the party line on the draft..........

[futaba.79]

it's been reported that Shepard, Watson, Bright and Thigpen all would have been drafted early had they been deemed signable. I question that, especially when it comes from Gene. He's been telling us for years that our signees would've been drafted had they been signable.

I have to wonder how good our signees really are. Out of the 18 or so we've signed, only 3 get drafted? Only one gets drafted in a relatively respectable position. Am I to believe several others were worthy, but were considered unsignable? Lots of teams' signees were drafted - it's hard to believe that we're the team with all the unsignables.

 

[Todd4State]

I question whether those guys would have been drafted "early"- I don't know what Gene is considering early- but I do think that more of our players would have been drafted if they wanted to go pro.

MLB is starting to realize just how valuable the draft is. They put a lot of money and time into scouting and trying to sign players. They don't want to waste draft picks on guys that probably aren't going to come. And on that note, for guys that do want to go to college, they would have to offer more money to get them, and believe me, MLB wants to get these guys as cheaply as possible.

The three guys that we had drafted this year is equal to Polk's last three classes.

 

[Shmuley]

The three guys that we had drafted this year is equal to Polk's last three classes.

That fact doesn't mesh well with the anti-byrne, anti-cohen agenda.

 

[Paper Dog]

I would not put any credence in any analysis from there

 

[futaba.79]

**</p>

 

[8dog]

in the interview on BDJ. He claims to have turned down 210K for a 4th round pick. Its very believable that clubs just see a lot of these guys as unsignable. I think ole miss has a nice class and I think they only had 1 signee drafted.

Ben Bracewell got zero draft hype and was the Alabama Player of the Year. Good article http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-sports/2009/06/briarwoods_ben_bracewell_is_bi.html

And I'll take my chances on a guy like Girodo throwing 5A ball with the numbers he had. They are sick.

Where Cohen is going to set us apart is- a. he is not going to ignore the mound and he obviously has a pretty good eye for pitching talent (See Paxson and Rusin) and most importantly b. if you aren't producing, you aren't going to take up money and roster slots anymore. That's where we REALLY got behind.

 

[Shmuley]

nm

 

[Xenomorph]

..."signability" issues was Ed Easley.

 

[Todd4State]

..."signability" issues was Ed Easley.

 

[8dog]

taking his name out of the draft. I didn't know you could do that, but i think he did.

Weatherford would have been taken if he'd been signable. He was a pretty big signee. chose us over LSU and Bama.

 

[lawdawg02]

linky to el swan's story.

story say he would have been a probable supplemental first rounder out of high school, but "notified all teams interested in him that he has withdrawn his name from consideration".

 

[Todd4State]

I looked at a few baseball programs and looked at how many of their players were drafted out of HS and then in midstream, I looked at how many were drafted out of JUCO.

Here's what I found out:

LSU- 10 out of high school, 0 out of JUCO
Southen Cal- 5 out of high school 0 out of JUCO
Miami- 9 out of high school 2 out of JUCO
Texas- 10 out of high school 1 out of JUCO who was also drafted out of high school. I counted him with the HS total, so it's 10 overall.
Virginia- 7 out of high school
Mississippi State- 2 out of high school and 1 out of JUCO

To no one's surprise, the more HS draft picks you have, the better your team is. USC finished with a similar record to us, and most of their draftees were Fr. When you take into account that most good college players leave after 3 years, it appears to me that most good college programs are typically getting 3-4 draft picks on their team every year. It also appears as if most major programs share my disdain for JUCO baseball. To be fair, I'm willing to look at Oklahoma State. Just glancing at the stats of the guys that weren't drafted, many of them had some pretty good numbers in HS to.

In Cohen's first class he had 3 guys drafted- 1 out of HS and 2 out of JUCO. I'm hoping that as Cohen gets the team better suited to what he wants, he will start to go to the JUCO's less and less. Although, at least the guys he recuited out of JUCO were at least guys that transferred there from other D-I programs and/or were guys that were darfted out of HS.

That said, I still don't agree with Gene. Very early is subjective, but for most people that would mean top 12 rounds. At least that's what it means to me. The guys that Gene mentioned were not top 12 round guys to me. Some of them my be able to get there as they develop, but that's not how the draft works.

 

[Todd4State]

I had ever heard of anyone doing that myself.

 

[8dog]

Cohen's best players (Streiby and Carroll) were jucos. I think Dombrowski was too so i don't think he's been burned enough to start shying away.

 

[Todd4State]

maybe he can change my opinion. At least he only signed one and a half guys from the Mississippi JUCO ranks- Thigpen and Vickerson.