2012 Draft Prospects

[homerawayfromhome]

Appel could always threaten to sign a 2 yr deal in Japan. Selig had suggested if he went to Japan on a 1 yr deal, he would be forced back into the 2013 draft.

[OhioBaseball]

Mark Appel goes unsigned. Pretty big deal. He'll be back in the draft next year. I think he's overrated, but it'll help the depth of the class next year. Get ready for the Stanek vs. Appel questions.

Lucas Giolito signed for $2.925MM at the last minute. Great work by the Nationals.

Risky move by Appel IMO. Teams may play hardball with him next year as a college senior with little leverage. Then again, a team in the top 5 may take him hoping he'll be an easy slot sign and could make out ok. Could also be gambling that MLB tweaks the draft process as a lot of teams seemed displeased with the new arrangement. I'm guessing nothing will change next year but you never know; Selig has been making so many changes lately i wouldn't put anything past him. Personally don't hate the new system as much as many but do think it could use some alterations.

Heck yeah it's a risky move. He turned $3.8MM down. If he really thinks he's the #1 in the draft, he's kidding himself. I really don't even think he's that good. I've seen a lot of top college pitching prospects over the last decade and Appel ain't one of them. I think he's a very good pitching prospect, but I can see him never turning out that well (Mike Pelfrey). I know people that saw him for the first time this year after hearing he was the #1 guy and they left unimpressed given the hype.

Appel handled this situation very poorly. Frankly, turning down that much money will turn off *some* teams from drafting him next year b/c they don't want to deal with a difficult negotiation. Guys that turn down good money piss some scouts off -- there's a lot of fish in the pond and they'll just focus their attention elsewhere.

Appel could have been set for life. Even after Uncle Sam and his agent take their respective cuts, he'd have enough money to invest in safe, investment grade coprorate bonds and make at least $100k/year in interest every year. He could live a very nice life, still have the $2.5MM in wealth and get paid $100k in interest and never have to make another dime for as long as he lived, but that wasn't good enough for him. I think it was a big risk, especially for a pitcher that could develop a major injury very easily.

[Tondo]

Bumping up this thread just for entertainment and hindsight after looking at early production results of the players liked and hated. Here was my College dream draft a week before the draft

Here's an Indians dream draft I'd like:

1-15 3B Shaffer - Clemson
2-79 OF Rio Ruiz or RHP Agosta - StMary's
3-110 RHP Baxendale - Arkansas or RHP Farmer - GTech
4-143 2B McGruder - Texas Tech
5-173 RHP Stripling - Texas A&M
6-203 1B Walker - S.Carolina or DJ Hicks - UCF
7-233 OF Dugas - Alabama
8-263 RHP Reckling - Rice
9-293 1B/OF Ard - Wash St or OF Kivlehan - Rutgers
10-327 RHP Amlung - Lousiville or RHP Roth - S.Carolina

While I look stupid with Shaffer at 15, I never expected Wacha to be there and he would have been my pick...man, Wacha, Stripling, Baxendale, Agosta and one of Amlung/Roth would have revolutionized our pitching prospects lists big time. Roth is already in the majors, Wacha is knocking on it and the others are dominating at A+ or AA already. Ch.Walker has Naquin-like stats and is the same age despite being a SR....overall had some misses on hitting prospects, but I also wanted us to draft guys like Elander and Cam Perkins and Refsnyder, those last two are among the best, top 10 hitters in all of A+ as of now. I also had some serious hits on my day 3 sleeper list on mostly "older" college prospects

All that reinforces my belief that baseball GMs outsmart themselves with "upside" and "age" when it comes to evaluating prospects instead of going for some obvious production. I mean, here I am, just an armchair GM without a scouts' eye and I would have drafted at least 3 or 4 of Wacha, A.Wood, Agosta, Stripling, Baxendale, Amlung, Roth...meanwhile, we will have to wait another 2-3 years and "hope" guys like M.Brown (who I liked a lot too btw), Lovegrove and Hamrick become a Stripling, Wacha etc...does this make sense to anyone? and since we're talking all college guys, some of them SR, we would not have blown out our budget either...to the contrary, we would have saved money taking those guys. The two value picks I liked the most last draft were Baker in the 5th and Vick in the 11th and those guys are arguably among our best performers this season. You can still fish and fetch for some upside for guys like Merritt and C.Anderson past the 10th round, I just don't think it's all that smart to overspend on mid round HS lottery tickets, when you can get good producing College arms early, saving budget doing so to go after sliding CC or HS guys later...I think under the new CBA, that's the way to go

Since Buck Farmer and C Garver went back to school and I already pimped them last draft...don't sleep on SR College players and College players in general