Draft Preview - Los Angeles Angels

The eighteenth team draft preview on my blog focuses on the Los Angeles Angels and their scouting director Eddie Bane.

Here's an excerpt from the writeup, which features small writeups on 25 players involved with Bane's work:

Looking at draft budgeting, the Angels’ front office has been extremely frustrating for their fans. It’s one thing to set an amount for specific players, then not going above it, but when you do that consistently and don’t sign other high-ceiling players to make up for not signing earlier players, your organization suffers. I know an Angels blogger wrote a scathing piece about the difference between draft budgeting and actual spending, but the end result is the same. Not spending in the draft hurts your club. The Angels have simply not spent enough in the draft over the last five years. Their spending places them 29th out of the 30 Major League teams over that period, with the above amount only being $3.74 million. Taking that to tenured scouting directors, that puts Bane dead last for resources compared to his peers. That’s simply unacceptable. The only good news is that the Angels’ 2009 spending showed a willingness to pay for good talent, even if they were at slot for almost every pick, Skaggs being the slight exception. Even looking at 2009 alone, the Angels barely snuck into the top half of the league for draft spending. For a team that spends over $100 million on Major League payroll on average, that’s too low. The Angels are once again in a good position in 2010. They own picks 18, 29, 30, 37, 40, 81, 111, 115, 144, and every 30 picks after that. That’s two extra first round picks, two supplemental first round picks, and a supplemental third round pick for not signing Josh Spence last year. I’d expect another $7 million or so for draft budgeting in 2010, which should put them roughly in the top dozen teams for draft spending. Don’t expect much, if any, overslot spending, but it should be a solid draft much like their 2009 class.

Direct link here.

I'm also running a special on the 2010 MLB Draft Notebook, as the next 8 buyers will be entered in a drawing for an autographed baseball from Jameson Taillon. If you'd like to read more about the promotion, go ahead and do so here.

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What do you think? What will the Angels do?