Rays Shadow Draft Exercise

by ttnorm on Jun 5, 2011 8:59 PM EDT

Count me as someone who is fascinated by the opportunity that the Rays have with their extra picks this year. I plan to run a shadow draft for them (just 5 rounds) and track it long term. I would appreciate some extra help with this study if any of you plan to do the same.

Here's the rules:

Post your Rays shadow draft (5 rounds) following the draft. You can not pick a player the Rays choose in a slot lower than their pick.

Following the Signing Deadline (Aug 15?), I will calculate how much the Rays spent in signing their picks in the first 5 rounds. I will supplement that figure with 50% of the amount that the Rays go overslot from rounds 6-50. There is no science behind the 50% figure but to me it feels like it is probably a generous bit of financial flexibility.

Given that money, you can sign as many players as you can afford. Sorry if your player does not sign, there is no way you can sign him. The player's bonus will be the greater of the player's bonus or 100% of slot at the draft position where you selected him. You get to make the decisions on how to allocate the finances that Stu Sternberg grants to you as calculated above.

MLB Slot values are circulated just before the draft. A slot guideline can be found here.

I am largely making this up on the fly, so if you see there is a way to improve this excercise, let me know.

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I'm in.

by mr. maniac on Jun 5, 2011 9:05 PM EDT reply actions

Great!

Thought you might be.

by ttnorm on Jun 6, 2011 12:17 AM EDT up reply actions

I nailed the first 2

And then reality struck. Not sure I’ll be able to afford 2 of these guys come August.

24 P Guerreri, Taylor R HS
31 COF Mahtook, Mike R COL
32 SP Norris, Daniel L HS
38 COF Bell, Joshua S HS
41 SP Howard, Dillon R HS
42 C Susac, Andrew R COL
52 C Hedges, Austin R HS
56 P Osich, Josh L COL
59 SP Meo, Anthony R COL
60 COF Fisher, Derek L HS

Even after Susac, I couldn’t pass on Hedges. They should be on different tracks with Susac 2 1/2 years older. More to the point, at the rate these guys crash and burn, I don’t like to draft for balance based on need or who I have already taken.

5 more picks tomorrow and tons of guys I love still on my board. I guess I’ll stay the course and end up signing about 5 guys out of my 15 picks in the first 5 rounds.

by ttnorm on Jun 6, 2011 11:32 PM EDT reply actions

My 5 rounds

Teams in ( ) were the actual drafting team.

I had 4 matches with the Rays. I am particularly happy with the Meo, Dickerson, and Delmonico picks who I think are reasonably signable. The rest of my guys are probably unaffordable in the Rays budget but I can hope between now and August. Certainly having the funds to sign Bell or Hedges would be a shock.

The Rays draft was full of interesting value plays that don’t have much sizzle. It is going to come down to something like whether a combination of Jake Hager, Jeff Ames and James Harris is worth a guy like Dillon Howard or even a Anthony Meo.

I hope to get 2 or 3 other entries here that can follow through in August after the deadline as I I wonder whether any of us can come up with a better draft than the Rays given the budget constraints.

Any takers?

by ttnorm on Jun 7, 2011 8:06 PM EDT reply actions

My 20 Round draft

OK, No takers. That’s cool.

Here are my 20 Rounds of picks. I want to post it now before the signings start in earnest. Maybe we can revisit after the deadline and see who I should draft and who I should pass.

24 (TB) P Guerreri, Taylor HS
31 (TB) COF Mahtook, Mike COL
32 (Tor-74) SP Norris, Daniel HS
38 (Pit-61) COF Bell, Joshua HS
41 (Cle-67) SP Howard, Dillon HS
42 (SF-86) C Susac, Andrew COL
52 (SD-82) C Hedges, Austin HS
56(SF-207) P Osich, Josh COL
59 (Ari-63) SP Meo, Anthony COL
60 (Tx-204) COF Fisher, Derek HS
75 (TB) OF Goetzman, Grandon HS
89 (Pit-91) LF/1B Dickerson, Alex COL
119 (TB) 2B Eiermann, Johnny HS
150 (ChC-429) SP Maples, Dillon HS
180 (Bal-185) C/1B/LF Delmonico, Nicky HS
210 (Cin-685) P Garrett, Amir HS
240 (NYM-462) SS/2B Evans, Phil HS
270 (ChC-339) CF Dunston, Shawon HS
300 (Bos-982) SS Gaines, Julius HS
330 (Atl-446) RP Moore, Navery COL
360 (SD-443) SP Smith, Burch COL
390 (Tor-409) 3B Matt Dean HS
420 (SF-447) 3B Buechele, Garrett COL
450 (Was-937) 2B/CF Tobias, Josh HS
480 (Cle-608) LHP Dillon Peters HS
510 (Min-748) SP Burdi, Nick HS
540 (Undrafted) RHP Ian Gardek COL
570 (Hou-760) RF Flamion, Billy HS
600 (ChC-1179) P Jacquez, Ricardo HS
630 (Tex-1434) RHP Kevin Moriarty HS

by ttnorm on Jun 9, 2011 8:29 AM EDT reply actions

Gardeck

Oops, Gardeck was drafted well before I took him at 540. So I am replacing him with HS RHPJacob Reed who the White Sox took at 1221.

by ttnorm on Jun 9, 2011 1:17 PM EDT reply actions

Without financials in count ...

… this kind of is the perfect draft. Looks like best player available with pretty much every pick. But, with financiels couting, the Rays would have never selected Norris, Bell, Hedges, Fisher, Maples, Delmonico and Gaines. Osich’s velocity regressed a lot in his last 2 starts. That’s why he fell.

by BurGi on Jun 10, 2011 7:57 AM EDT reply actions

Of course financials always count

It’s not who you draft, it’s who you sign that counts.

You know what’s funny – I set up my list with what I thought was signability in mind. I bumped college guys and signable guys up several spots across the board. My philosophy was to only reach when there was a good gap in ability. Turns out I didn’t bump the signable guys up anywhere near as much as the MLB teams did. Signable guys with ability disappeared faster than Sam Fuld’s .350 batting average.

Next year, I will almost certainly build signability into my rankings even more. But this still may be a good draft in the long run depending on who I can afford to sign. This is a long term project for me and I am still hoping to get some other prospect addicts here to post there picks here and then sign them in August limited by how much the Rays actually spend. There are guys out there reading this that know the draft much better than I.

The end game is to have a Rays shadow team much like John has his Twins shadow team.

Does John limit his signings based on the actual Twins budget?

by ttnorm on Jun 10, 2011 5:35 PM EDT reply actions