Reverse Engineering the Orioles' 2014 Draft Strategy

The MLB draft is plagued by a heavy optimism and heavy pessimism in a way that seems unique compared to other professional drafts, such as ones conducted by the NFL or NBA.  The major reason for this, I presume, is that to even the more studious followers, baseball draftees appear as more or less a blank slate with which one's hopes and fears about a club are easily projected.  For instance, after the Orioles drafted Pat Connaughton in the fourth round, someone tweeted me about lunacy required for the Orioles to acquire another guy who has poor control.  That is a rather unrealistic response to a player drafted in the fourth round.  Talent distribution in the draft is largely exponential early on and then peters out to a trickle after the first couple rounds.  If you go out of your way to draft a player with great control, then you are acquiring a player with at best pretty average pitches that you hope you can turn into something more.  That is a bit unrealistic.

Likewise, if you were listening to the MLB telecast of the draft, you just might think that 300 MLB starters were drafted with amazing tools ready to be unleashed onto the professional ranks.  Noticeably, the talking heads would speak somewhat positively about all of the catching skills in the draft while it was actually one of the poorer drafts for defensive catchers.  One front office person informed me that the differences between catchers this year and last is almost night and day.  The catchers in this class have a lot of work cut out for them to develop defensively and it is one of the hardest positions to develop defensive skill.

All of these views often ricochet around the message boards and turn into a rather confusing collection of dialogues filled with an impressive amount of conviction.  That conviction is often tied to Baseball America's rankings, which are often called an industry consensus.  That is inaccurate.  There was no consensus number one this year among teams.  Top 100 rankings vary widely between clubs.  Some team rank 200 players and then simply list likes on organizational needs.  Here is how the top ten rounds shookout:

Round	Selection	Rank	Name
3	90	386	Brian Gonzalez
4	121	129	Pat Connaughton
5	151	267	David Hess
6	181	184	Tanner Scott
7	211	360	Max Schuh
8	241	NR	Steve Wilkerson
9	271	NR	Austen Anderson
10	301	NR	Jay Gonzalez

 Basically, the club went with their board and drafted according to the strength of this year's draft, arms.  None look to be exceptional or overslots.  They simply look like decent organizational arms that the developmental staff will try to figure out.  I am not sure you can say much more than that.

Defensive Makeup of Catchers in the Draft

I forgot to post this earlier, but, based on the study I had posted last week showing the difficulty defensively poor amateurs had at sticking behind the plate, here is a run down of catchers for those who I think will go in the first five rounds.  The defensive marks are based on Baseball America's scouting reports.

First Round
C/OF Alex Johnson
C Max Pentecost
C/1B Kyle Scwarber

None of these guys are currently proficient behind the plate, putting them all in the 18% group.  They all have solid bats, so that will also be a pressure to push them in front and lower their chances at keeping their catching mitts.

Second Round
C J.J. Schwartz
C/1B Chase Vallot
C Aramis Garcia
C Evan Skoug
C Greyson Grainor

Of these, only Swartz and Grainor get good grades for their defense.  They have a solid chance of seeing time in the Majors.

Third Round
C Jackson Reetz
C Taylor Gushoe
C Mark Zagunis

Reetz and Gushoe are the bets to make here if your goal is to develop an MLB catcher.

Fourth Round
C Brett Austin
C KJ Harrison
C Matt Morgan
C Riley Adams

Harrison is the defensive blue chip.  Morgan and Adams are very inexperienced and might be good flyers.

Fifth Round
C Simon Lucas
C/1B Michael Cantu
C Shane Zeile
C/1B Skyler Ewing
C Roy Morales 
C Nathan Rodriguez
C Devon Fisher 

Rodriguez and Fisher are the only ones here with acceptable defense.

Orioles Likely Have a 1st Rounder Local Product Available in the Third Round

After the first day of the draft, the Orioles have yet to select anyone.  That reality should change around 2 pm today when they take their first pick, the 90th overall selection in the draft.  A couple years back, Dan Duquette made an overblown comment about the organization being more involved in scouting local talent and bringing that talent into the organization.  The club has gone forward and selected some of that talent, but it would be difficult to say that their focus on that talent is different from what it was.  It is not like the entirety of their drafts come from Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.

However, as they sit there at 90 there is one local player who almost assuredly will be there.  A player who arguably is a first round talent.  Jacob Bukauskas, out of Stone Bridge High School is Ashburn, Virginia.  The reason why this highly talented player is still available is partially scouting and partially due to the statements he has made.  Scouting-wise, Bukauskas is a shortish righthander at 5'10.  Although not as tightly held in decades past, short right handers are typically questioned largely due to limitations in how much their frame can fill out as well as their long term health.  Bukauskas also put on 25 pounds of muscle in the past year which resulted in an increase in velocity from the high 80s to the mid 90s.  He really has been a completely different pitcher this year and that velocity allowed him to overlook developing a changeup.

Regarding his statements, in early May he sent a letter to every team asking them not to select him in the draft.  It expressed his desire to keep his commitment to North Carolina.  As with Josh Bell, we know these letters are not always iron clad.  As we also know with Josh Bell, it can take 5 MM for that letter to burn and be swept away.  The Orioles do not have that kind of cash sitting around due to cap restraints.  If they sign all of their selections, their cap is 2.2 MM.  If they went college senior on the other picks, they probably have only about 2.1 MM to offer Bukaskas.  That likely would not be enough.  Yes, the Orioles would get a comp pick for next year at the end of the third round, but that would have blown out their ability to get talent in the other rounds.

As I mentioned yesterday, the Orioles are thought to be going with a signable college pitcher, but there is likely another local prep product who will be available when they select: Nick Wells.  Wells, out of Battlefield High School in Haymarket, Virginia, is a tall and somewhat lanky lefty who currently sits in the upper eighties and throws a plus curve.  The hope is that with a few more pounds and a little tinkering with his mechanics that he could sit in the low 90s and have an effective fastball.  He also lacks a third offering, which will need to be added if he is to make it as a starter in the high minors.  Wells is thought to be quite signable.

Anyway, as I understand it, the Orioles game plan is being suggested as a college arm in the 3rd, any falling college bat in the 4th if available or middle of the field prep, and after that whatever arm or athletic prep comes to them.  I would not be surprised to see a polished college senior bat in rounds 7-10 to open up that cap for other signings.

College Pitching and Offensive Diamonds in the Rough

Aaron Nardone - Diamond in the Rough?

Due to the Orioles' deals for Ubaldo Jimenez, Nelson Cruz, and Bud Norris, the Orioles begin their draft tomorrow.  That does not mean that your Orioles draft fix will go unfulfilled, so we figured you might want something to chew on until 1pm comes around on Friday.  This post will look at a couple options with the Orioles' first pick, the 90th overall selection, as well as explore potential diamonds in the rough for later that day in the bottom half of the first ten rounds.

Targets for the 90th Selection

I was going through some names with a talent evaluator and he suggested strongly to me that I should be considering the Orioles to go for a mature college player ready to sign.  He thought most likely it will be a pitcher based on availability and how the team has acted this Spring.  Keep in mind that there has been a lot of talk about how the Orioles are very much thinking about signability.  This makes sense because with two fewer picks, there is less wiggle room to fit in eight draftees if your ninth pick is squeezing you.

With that in mind, a college selection makes sense.  Here are some possible targets:

Adam Ravenelle
6'2" 190 lbs
RHP, Vanderbilt

Ravenelle is a Junior at Vanderbilt and is thought of as quite willing to sign if he gets selected in the top three or four rounds.  He has logged 35 innings this year and has been usually almost exclusively as a reliever during his collegiate career.  He has shown an upper 90s four seamer, but works more with a low 90s sinker and an at times plus slider.  The two big questions facing him are whether he can develop an effective secondary pitch against lefties and how long can his arm be stretched out.  He has a strong, athletic body, so there is potential.  His sinker should let him start up to Bowie.  By that point, several years down the line, he will have need to figure out a third quality pitch.

Pat Connaughton
6'5" 215 lbs
RHP, Notre Dame

Connaughton is very raw Junior who is known far more for his exploits for the Fighting Irish basketball team.  However, his frame is not truly NBA quality, which has meant that he has somewhat redirected himself towards baseball.  His mechanics are currently a bit of a mess and result in a great deal of wildness.  In fact, he has walked more batters this year than he has struck out.  That fastball though has flashed in the high 90s and he has shown some feel for a curve. At 6'5 215 and athletic, he may have the ability to be valuable.  That said, several reports have suggested that his signing will be highly dependent on him being allowed to finish out his collegiate basketball career.  That desire to play hoops could result in him dropping a round or two further.  However, it might also provide a chance to save money in the third round and overslot later.

Dylan Davis
6'0" 210 lbs
OF/RHP, Oregon State

Davis is one of those hedge your bet types of selections.  The Junior shows massive power in batting practice that does not completely show up in the games.  His bat lofts up, so it does not remain long in the strike zone, which could make it difficult for him to make contact and result in high strikeout totals.  His range is poor, but he has a plus arm that would play well in right field.  However, if that package fails, that arm could be repurposed in a role in the bullpen.  All of his appearances this year have been relatively short starts that have him strikeout out as well as walking a player per inning.  He has flashed high 90s and may need to be kept to the pen to maximize his chances if he is to make it to the Majors on the mound.

Diamonds in the Rough

I have written before about my process in trying to performance scout college prospects.  The basic idea is trying to find players who perform exceptionally at several did skills as represented by certain statistics.  College Splits no longer exists as an open source for baseball statistics, so I had to compile things more old school.  I look for college players who performed in the top 40% of batting average, isolated power, walk rate, and walks to strikeouts.  The two first rounders that came up as positive hits were Michael Conforto and Casey Gillaspie.  The success rate for a fit who also plays in a tough conference is about 80%.*  However, those guys will be taken long before the Orioles have a selection.

* - Keep in mind that the 80% number is the number of players who are performing above league average.  Many of these players are in the lower minors and one should expect that individuals who excel at Division I baseball would be more likely to excel in the low minors.  As they advance up the ladder, physical limitations will likely overshadow their polished skills.  That said, we still have a ways to go to see if exceptional performance across the board is a viable strategy when identifying players at the college level.

For the Orioles, two players came up from incredibly uncompetitive conferences as far as Division I baseball is concerned: Aaron Nardone and Daniel Miles.  Both are college seniors and should be very easy signs.  Neither appear in Baseball America's top 500 draft prospects.  I asked a talent evaluator about them and he said that Nardone is an easy sign 5-10 round guy while Miles is filler who might be drafted somewhere past the tenth round.

They just might be decent flyers to take a chance on in order to go overslot on other players.

Receivers in Name Only

You may have never heard of the baseball term RINO (Receivers in Name Only).  The likely cause of this is that I think I just made it up.  What it is trying to make clear is to communicate what is a popular perspective in several front offices throughout baseball: catchers without sufficient defensive skills when drafted are highly unlikely to acquire those skills during their career.  Maybe the term sticks, maybe it does not, but hopefully this article addresses whether or not this sentiment is true.

The way I decided to test this was pretty simple.  I took all draftees listed as a catcher from 2004 through 2008.  I decided to ignore any position switches because what we are interested in are catchers at the MLB level.  Whether or not they hit well enough to assume another position (e.g., Gaby Sanchez) does not resolve the issue of catching depth in a system.  I gave them credit for service at a level (e.g., MLB, AAA, AA, A, Hi A, A, Short A, Rookie) if they had over 100 games played at that level or accumulated at that level and a above.  For instance, if a player had 70 games caught at AA and 40 at AAA, that player would be credited with having reached AA with 110 games at or above that level.  All this was how the study measured performance, nothing more.

To determine how a catcher's ability was viewed at the time of being drafted, I consulted Baseball America's draft database scouting reports.  I decided to be conservative in what I labeled as a defensive catcher.  The following are several of the terms used that would result in a player being classified as such:

best defender in the class, pure catch and throw, solid average, at worst fringe average, best defensive catcher seen since Charles Johnson (a label that adorned Matt Wieters' scouting report, which is contrary to my memory)

Draftees labelled as poor defenders included labels like these:

needs improvement behind the plate to stick, defense remains his nemesis, passable, adequate, no scouts see him at catcher, deserves a look behind the plate, will move to third

These designations left us with 37 catchers labeled as defensive drafted in the first five rounds and 28 labeled as non defensive.  This may not be the most robust data set, but it might be able to yield some answers if the differences between these two groups are large.

How well do defensive catchers advance through the levels?

 If you simply count each level attained as a single point, sum them up for each player individually, and group them by their defense, then defensive catchers significantly (p=0.001) rack up levels played as a catcher in professional baseball.  The table below shows the total number of players in each group that are credited with time spent (100 games or more at that level and above) and the percent of that group that made it to that level.

	Defensive		Non Defensive
	n		n
Total	37		28
MLB	16	43%	5	18%
AAA	24	65%	9	32%
AA	29	78%	13	46%
Hi A	31	84%	15	54%
A	36	97%	20	71%
Short A	36	97%	21	75%
Rookie	36	97%	22	79%

As you can see, defensive catchers are likely to make it to the Majors 2.4 times more likely than non-defensive catchers.  Keep in mind that this success rate does not include defensive catchers Kyle Skipworth, Austin Romine, and Travis D'Arnaud who all stand a very reasonable chance of achieving that 100 game MLB mark in the next year or two.  That would raise the success rate to 51% and increase of probability to 2.8 times more likely to make the big show than non-defensive catchers.  In other words, if you are an organization looking to improve catching depth within your system then you should stick to the amateurs who already show proficiency in the position.  However, if you really love a bat and the player just happens to be listed as a catcher then feel free to select him knowing that it is highly likely that he has to exchange his catching mitt for a fielding one.

One question that may be asked would be whether or not non-defensive catchers are more likely to be selected in the later portions of the five round database of drafted catcher that I put together.  In fact, the average round players were drafted in was higher for the non-defensive catchers (2.5) than the defensive catchers (2.8).  For the most part, defensive and non-defensive catchers drafted in the first two rounds were in similar proportion in their groups.  The non-defensive catchers attained a higher average draft round because teams drafted few of them in the fifth round in comparison to defensive catchers.

Below is a table parsing out the round data for each group as well as the MLB attainment rates for those groups.

	Defensive		Non Defensive
Round	Success	n	Success	n
1st	64%	11	14%	7
2nd	57%	7	0%	5
3rd	33%	6	14%	7
4th	33%	6	29%	7
5th	14%	7	50%	2

A first round catcher with existing professional defensive skills is 4.5 times more likely than a non-defensive catcher.  If you add Skipworth and D'Arnaud in that then the percent goes up to 82%, 5.9 times more likely than a non-defensive first round catcher.  Romine's addition would put the second round at 71%.  Keep in mind that these are small sample sizes, but these are rather impressive differences that suggest that there is a trend here.

Conclusion

The conclusion is this: if you want a catcher, then draft an individual who has already displayed professional catching skills.  If you really like a bat and the player just happens to have played catcher in high school or college, then do not talk yourself into dreaming about him as a catcher and respect him simply for his bat.  Otherwise, an organization may just find itself a few years down the road with no internal solutions behind the plate.