It’s more a courtesy so that a team won’t waste a selection on you if you know that you are 100% set on going to school for any particular reason.
In some instances, there is probably some intent to build a small bit of hype or brand too since more well know prospects are going to generate a good deal of publicity for withdrawing from the draft.
Jayden Stroman commited to Georgia Tech according to the 64analytics database.
Hope we don’t regret this one.
A small footnote, but a big change in high school baseball bats. Won’t be admissible in college. This will result in injuries in my opinion. Bad decision.
Overview of the Rule Changes
The NFHS Baseball Rules Committee, in coordination with USA Baseball, voted to expand the permitted bat drop weights to ease the transition for younger, developing high school athletes. [1, 2]
A good high school player with a -6 bat is dangerous. And a future college player is even more dangerous. The bats are already hot. No need for this. The rationale is that it will keep more kids playing baseball, which it probably will. When kids go to the larger field, and have to use a drop-3 bats, you lose a lot of players.
It like lowering the rim to 9 ft in high school hoops.
Some very small rumors about Lowrance having some poor workouts right as things are wrapping up here. He had some iffy data during the combine as well so I wonder if the analytic inclined teams may be out on him.
Still extraordinarily likely he is not making it to grounds but I see a glimmer of hope.
Come to grounds and have 3B please!
Today is day one of the MLB draft, aka rounds 1-4 also including compensatory and competitive balance picks. ESPN no longer has television rights to the draft, so today’s coverage of the picks is gonna be incredibly scattered/stupid.
Kiley McDaniel released his top 250 prospects list a couple days ago. Of note to us…
McDaniel has Gracia, Lowrance, and Becker all going within the first 31 picks in his final mock draft. I think there’s an outside chance of Johnson or Tiroly getting picked later today as well but my guess is they probably don’t. I think if I had to put money on who gets drafted from our side over the next two days, it’ll be Gracia, Lowrance, Becker, Tiroly, Johnson, Harris, Didawick, and Kapa. Harris to me is a coin flip, his draft rankings have been all over the place and I think he out of everyone listed would benefit the most from an extra year of college ball. But we’ll see how it all unfolds.
AJ Gracia goes 9th overall to the Braves.
Slot value is $6.68 million. Imagine he will sign for under slot but still a very large bonus. Strike while the iron is hot and get a healthy donation Pollard!
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s very underslot. Like by a million.
Atlanta has an extra pick at 26 that they might be floating someone down to with an overslot bonus.
Bo Lowrance goes 40th overall to the Dodgers.
Slot value is $2.5 million at 40.
Will be interesting to see how that one plays out versus slot value.
Maybe sign for $3 million?
Yeah probably late 1st/early 2nd value. Does seem like his stock dropped a tiny bit compared to where he was being ranked but he’s still gonna make a lot of money.
Pretty much everyone picked in the first 10 rounds is going to sign. Almost all of them have agreed on numbers already.
Eric Becker goes 58th overall to the Reds.
Slot value at 58 is $1.64 million.
At 57 last year, Nick Becker got $2.75 million versus $1.64 million slot value.
Younger bro already has him beat by a single pick. Eric has got some work to do on maximizing that bonus so he doesn’t end up 0 for 2 against younger bro. Not sure I like his chances.
Imagine we’re now getting into Kyle and Joes territory of the draft?!
Day one of the draft has come to a close. As a recap, Gracia, Lowrance and Becker all got picked today. No real surprises so far outside of Gracia landing in the top ten, love that for AJ.
My guess is Tiroly and Johnson get taken relatively early tomorrow, somewhere within the next 100 or so picks. If Harris is drafted I think it’ll be within the first 10-12 rounds, doesn’t mean we’d be completely out of the woods if it goes past that but it’ll get to a certain point where it becomes clear orgs aren’t gonna meet him at his asking price. Kapa and Didawick should both get picked as well, it’s just tougher to judge where 4th and 5th year guys end up going. Could see a world where Kapa goes in the top ten rounds if a team wants to save some slot money. And there’s still an outside shot we lose a Clatur/James/Loggie/Crosland/Elko, but it would be a pretty big surprise to see any of their names pop up.
Also forgot to mention that both Drew Koenen and Matt Augustin committed to Charlotte.