Cleveland Sports Forum

so far: 8 RHP 5 LHP
3 OF
2 Catchers
2 3B, 1 SS, 1 2B, 1 ss/of

Round 26 RHP Daniel Cogan from high school. This is when the hard to sign high school picks tend to begin.

Round 27 catcher Juan Gonzalez from Puerto Rican Baseball Academy, pretty sure that's a high school

Thanks for posting all the draft info, Civ.

The vast majority of us appreciate it a great deal.

I of course respect and appreciate Civ's work in sharing the draft updates.

Really, I mean that.

I only suggest that Civ might find more worthwhile personal pursuits while the lame Dolan still has Shapiro and his boy toy Antonetti around.

Guys, I'm just trying to help you and inspire you in an antagonist way to change your ways and have more fun in the future.

Being a Cleveland Fan is fruitless and painful.

Anyone have a disagreement, or a hope for a brighter outlook?

Never mind.

I already hear the silence on the point.

Many other interesting personal pursuits from gardening to opera to plenty of reading. Not having a TV frees up plenty of time.

And back to the draft: Here are the two late round gambles the Tribe is taking:

30 891 BA Rating: 99 Aaron Brown LHP Pepperdine Calif.
31 921 BA Rating: 141 Wil Crowe RHP Pigeon Forge (Tenn.) HS Tenn.

Brown was BA's No. 149 prospect for the 2011 draft after a standout career at Chatsworth (Calif.) High, when more scouts preferred him as an outfielder. The Pirates took a shot at him as a 17th-round pick but he followed through on his commitment to Pepperdine, where he has established himself as a better prospect on the mound. A broken hamate bone in his right hand slowed Brown early this spring, and he showed his toughness by returning to action even though squeezing his glove caused him pain. He has a durable 6-foot-1, 222-pound frame and loads of athleticism. At his best, he flashes four above-average pitches, but all of them are inconsistent. His fastball ranges from 88-94 mph, and he tends to get stronger as the game goes on. He improved his direction to the plate as the season progressed, helping him locate his fastball to both sides of the plate, though he sometimes gets out of rhythm. His out pitch is a slider with tilt and bite, and he usually incorporates a changeup in the middle innings. His curveball is fringy. Brown needs to fine-tune his command in order to stick as a starter, and some scouts think his muscle-bound frame and aggressiveness would fit better in the bullpen. He's a draft-eligible sophomore.

Most scouts use Joe Blanton as a comparison for Crowe, both a compliment and a curse for the 6-foot-3, 235-pound Crowe. Like Blanton, Crowe has a jumbo frame and offers no projection. His size also gives him good present stuff. Scouts who like Crowe have noted his hard work in trying to improve his physique, which has contributed to improved velocity this spring. His fastball, once 88-90 mph, now sits 89-93, touching a tick or two higher. He has a sharp curveball with good downer action, though he lacks consistent extension out front to finish the pitch. His changeup is solid-average as well, though he is still honing his feel for the pitch. Scouts were trying to size up signability for the South Carolina recruit, who likely would jump into the Gamecocks' weekend rotation as a freshman if he goes to school.

Here's the full list for those with lots of time.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/account/ ... eam%3D1006

Biggest surprise to me is only 3 or 4 outfielders drafted unless they intend to convert some of the 4 third basemen or 3 second basemen. System is pretty thin in the outfield.

17 RHP and 7 LHP. 3 catchers. No first basemen but I'm sure some of these other guys are lousy fielders who would fit in better at 1st.

So third day had lots of neat moves by the Tribe:

Picked the best name in the draft: Sicnarf Loopstok; picked a kid who was successful on 103 of 104 stolen base attempts; picked two guys named Hendrix; took flyers on two high-rated hard-to-sign young pitchers. Will any of these guys turn out to be major leaguers? Most likely not.

How the Indians portray their draft performance:

CLEVELAND -- Brad Grant was exhausted by the proceedings of the First-Year Player Draft, and relieved when the third day finally came to a close. But most of all, the Indians' director of amateur scouting was enthusiastic about the organization's fresh crop of prospects.

Beginning with the selection of Clint Frazier on Thursday, through each of the draftees nabbed on Saturday, Cleveland put together a Draft performance it's proud of.

2013 Draft Central

"Overall, I was excited with how it turned out," Grant said after Day 3. "To get Clint Frazier ... He was, like I said before, one of the targeted guys. Then, to mix in the amount of pitching that we were able to mix in, it was a really good combination of starters and relievers. I was excited with how it turned out. From 11 to 40 today, we took some upside guys, some upside high school position players with some plus tools, and then mixed in some more pitching later on. So we're very pleased with how it turned out in the end."

With the fifth overall pick, Cleveland selected Frazier, a five-tool position player out of Loganville (Ga.) High School. Then, on Day 2, Cleveland spent seven of its next eight picks on pitchers, including Louisville righty Dace Kime and Virginia southpaw Kyle Crockett, both of whom are competing for a College World Series championship.

Kime has starter potential and a fastball that reaches 94 mph, in addition to a breaking ball, changeup and cutter. He attended Defiance (Ohio) High School, which is only about 2 1/2 hours from Cleveland.

"We see his upside as a starter," Grant said. "I think as we start to stretch him out, he's got a chance to be a pretty good rotation guy for us."

On Saturday, the Draft's final day, the Indians selected 17 pitchers -- 14 righties and three lefties -- along with seven infielders, three outfielders and three catchers. In all, Cleveland walked away with 17 right-handers, seven left-handers, eight infielders, four outfielders and three catchers. Up and down the board, they went with a good mix in terms of experience, taking 18 college players, nine junior-college players and 12 high schoolers.

Grant has said repeatedly that the club makes its selections based upon the strengths of what's available rather than any perceived weaknesses throughout the organization. With thorough research and preparation, his crew of scouts and other talent evaluators did a commendable job of ranking the prospects, at least in his eyes.

"We really don't draft toward organizational need," he said. "We were pleased with being able to add as much pitching as we did. It wasn't that we necessarily walked into it with the mind-set of, 'We're going to try to add pitching.' Like I talked about yesterday, you look at some of the other clubs, and their first nine picks were pitchers, as well. I think it just ended up being the strength of the Draft and something that we were able to add a lot of."

In the 11th round, the Indians selected right-hander Adam Plutko, who's been the staff ace at UCLA two years in a row. Prior to that, Plutko pitched in the same rotation as club prospect Trevor Bauer and Gerrit Cole, the No. 1 overall pick from two years ago who will make his Major League debut with the Pirates on Tuesday.

Some of Cleveland's other notable picks from Day 3 include Sicnarf Loopstok, a catcher from Aruba who speaks five languages, and Silento Sayles, who stole a national-record 103 bases during his senior season at Port Gibson (Miss.) High School.

Sayles is a few inches shorter than center fielder Michael Bourn, but the two weigh about the same, and both know how to use their legs to affect a baseball game.

"Well, well above average runner," Grant said. "Probably an 8 runner on our 2-to-8 scale. A guy who can really run, but has a feel, too, with the bat. [He can] get on base and steal bases."

Another Day 3 draftee worth mentioning is Daniel Cogan, a 26th-round pick. The high school hurler is the son of Paul Cogan, the organization's West Coast crosschecker.

For Grant, the 2013 First-Year Player Draft didn't offer many surprises, particularly after Houston took Stanford righty Mark Appel with the No. 1 overall pick.

"It turned out kind of as we expected up top with the first four picks," he said. "Once [the Astros] made their pick, then we kind of knew what was going to happen with Chicago and with Colorado, and we knew Frazier was likely to get to us," he said. "In the end, Clint was the guy that we wanted. Clint was the guy we took."

As if the three-day Draft didn't carry enough stress for Grant and his crew, his team underwent 12-hour meetings on each of the 10 days that preceded it. But when it came time to make the picks, they were good to go.

"Once we got into the Draft itself," Grant said, "we were ready to make those decisions."

In the Pipeline
Between Carlos Santana, Yan Gomes and the rehabbing Lou Marson, the Indians seem to be pretty comfortable at catcher, [no one below AA has shown any noteworthy talent however] but that didn't prevent them from selecting three backstops. [of course they did, someone will have to catch all the pitchers who'll be working in the Rookie leagues]

On Day 3, they picked Loopstok at No. 381, Shane Rowland at No. 591 and Juan Gonzalez at No. 801. Loopstok played at Western Oklahoma State College and Rowland caught at the University of Tampa, while Gonzalez was taken out of the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy and High School.

Of Cleveland's top 20 prospects, only two are listed as catchers: No. 11 Alex Monsalve [who is injured and hasn't played this year] and No. 20 Chun Chen. Chen, who's batting .243 in 19 games with Triple-A Columbus, has appeared at first base and designated hitter his year. He last squatted behind the dish in 2012, when he caught eight games for Double-A Akron.

The Clippers have four catchers on their roster, and Chen isn't one of them. In addition to Marson, there's Matthew Colantonio [who hasn't played one inning], Omir Santos and Chris Wallace [both barely rate as AAAA]

Tribe Fan in SC/Cali wrote:I of course respect and appreciate Civ's work in sharing the draft updates.

Really, I mean that.

I only suggest that Civ might find more worthwhile personal pursuits while the lame Dolan still has Shapiro and his boy toy Antonetti around.

Guys, I'm just trying to help you and inspire you in an antagonist way to change your ways and have more fun in the future.

Being a Cleveland Fan is fruitless and painful.

Anyone have a disagreement, or a hope for a brighter outlook?

Never mind.

I already hear the silence on the point.

Makes sense to me. Come on everyone on the TRIBE forum, let's stop rooting for the TRIBE!

CALIFLA: I only suggest that you find more worthwhile personal pursuits than telling others what to do.

Really. I mean that.

I don't believe anyone here respects or appreciates your attacks on them for following the TRIBE, and posting on a TRIBE forum.

J.R. wrote:CALIFLA: I only suggest that you find more worthwhile personal pursuits than telling others what to do.

Really. I mean that.

I don't believe anyone here respects or appreciates your attacks on them for following the TRIBE, and posting on a TRIBE forum.

I'm just trying to help lives.

Really, I mean that.


Following Cleveland Sports should require warning labels.

Peter Gammons: MLB Draft Recap

Peter Gammons | Sunday, June 9, 2013 At 6:08PM


No one likes all the elements of the new draft that began last June. Yes, as several rebuilding general managers have observed, it pushes the dollars to the free agent market; hence the larger revenue clubs still control that market. It takes away from clubs’ ability to build from the base up, as well as restricts their ability to use the in-season trading deadline deals to substantially impact and redevelopment organization.

That said, in 2013, the draft worked. The team that earned the first pick, the Houston Astros, was able to select the highest-rated pitcher in the talent pool, Stanford’s Mark Appel. The team that earned the second pick, the Cubs, got the most highly sought bat in San Diego’s Kris Bryant.

Appel is happy. He is from Houston, and as the Thursday night extravaganza wore down, he tweeted his excitement, “I’m coming home, I’m coming home, tell the world I’m coming home.” The last place ‘Stros immediately released media stories about Appel’s little league career in Houston.

Bryant clearly was happy, going to Chicago and being part of a lineup that by 2015 could include Anthony Rizzo, Starlin Castro, Jorge Soler and Javier Baez, a lineup that should make a lot of Old Style drinkers very happy on sunny midweek afternoons.

The Cleveland Indians are happy. Another general manager called Chris Antonetti Friday and told him “you may have gotten the best player in the draft” in Georgia high school outfielder Clint Frazier. “With that personality, that energy, that bat speed and love of the game he could own Cleveland,” the other GM told Antonetti, and we know that while the Indians may be much improved, if Frazier and last year’s top choice (shortstop Francisco Lindor) and Trevor Bauer impact the team and the market two years from now, they could have a long term affect on the market restoration.

The Miami Marlins are happy. Colin Moran is the high on base, low strikeout hitter they eventually want in the front third of their lineup, and while they know that once Frazier was gone Moran preferred a Fenway Park built for his hitting skill set, they went ahead and essentially let the National market be damned and grabbed the player they wanted.

And while Scott Boras dislikes the way the implemented system restricts draftees and free agents, in the end, even he was happy. He still can point to the fact that he represents the top two picks, Appel and Bryant, who likely will end up with the biggest contracts. He also represents Indiana State left handed pitcher Sean Manaea, who despite an injury-plagued season will still get more than a normal second rounder, as the Royals took a below-slot pick in the first round to be able to go well above slot with picks below the first round, in this case Manaea.

Now, this does not make the new system a better way to balance the incoming flow of talent and allow the small markets to do the Pittsburghs, Tampa Bays and Clevelands once couldn’t do—take whom they chose, not beholden to signability.

“I’m the first to appreciate that there are flaws in this system,” says one small market general manager. “ But I think the way the slotting system has been laid out that the draft is more of a straight talent selection process. Under the old system, small market teams had a very difficult time trying to compete with the big market teams that tried to use the draft, like Boston and Detroit and Texas. Now because their available cash pools are finite, they cannot take high reward players that slipped because of signability in later rounds and pay them first round money. I found most agents this year understood the reality that there is a finite amount of cash available, and they have to adjust.”

“People in our draft room were surprised by the way the draft unfolded in that the picks in many ways went the way we had the players lined up,” says one scouting director. “Several times we were prepared for two or three players with our next pick and those players were picked off in front of us. This draft clearly had more of a sense of meritocracy than those of the past. After the second or third round, the importance of the area scouts and their ability to not only judge talent but know all the nuances of each player’s signability is more important than it has been for years, since the draft became such a high-priced pool. The back-channel deals are more difficult to make. Teams clearly don’t care if someone else has a deal behind them, in many cases, if a team wanted someone, it took him no matter what might have been promised later on.”

The Yankees, Red Sox and Rockies all felt the draft essentially went as all three teams had their boards lined up. “Maybe this year is the outlier,” said one scouting director. “But I think a lot of teams saw this the same way.”

For instance, there was a strong sense that when the Royals took Stephen F. Austin shortstop Hunter Dozier with the eighth pick of the first round that they would sign him well below the $3.14M slot and use the money on Westlake Village, Cal. High school pitcher Phil Bickford, one of the “unsignable” high school talents, with the 34th supplemental slot. The Blue Jays didn’t care and took Bickford with the 10th selection, so the Royals used that supplemental pick to draft Manaea. The Red Sox believed that when Oklahoma high school catcher—and projected first round pick—Jonathan Denney—began to slide that his agents had a deal lined up for the third round. They didn’t care about the possible deal and went ahead and took Denney with the seventh pick in the third round, and if he goes to college, they get that pick back next June.

“There was still a ton of backdoor calls to ascertain signability and guarantee some manipulation,” says one agent. “More than you could imagine. But the days of trying to guide a kid down to the sixth round so some big market team could jump in and give him $2M may be over. This system probably held the Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox and Angels at bay.” The Red Sox clearly had Frazier and Moran at the top of their list with the seventh selection of the first round. They were grabbed by the Indians and Marlns with the picks immediately before them, and when they were able to draft Indiana high school lefthander Trey Ball, the organization from general manager Ben Cherington to scouting director Amiel Sawdaye to their scouts were very happy that the organizational mantra to build around pitching was fulfilled. “I saw every one of the top ten pitchers in this draft, right up to Appel,” says one National League GM known for his pitching acumen. “For me, Ball has the highest projectionable upside of any pitcher. He’s an incredible athlete and as he keeps developing has a chance to be a star left handed starter.”

No one knows. Five years from now, Frazier or Austin Meadows (Pirates) or Dominic Smith (Mets) may have more value than Bryant or Moran. Kole Stewart or Ball may have more value than Appel or Jonathan Gray (Rockies). We know that five pitchers from last year’s draft are already in The Show, but the rookie pitcher with the greatest impact may be the Dodgers’ Hyun-jin Ryu. No position player from last June’s draft has had the impact of Yasiel Puig. And Cuban exile Miguel Gonzalez, once a guy with the Cuban National Team who is putting his career back together in Mexico while being watched by more than a half-dozen teams, could be in the majors sooner than anyone drafted this week.

We don’t know because we don’t know how pitchers will react to different baseballs and starting games every fifth day. We don’t know about adjustments hitters have to make.

Fine, but the draft remains very important. And while because of either scouting mistakes or adjustment breakdowns, injuries or personal issues, there will be disappointments, there will be surprises. But if one of the purposes of overhauling the draft was to give bad teams better shots at the best players—unlike the year the Padres had to take Matt Bush instead of Stephen Drew or Jered Weaver because of money—then this draft worked. Appel isn’t getting Strasburg money, and doesn’t seem to care. Bryant isn’t getting Ackley money, and doesn’t care.

If Houston and the Cubs got the right guys, the draft worked, at least to a degree. If the real paydays begin after two or three years of major league service instead of performance in the ACC or Cape League, that is right. In a game based around merit, meritocracy isn’t a bad thing.

I'm still waiting for the Sicnarf Loopstok publicity machine to gear up. If he is assigned to Mahoning Valley the bandwagon can begin right here and then march on toward Cleveland in 2020.