2019 Draft - The Future is NOW

[GTNavyNuke]

We have a fabulous amount of talent on this team. I've read we have one of the most senior teams in D1; Aaron Fitt has talked about our talent at the beginning of the year as a reason he picked us as an Omaha sleeper. "All" we had to do is learn how to win. With English and McCann and others really leading this team as players, we have learned how to win.

Here's my guess at who will get drafted from our team this year:
High - CT, English, McCann. These guys are blue chip studs.
Mid - X and Hughes. Both are quality pitchers who may project better in MLB stadiums than the Rusty C.
Low-Mid - Murray due to injury. I heard he was next up in the Clemson game so he could improve to mid if he comes in and gets hot. Has a low BA so far this year.
Low - Willingham and Waddell (21+). Whether they come back will depend on the $. I expect Waddell will come back unless he gets really big $ since he has two more drafts and can greatly improve his value like English has done.

What isn't here is the incoming class. I'll look at them later when I get some facts from others ratings. I tend to wait to get excited about a recruit till the draft is over and our drafted recruits decide whether they are going to come to GT. They better the player the more likely he is to go direct to the MLB (for good $$$ reason).

Details in the attached pdf. Feel free to help me improve it. There is a lot of detail in there.

 

[THWG]

We have a fabulous amount of talent on this team. I've read we have one of the most senior teams in D1; Aaron Fitt has talked about our talent at the beginning of the year as a reason he picked us as an Omaha sleeper. "All" we had to do is learn how to win. With English and McCann and others really leading this team as players, we have learned how to win.

Here's my guess at who will get drafted from our team this year:
High - CT, English, McCann. These guys are blue chip studs.
Mid - X and Hughes. Both are quality pitchers who may project better in MLB stadiums than the Rusty C.
Low-Mid - Murray due to injury. I heard he was next up in the Clemson game so he could improve to mid if he comes in and gets hot. Has a low BA so far this year.
Low - Willingham and Waddell (21+). Whether they come back will depend on the $. I expect Waddell will come back unless he gets really big $ since he has two more drafts and can greatly improve his value like English has done.

What isn't here is the incoming class. I'll look at them later when I get some facts from others ratings. I tend to wait to get excited about a recruit till the draft is over and our drafted recruits decide whether they are going to come to GT. They better the player the more likely he is to go direct to the MLB (for good $$$ reason).

Details in the attached pdf. Feel free to help me improve it. There is a lot of detail in there.

I would also add that there are four incoming freshmen who have the potential to be drafted, if they all (or 3) make it on campus, we will be sitting pretty next year. Those guys are Maxwell, Reid, Holland, and Jenkins. Maxwell and Holland are probably the two most important to get on campus.

 

[RoosterJacket]

Not sure if the Wilhite’s will get drafted or not, but if they do, you’d have to think they’d be gone. Seniors just have no leverage at all and could end up signing for $3000, so this would be their best opportunity.

Also have several senior pitchers (regardless of how you feel about them) that will be gone which impacts depth.

 

[Squints]

What's your definition of High/Mid/Low-Mid/Low?

 

[Squints]

This is a guy who blogs for the Braves on SBNation. For the past bunch of years he creates a composite MLB Draft prospect ranking using all the services and updates it when new prospect rankings are released. It's a pretty awesome resource. Right now the only Tech player ranked on there is Kyle McCann at 104. Chase Murray is on there as well but has 0 points which I think means he was ranked somewhere at one point but has fallen off the lists which isn't surprising because he hasn't played much. The only commit ranked is Zachary Maxwell at 186.

Bookmark the spreadsheet if you're interested. It's got some admitted caveats but it's very cool.

https://www.talkingchop.com/2019/5/...omposite-ranking-rutschman-vaughn-witt-abrams

MLB.com also released their first mock draft which uses more than pure talent rankings (aka some insider knowledge) to predict what's going to happen. Predicting the MLB Draft is notoriously difficult even for those in the know so mocks tend to fall apart real quick but it's there if you want to check it out.

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-pipeline-s-first-2019-mock-draft

 

[GTNavyNuke]

What's your definition of High/Mid/Low-Mid/Low?

My definition is high being about first 10 rounds, mid bein 10- 20ish and low being after 20. There are probably definitions somewhere but that's what I made up.

I'll look at the links, thanks. But it seems any predictions are only guesses once you get out to the top 100-200.

 

[GtBaseball3]

Maxwell was up to 97 this week in the GHSA playoffs!

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Interesting summary of MLB draft history and current rules. MLB really is an entertainment business and the rules to try and get parity and have "taxes" for spending over the cap kind of show it.

Pretty demonstrative of how one's point of view on life colors the rhetoric: " Congressman Emanuel Celler questioned the legality of drafts during a series of hearings on the business practice of professional sports leagues in the 1950s.[6] Successful clubs saw the draft as anti-competitive. Yankees executive Johnny Johnson equated it with communism.[7] At the same time, Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist Arthur Daley compared the system to a "slave market."[8]"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_draft

 

[THWG]

I want to revisit this thread with only one more week to go in the regular season.

Players that I think are gone after this year by way of the draft: McCann, English, Thomas, and Curry.

Players who could get drafted, but I believe will come back: Murray, Willingham, both Wilhites, Webb, Waddell, and Hughes.

Right now, it looks like Maxwell has the potential to be taken high enough where we might not see him on campus. The mock draft I saw had him going in the 6th round which is kind of a precarious spot because he could be a first or second rounder in a couple of years. Or, a team could offer him just enough money to get him to sign. The other HS players that I was worried about seem pretty safe to make it to Tech as of now.

I also want to throw a wildcard possibility as there is a slim chance in my mind that Thomas could come back. Don't get me wrong, he is definitely good enough to get drafted and get drafted high, but major league teams are funny. They look at Thomas and see a kid with good, but not great stuff who competes his butt off. Those types pitchers are disappearing from the majors and not getting drafted or valued as highly. He reminds me of an LSU pitcher, Poche, who had an amazing college career, but wasn't drafted high enough and was undervalued because he threw 88-90, so he came back for his senior year.

 

[gtrower]

I want to revisit this thread with only one more week to go in the regular season.

Players that I think are gone after this year by way of the draft: McCann, English, Thomas, and Curry.

Players who could get drafted, but I believe will come back: Murray, Willingham, both Wilhites, Webb, Waddell, and Hughes.

Right now, it looks like Maxwell has the potential to be taken high enough where we might not see him on campus. The mock draft I saw had him going in the 6th round which is kind of a precarious spot because he could be a first or second rounder in a couple of years. Or, a team could offer him just enough money to get him to sign. The other HS players that I was worried about seem pretty safe to make it to Tech as of now.

I also want to throw a wildcard possibility as there is a slim chance in my mind that Thomas could come back. Don't get me wrong, he is definitely good enough to get drafted and get drafted high, but major league teams are funny. They look at Thomas and see a kid with good, but not great stuff who competes his butt off. Those types pitchers are disappearing from the majors and not getting drafted or valued as highly. He reminds me of an LSU pitcher, Poche, who had an amazing college career, but wasn't drafted high enough and was undervalued because he threw 88-90, so he came back for his senior year.

Think it was D1B who had Thomas as the #1 college pitching prospect for the next draft. I wouldn’t count on him returning.

 

[THWG]

Think it was D1B who had Thomas as the #1 college pitching prospect for the next draft. I wouldn’t count on him returning.

I had not heard that before. I haven't even seen him mentioned going in the first five rounds.

 

[gtrower]

I had not heard that before. I haven't even seen him mentioned going in the first five rounds.

https://d1baseball.com/prospects/d1-analytics-top-2019-draft-eligible-pitchers/

Obviously it’s only college guys and I don’t know what metric they’re using, but CT does end up #1.

 

[THWG]

https://d1baseball.com/prospects/d1-analytics-top-2019-draft-eligible-pitchers/

Obviously it’s only college guys and I don’t know what metric they’re using, but CT does end up #1.

I remember seeing that now, but I took it as more of that is how the pitchers were performing at that point based on the analytics. It is not necessarily where they see the pitchers getting drafted.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

@65Jacket , here's the draft post to answer your question.

Nick may well have worked himself into a low draft slot with his torrid hitting.

We have a lot of talent which will probably leave.

 

[CuseJacket]

Think I may have posted before, but this just got Tweeted again

 

[ramblinwreckguru]

Anyone have an idea about what the minimum draft position would have to be for our Juniors to want to leave early?

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Anyone have an idea about what the minimum draft position would have to be for our Juniors to want to leave early?

More about the money which can vary for draft rounds. Seniors have no leverage and get no money. So leaving early usually makes sense.

That sad, teams talk to kids and don't usually waste top16 or so round picks on kids who they can't or won't give enough money .

We have so much Jr draftable talent, this year's draft is a really big deal.

 

[ramblinwreckguru]

It's really difficult to find any information on draft propects that isn't behind a pay wall.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

It's really difficult to find any information on draft propects that isn't behind a pay wall.

And my guess is worth what you pay for it. The eligible players are factual.

Some people like @Squint really follow the money aspect. I put this post out to focus discussion and troll for information.

 

[65Jacket]

Looking at our game program, we don't have a lot of players that are higher in school than Soph