So after 30 more rounds today, the draft is finally over. Both teams have made their picks, and I have some thoughts on both. They went different routes. The Cubs, for the most part, went after high upside projectable guys while the White Sox had fewer of those types (although they still had plenty), but went for more experienced players.
Looking at the White Sox draft, they drafted 7 total high school players, which makes it very obvious that they are going for more experienced guys who will make it to the bigs quicker. I think that the way their system was at the very bottom for a couple of years really put them in a rush to fix that system quickly. Carlos Rodon will be with the big league team within 2-3 years, no doubt about it. Spencer Adams was one of those high school guys, so he'll probably be around 4 years, give or take a year.
One reason the White Sox likely didn't go after a lot of overslot projectable guys like the Cubs did is because Carlos Rodon has Scott Boras for his agent. Jerry Reinsdorf is not known for wildly throwing money around, and Scott Boras will do anything to get his guys every last penny. The White Sox are almost surely going to have to go over the slotted value for Rodon, probably having to go around $7 million. This will leave the White Sox a total of a little over $2.5 million for the rest of the way as far as the bonus pool goes. To explain this, every pick in the top 10 rounds has a slotted amount. After the 10th round there is no slotted amount, but any amount over $100,000 spent on bonuses for those guys comes out of the bonus pool.
So in other words, if the White Sox want to be able to sign as many of these guys as possible, they're going to have to draft guys that will take that slotted amount, largely college seniors, who they can lowball very easily since they really don't have many other good options. The White Sox drafted 17 college seniors, many of them look to be 4th outfielder, utility, and bullpen guys. Not to say that these guys won't play those roles well, but after the first day there were not a ton of guys who project to be major prospects. Also, I think the White Sox made a bit of a favor type of pick when they drafted with James Davidson, not to say that it wasn't nice of them, it was, the kid got drafted by his hometown team, but at 5'7" and a light bat, I don't see any way he signs with the White Sox, best of luck to him in college though. Anyway, the bottom line is that the White Sox only left 4 picks unsigned last year, they like to sign as many guys as they can, so they didn't pick a lot of guys who will be tough to sign.
There were still some though. I see Mason Robbins, Bryce Montes de Oca, Aaron Bummer, Adam Choplick, and Brannon Easterling all being guys who will get some extra bonus money. However, the whole of the White Sox draft saw them throw a lot of punches up front, which is a smart move, as those are the guys who have the best chances to be impact players. I mentioned yesterday that they drafted several guys who have a chance of being in that bullpen within the next 1-2 years as well. So this is a draft that I see as still bringing players to the White Sox, or just assets at least. The White Sox clearly wanted to be sure to be able to sign as many guys as they can.
The Cubs, on the other hand, took a different approach. They really had an interesting scenario early on. They got a guy who is probably the best bat in the draft (and hits lefty), who they will also likely be able to sign for well under the slotted amount. The Cubs may have $5 million in bonus pool money after Schwarber. They also will likely be able to go under the slotted amount on 2nd round pick Jake Stinnett. This becomes obvious as you look at who the Cubs started going with as the later rounds came along. They signed a lot of high upside guys and high school guys. They signed a total of 14 high school guys and 7 college seniors, compare that to the White Sox, who picked 7 high school guys and 17 college seniors. The Cubs also picked a number of eligible freshmen, sophomores, and junior college guys (6). In other words, the Cubs gameplan was to get value (while still getting a ton of quality) early on, and to draft guys that they were going to have to pay in order to get them to sign later on. This is an interesting strategy that I really like. They picked 21 pitchers, and of those 21 pitchers, 16 of them are 6'2" or taller. That usually is enough to get some projection right there, especially when 3 of them are 6'5" or taller. Either way, they went after a lot of guys who will be tough to sign. However, they built up the money to have enough to throw at a lot of them.
The Cubs left 16 guys unsigned last year, including their last 10 picks, so they don't have a huge problem with not signing guys, they're willing to let them go. This tells me that they're going to throw more money at certain guys, because there are a couple of picks in there that I'm unsure about (in other words, hoping those guys go unsigned). Anyway, as a whole I love what the Cubs did. They're going for a lot of impact guys this year. I have a feeling it'll be around 25 or 26 guys signed in the end, and I have a feeling that they'll wind up with a late round steal or two when all is said and done. They also drafted Diamond Johnson, who hopefully joins Rock Shoulders in the organization, helping the Cubs to have the best player names in the entire league.
I want to also say that I'm happy to see that the Baltimore Orioles drafted Hunter Hart in the 37th round. He played at the high school in the town that both of my parents grew up in. It's a small town where many people know each other, it actually used to be everyone knowing each other, but it's grown to almost 4,000 people now. Anyway, I'm sure that whole town is very proud of him, and as with every other pick, I wish him the best of luck.
Again, check out bleachernation.com to really get a better, more detailed look at the draft and what each pick really looks like. They have great in depth analysis on there (Cubs only).
In other news, Kris Bryant hasn't stopped yet. He went 3 for 3 today with a walk. Those three hits were a single, double, and a home run. Bryant is now hitting .353 with an OPS of 1.162 (20 HR). I'll be totally honest and say that I think he's being wasted at AA at this point. They really should promote him to AAA, because he's just not being challenged. I know they like to make sure these things can be sustained, but it's been a couple of months now, and he hasn't had anything worse than a 2-3 game lull. He's been too good for too long to stay down there. He won't see any slumps until he's at least in AAA, clearly not at AA, so it's beyond time to promote him. He leads the Southern League in home runs, RBI, OPS, Slugging %, On Base %, walks, and is even tied for 14th with 8 stolen bases (only caught twice). What else does he have to do to get promoted at this point? They're just wasting his time right now.
Anyway, the main point here is that the Cubs and White Sox took two very different approaches during this draft, and it looks like it will work out well for both teams. I'm excited to see what these guys all do. We also must remember that there will likely be, at most, around a handful of guys from each team's draft that wind up making it to the bigs, and many of those guys will probably won't even make it as a Cubs or White Sox player. So don't get too caught up in each and every guy both teams drafted. Drafting prospects is more of a numbers game where you know that most guys won't pan out, but you try to do what you can to maximize your chances, every GM knows that there's no chance they'll get a hall of famer with every pick.
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