Now reaching the phase of my first Amateur Draft. What advice do you most-helpful veterans have? My understanding is draftee bonuses are paid out of the same bonus pool we use for IFAs. What is the significance of a prospect's signability on the draft settings? Is there a "better have $20 mil in prospect pool if you're gonna go after low-signability guys" guiding principle?

Thanks for your input!

Might sign if the deal is right, you will probably get to sign, probably won’t sign probably won’t. I find 10 million for the draft is pretty good.

if I have suplimental round picks I usually only go for slot guys for that to make sure I don’t lose the pick.

spend time ranking 30-50 guys. You can get some good picks in later rounds because people won’t bother to do their rankings.

Look at the World News page for last seasons draft class. You can see that the lower that the player gets picked (lower in the draft, not lower number overall), the less money he gets. For instance, the first overall pick will sign for $4MM if he is a slot money guy, then each slot is about $90k less than the previous slot guy. However, you'll see picks where the money jumps up instead of jumps down despite the player being picked lower. In this instance, he was not a slot guy.

The language used by the scout for signability varies, but if he is a "probably won't sign" guy, he will ask for about $7.5MM so if you don't want to pay him that, you will want to move him down your board. The other non-slot guys will also initially ask for more than slot money, but it is usually like somewhere between 20-60 percent more than slot. Also, sometimes, a few days after the amateur draft is completed, the player may decide that he is interested in signing a baseball contract, but he ups his demands to even more that what he demanded and sometimes this can turn into a guy want between $5-9MM to sign.

If you don't have high picks, you can get away $5MM or $6MM in draft money and sign all of your picks if they are all slot guys. But if you have high picks or you have supplemental picks or you have guys high on your board that are non-slot guys, you want to have at least 10 million unless you do what many owners do by not signing any draft players past the round of 5.

I was in both the Intl market and the HS draft last season in Glavine, but since I spent $22MM on my draft picks, I didn't get any significant Intl players. I had comp picks and drafted two "probably won't sign guys". One of them signed for $7MM and the other signed for $7.5MM.

I do exactly what tlowster mentioned when planning my budget lol. I would also mention that you can sign your top picks for slightly less than slot (80-95%) if you offer them "Minors w/invite" instead of just minors. I usually do that for my first 3/4 rounds. I'll start by offering 80% of demands, then 85, etc. Saves a decent bit of cash

I am in an envious position of having 7 of the first 65 picks in my draft this year. Any advice on maximizing this opportunity to stock the system? I have $20 million in prospect budget. I'm new to the game so any advice would be helpful.

Posted by mborden308 on 11/26/2020 6:53:00 PM (view original):
I am in an envious position of having 7 of the first 65 picks in my draft this year. Any advice on maximizing this opportunity to stock the system? I have $20 million in prospect budget. I'm new to the game so any advice would be helpful.

The first is that I hope you have 20 million in either college or HS scouting. I wouldn't change my strategy at all. Even if i have seven of the first 65 picks, if the top players are pitchers, I am drafting most pitchers. I always go with best player available as opposed to need unless I am in dire straights. My best advice is to get the best players with your seven picks.

If you have 20 million you can go for riskier guys. I’d be tempted to draft anyone with my non-suplamental round picks. For my guys that were type A or type B picks I’d keep with having them as slot or ‘may sign if the deal is right’ to make sure I don’t lose the pick. Other then that I’d go for everyone!

Agreed with above.

I would also say don’t be afraid to move up players with lower overalls who can be solid MLB players. Relief pitchers and/or catchers can sometimes have lower overalls and still be super effective. You can really snatch those guys with the compensation picks. I would much rather have a back end reliever with a 70 overall than a weak hitting 3b with a 76 for instance.

Be sure to filter out any glaring weaknesses that are non skill related. For example.. any player who has a horrible "injury"rating. or a top pitcher with "durability" issues. As you get a few drafts under your belt, you will also want to consider "makeup" ratings which coincide with development potential and long-term ability to maintain ratings.

I have found most favorable draft results when I rank top 20 players. If time allows, top 30 is really maximizing the draft so you pull potentially useful players in 3rd and 4th rounds.

I start that process by getting rid of the junk players in the default top 20 (injury prone,super low on any critical rating).. Get them out of sight so you don't pull any of them by accident.

On other note - 20 mil is critical in college or HS imo. I am pretty sure players have the potential of something like a 10 pt final deviation from whatever you see with 20 mil scouting. That makes it difficult enough. With less than 20mil scouting, you are are really rolling the dice.

Here's an example of how u can blow a top pick with 20 mil College or HS scouting. Assuming the +/- 10 deviance from what you are looking at - you take a stud pitcher with only one flaw. scouting sees 55 control. Now I have seen great pitchers with 55 control, but they are SUPER strong in other areas like our phantom example here. But I have never seen a top flight pitcher in the bigs with a 45 control. The gamble is hoping the deviance falls to the + side with a possible fully developed control of 65. Once you lose this type gamble - it's something you don't forget.

If you play the game well, you won't have so many shots at a top 5 overall pick. Those should come few and very far between if at all. When they do come around - or if you adopt a new team with this blessing - you gotta maximize.

Posted by siberiansoul on 11/28/2020 10:34:00 AM (view original):
Be sure to filter out any glaring weaknesses that are non skill related. For example.. any player who has a horrible "injury"rating. or a top pitcher with "durability" issues. As you get a few drafts under your belt, you will also want to consider "makeup" ratings which coincide with development potential and long-term ability to maintain ratings.

I have found most favorable draft results when I rank top 20 players. If time allows, top 30 is really maximizing the draft so you pull potentially useful players in 3rd and 4th rounds.

I start that process by getting rid of the junk players in the default top 20 (injury prone,super low on any critical rating).. Get them out of sight so you don't pull any of them by accident.

On other note - 20 mil is critical in college or HS imo. I am pretty sure players have the potential of something like a 10 pt final deviation from whatever you see with 20 mil scouting. That makes it difficult enough. With less than 20mil scouting, you are are really rolling the dice.

+1 ^^^^^
Forgot about this, i do this out of habit, but it is absolutely necessary -- filter out those pitchers that have 77+ overall rating, but 58 or lower R split rating.

Just adding a data point: With college and HS scouting budgets of $8mm each, it turned out 8 of the top 20 picks in the draft were not scouted and not on my board. But, the results weren't too, too bad. 3 of the non-identified were picked before me so would have been gone anyway.

I run 20/20 and have found that even then I don’t see 3-5 guys in the top 20.

This advice is extremely helpful. I took over a franchise where the last owner was completely absent for the entire year. None of the free agents wanted to re-sign but they were all Type A or B so I have a good opportunity to rebuild through the draft.

I maxed out my spending on HS and College at 14mil, so hopefully that is good enough for scouting.

• make groups/tiers - for me starting pitchers, starting position players, bench players, relief pitchers, D & Speed bench players, 4A guys
• identify guys in those groups - go through and sort important ratings to identify them. i'd encourage you to go 50-75 players deep. having bench and relief guys at league minimum is important to save $.
• push all those guys up in your rankings sorting the groups by importance to you, save new rankings
• rerank all ML eligible guys, resave
• eliminate all probably won't sign; downgrade all low health/low dur guys. resave again :)