Today we have reached the point of the first and second round of the MLB Draft. Teams still don’t know who is picking which players until the names are called, and kind of like last year, we have to wait to see who is chosen ahead of the Washington Nationals. Last year, it was just waiting for the Pirates to pick at No. 1 to know the Nats were taking Dylan Crews as the second pick in the draft.
There was extra intrigue added yesterday as general manager Mike Rizzo traded Hunter Harvey, the Nats picked up a Competitive Balance draft pick, №39, to go with their №10 and №44 picks.
There was an almost complete overhaul in the Washington Nationals draft room. Kris Kline was moved to another position and out of the draft room. Rizzo really beefed up the front-end of his draft department with stars from other teams. Danny Haas was hired from Arizona as the new VP of Amateur Scouting. It’s now his room. Brad Ciolek was hired from the Orioles as the Nats Senior Director of Amateur Scouting and Reed Dunn was hired from the Braves as the Assistant Scouting Director and National Crosschecker. Mark Baca was the lone holdover in a management position in the draft room, and he took over a new position as the West Coast Crosschecker, and Alex Morales took over as the Southeast Crosschecker and Area Supervisor.
Per a source, and this is a direct quote, “The entire draft process was overhauled to create a more efficient flow. Key to this is stats, metrics, age, medical history, live evals, and development models to fit the system. It’s a complete overhaul from what existed before.”
As part of the Harvey trade, the Nationals received the Royals’ competitive balance draft pick (№39 overall) and the accompanying slot money ($2,395,000) that went with it, from Kansas City. The Nats’ bonus pool for the MLB Draft has now increased to $13,895,100 from $11,500,100. The Competitive Balance draft picks selections are the only types of draft picks that can be traded. Keep in mind that only smaller-market and lower-revenue teams are eligible for these ‘bonus’ draft picks.
The Nats MLB Draft starts with their №10 pick, then to their new №39 pick, and their №44 pick to wrap up their Day 1 in the draft. Baseball America has done their final Top-500 ranking of all draft picks, and what you hope to see is what the Nats did last year in drafting picks after the first round with star talent like Yohandy Morales in the second round and Travis Sykora in the third round. Both Morales and Sykora were thought to be first round talent and Morales slid into the second round based, and Sykora slipped on signability which the Nats took care of by paying him ‘fringe’ first round money as a signing bonus.
While slot money is suggested, $5,953,800 for instance at pick 10 for the Nats first pick — teams can go above or below those numbers. But they incur deep penalties if they go over their total pool with a 5 percent buffer. Sykora agreed to a $2.6 million signing bonus last year, more than twice the listed slot value of $1.2 million.
While the Nats always say they are going after ‘best player available’ (BPA) as a team strategy, we saw last year that they went for some picks later that were signed for minimal cash to prop up the cash to pay both Morales and Sykora more money. We could see similar strategies this year.
While ‘need’ says, get a shortstop, a catcher, a second baseman, and pitching while avoiding outfielders, we will see how the draft board loads up today for the Nationals. Maybe it will be coincidental if they get the top shortstop in the draft with high school phenom Bryce Rainer from Lucas Giolito‘s alma mater, Harvard-Westlake prep. What happens if Rainer is chosen before pick 10? There lies the problem. Will it be Nick Kurtz, the first baseman from Wake Forest? We will know shortly. We know six locks who will be off the board before the Nats pick.
Unless somehow the Nats went underslot for a pitcher in the first round, our source says the Nats will be drafting a position player. Let’s get this started, and follow for updates.
№10 picks in MLB history: Mark McGwire, Robin Ventura, Ted Simmons, Madison Bumgarner are some of the top picks at the 10th spot.
№39 picks in MLB history: Barry Bonds, Lance Lynn, Don Baylor are some of the top picks at the 39th spot
№44 picks in MLB history: Joey Votto, Jon Lieber, Nick Castellanos, Trevor Williams are some of the top picks at the 44th spot
