luke Weaver - FSU
#37 Derek Fisher - UVa
#38 Mike Papi - UVa
#66 Daniel Gossett - Clemson

Today, several of our players will get drafted in rounds 3-10. Above about 250, I wouldn't expect the Jrs or HS to go to the MLB, but you never know.

Again about half were first year - HS or prep academy. I would think UGAg lost some of their HS'ers today. Last year we lost our two highest ranked HS players.

 

[SwarmArmy]

Clay goes to the Twins in the 4th round at #110. Looks like he is gone..

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I think Sam Clay is gone too. Big loss since he was our best ERA pitcher. But a real bonus to the program being able to develop players not even drafted out of HS in two years. I think we have a very good pitching coach - Jason Howell - based on the development of our pitchers last year. Decimation means losing 1/10 of your force. We lost 3/4 of our top starters and still had reasonable pitching. So I think losing 3/4 could be called a massacre. That is a hell of a job by Howell.

Through 10 rounds, the only GT player I see having been drafted is Sam. Bummer - Dusty should have been up there.

Also, I didn't see Kel Johnson (PG rank #47) or Daniel Gooden (#143). So even if they are drafted today (which I'd expect), they probably will come to GT since it's a negligible signing bonus. Juniors - Murray, Heddinger and Pitts should stay too even though I would expect them to be drafted today.

 

[awbuzz]

Except for Sam, this bodes well for next year's team

 

[bat_082994]

Except for Sam, this bodes well for next year's team

Unfortunately, we're likely losing Sam though

 

[GTNavyNuke]

If Sam were my kid, I'd probably recommend he take the $470K or so signing bonus. The only thing that makes it a little different is that he has two more drafts -- as a Jr and a Sr. He could get several $M if he keeps improving. All of our players since 2008 have taken the bonus when in lower round, In the MLB draft column below, I already have him going. Hope I'm wrong, he stays and gets a $4M bonus next year but it's a risk.....

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Looks like we're done through the 20 rounds and will be going for a while (@621):
430 Josh Heddinger (he should be back)
534 Dusty Isaacs (should have gone higher!)
541 Matt Grimes (should be back)

What's notable is I didn't see any of our 2014 commits were drafted. So much for the Perfect Game and draft matching up. Since about 1/2 of the players are out of HS, I would have expected Kel Johnson (47) and Daniel Gooden (143) drafted by now.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Draft summary at http://www.ramblinwreck.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/060714aaa.html

709 Daniel Spignola
766 Mott Hyde

Still none of our 2014 commits were drafted. But then again, only two of our commits last year were drafted and both went straight to the minors. And the remainder of the class turned out to be ok (tic). Either Perfect Game really sucks at recruit ranking or the word is out that offering a GT commit a high round draft won't be accepted ....... the highest GT commit acceptance since 2008 was a 240 ranking (2010 Alex Lavinsky) and 18 commits over that didn't go MLB.

Now we wait and see what the Jrs & Sam do. I'll update the chart once we know about Sam and also look at pitchers we should have next year.

But for batting power, having Kel Johnson come is a very good thing if Perfect Game is even close.

 

[Stinger90]

The ACC had 65 players taken in the draft:http://www.theacc.com/#!/news-detail/ACC-Baseball-Sixty-Five-Taken-in-MLB-Draft_06-08-14_6a0lo9

 

[Eric]

Heddigner and Grimes are gone.

 

[Stinger90]

Heddigner and Grimes are gone.

Mods, please ban!!! Had a feeling about that and I can't say I blame them. I do appreciate what they've done at the Rusty C. Good Luck Guys !!!