metafour
Registered User
- Apr 6, 2008
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- 610
Not fetishizing at all. They had legit talent and fell due to sign-ability concerns and in most cases prospects do that on purpose so they can land with a specific team - see Bo Bichette from the 2016 when he went in the 2nd round. Or a specific team was willing to pay them more in the pre-draft. If Wilcox and Kelley said they were signing with anyone then they go in the first round. White Sox and Padres could have liked these guys but not better than Crochet and Hassell respectively or they manipulated the draft by taking underslot guys early because they knew they had Wilcox and Kelley in the bag later in the draft.
MLB draft boards dont fall like the other big 3 leagues (maybe hockey with Russian players), you know that. Its why a guy like Martin went 5th, Baltimore and Miami wanted to spread their money out. Lacy was just higher on KC's Board. No one said they were "cant miss" - im just saying i like their stuff and upside over the rest of the Jays draft. As of now, Wilcox has the 15th highest signing bonus in the draft and Kelley tied for 19th with another HS arm in Bitsko. i doubt they got that much money based on a fetish - they have legit talent and upside.
But they didn't just fall because of signability. Both guys had question marks which made them undesirable at their perceived price tags versus other players who were comparable at lower cost: Wilcox with his marginal improvement in college and reliever risk, and Kelley because his advanced metrics don't line up with the pitching models that data-driven teams now rely heavily on for scouting (us included - which kind of kills the entire idea that we'd punt our remaining picks for him).
Both guys you named are obviously talented players with legitimate upside; I was never arguing against that point. However, all three of Van Eyk, Palmer, and Frasso are talented in their own regard. You just brought up that Frasso could have played himself into the 1st round had he not been injured, and Van Eyk had Top 15 helium at one point in the preseason before a few shaky starts before the lockdown may have pushed him lower than his talent indicates, while Palmer seems to be a pitch-data darling. I just don't see the argument where Wilcox for $3.3 million makes sense over Van Eyk for $1.8 million, plus two other plus-stuff pitchers. It makes even less sense with Kelley who is a HS pitcher who while talented, obviously doesn't tick the boxes that data-driven teams want to see out of a maxed-out HS pitcher in 2020.
Your hypothetical scenario makes more sense if the perceived pitcher was a legitimate Top 15 talent in which case you could argue "quality over quantity", but I just don't see either Wilcox or Kelley fitting that bill over what we ended up doing in the draft. You have a better argument with Wilcox who probably could have played himself into that type of category had the season continued as he was having a good start to the year, but I think the fault in the argument is that you aren't considering that Van Eyk alone isn't far off from those two players (and that actually reflects in several draft rankings wherein he's ranked only a handful of spots below Wilcox and Kelley). In this case I don't see how its worth it to throw away 3 picks in order to get a "slightly better" guy in the 2nd round. Teams with good scouting staffs and track records in drafting (ie: the Jays) should be trying to maximize on as many picks as they can to take advantage of that strength in scouting; I don't think it makes sense to limit yourself to just two selections in a strong/deep draft year.