Philly Front Office

Sweet mercy they like to pack these drafts in close together. Just when I get done learning a whole bunch of 18 year old hockey player names I’ve never heard of, now I have to learn a whole bunch of 18 or 21 year old baseball names I’ve never heard of? Brutal! We have until Sunday, July 13 at 6pm to get ready. The first 3 rounds are that night with the next 17 on Monday.

Anyway, the specific names aren’t too important right now. I am not going to tell you that if we draft a certain person, that person is going to become a star. That’s not really how the MLB draft works. There are simply too many minor league levels and general prospect unreliability to fall in love with anyone. Instead, you need to know the rules and what to look for to see if the Phillies took any risks or simply mailed it in.

Rules

The MLB draft consists of 20 rounds with the first 3 going off Sunday night (for some reason). The Nationals are picking first followed by the Angels and Mariners who all won the newly installed lottery. The Phillies do not pick until #26, then again at #63, #100, and #131. From there, they will pick every 30 selections.

Aside from not being able to trade draft picks (except competitive bonus picks), what makes the MLB draft interesting is the bonus pool and slot value system. In order to stop prospects from getting increasingly crazy signing bonuses, the league instituted a slot system that basically assigns a value to each pick for the first 10 rounds, decreasing as it going down the list of teams. Based on these slot values, teams a have a total amount of money they are allowed to use on all draft picks called a bonus pool. If you exceed your slot value, then that is less money you can pay someone else. If you go under, that saved money can be used on someone else. That’s why you will hear the terms over-slot and under-slot value. Anyone drafted in rounds 11-20 have a slot value of $150,000. If a draftee is signed for under that amount, it does not count toward the bonus pool. However, any overages must come from any remaining bonus pool money.

For the most part, the draft consists of high school seniors and college juniors at the top and then college seniors filling in the bottom of the draft. The reason is about eligibility and leverage. High Schoolers are eligible for the draft and can leverage college baseball commitments to get pro teams to pay higher slot values for their services. If they don’t get the kind of bonus they want, they can simply go to college. However, they are not just allowed to jump into the draft the next season. Instead, once they enroll in college, they have to wait 3 years in order to enter the draft again. At that time, they have leverage again in that they could still stay in college for one more season if they wanted to. However, that’s when the leverage runs out. As college seniors, there is not another year for them to head back to. The idea is that high schoolers are obviously younger so a team could start coaching them up from a much younger age and have them focus on baseball full time. Because of that youth though, you don’t know what kind of prospect they will turn into. A college junior 3 years older, albeit not a finished product, is at least closer to their projection than that of the riskier high school senior.

Often times teams will try to save money in the first 10 rounds and draft a high school player who is likely going to college later in the draft. Signability reasons have made them slide down the draft board, but if a team has saved enough, they could possibly throw that money at the prospect to entice them to forgo college.

For example, the Phillies 6th round pick has a slot value of $327,800. If they sign him for only $27,800, that’s $300,000 extra dollars they could use to sign someone else. If two high schoolers dropped in the draft because they had strong college commitments and were selected in the 11th and 12th round, the Phillies could theoretically offer each of them $450,000 with the ultimatum that the first to accept it, gets it. This is at least how it used to be, NIL money has surely changed the equation. You want to see your team take a few chances like that instead of all easy to sign and replaceable seniors though.

Traits

All MLB teams have vast networks of scouts and fact checkers traveling all around the country to get a look at players. Some of these guys get to know the player, their families, and what it might take to sign these guys. They also evaluate what they see on the field and place grades on their baseball talents. I’m sure there is a good reason for it, but instead of using a 1-5 or 1-10 scale, they use a 20-80 scale and use terms like “plus” to describe certain abilities. An 80 grade is truly elite.

Hitters are graded on the following 5 attributes: hitting, power, running, fielding, and throwing. If you ever wondered where the term 5-Tool came from, it’s this.

Pitchers are evaluated on their individual pitches on the same 20-80 scale. From there, they almost always have a command grade either on the individual pitch or overall. Other qualities might be in play as well, but that would likely depend on the organization.

For years the Phillies were taking high schoolers who were very fast and very strong, but not much of anything else. These guys looked great in a uniform and if they ever got ahold of a ball it was either long gone or they were off to the races. What they didn’t care too much about was actually hitting. This would become a problem once they got to pro ball. A pitcher would just need to throw anything other than a fastball and the batting average would plummet. The idea was that if they ever put it all together they could be superstars. This wasn’t a 1 in 5 chance though, it was more like 1 in 1000. We lost a lot of good years on some real no chance prospects like Greg Golson, Anthony Hewitt, Larry Greene, Zach Collier, and of course Mickey Moniak.

The opposite, taking complete High School pitchers wasn’t doing us any favors either. So many just never even came close to working out like Jesse Biddle, Shane Watson, and Mitch Gueller. Kyle Drabek looked like a future ace for a while and got us Roy Halladay, but he died on the vine as well.

Phillies

The Phillies have a total bonus pool of $7,381,800. Here are their picks and slot values:

1 – 26	$3,492,000
2 – 63	$1,416,600
3 – 100	$765,400
4 – 131	$567,000
5 – 161	$422,700
6 – 191	$327,800
7 – 221	$257,700
8 – 251	$215,100
9 – 281	$197,600
10 – 311	$187,300
11-20	$150,000

At #26, the Phillies will be hoping that signability issues have caused someone to fall. If they know a kid wants $5m, they could theoretically take a nothing guy at #63 in order to use his slot value to sign the falling draftee. Teams are in constant contact with the agents for these players. This is not like the NFL draft with an aura of unpredictability. Instead, it is very common for agents to manipulate where a player goes by alerting teams how much the draftee will require to sign his contract.

What you need to know about the Phillies is that they have not drafted a college player in the first round since 2019 (Bryson Stott). Since Brian Barber took over in 2020, it has been a mix of high school hitters and pitchers who are gradually making their way through the minors with a few already being major league ready:

Year	Name	Pick	Current Level
2020	Mick Abel	15	AAA/MLB
2021	Andrew Painter	15	AAA
2022	Justin Crawford	17	AAA
2023	Aiden Miller	27	AA
2024	Dante Nori	27	A

For the most part, teams do not draft for need. That being said, drafting a college player will likely mean the player is closer to the majors than a high school player. A team like the Phillies could see a college player as someone either able to possibly help the team in a year or two or even as a more viable trade piece in the near future.

Speaking of which, with the trade deadline looming, you might wonder if the Phillies can draft someone with the intention of trading them. The answer is no…at least not technically. Drafted players cannot be traded until after that season’s World Series. However, that’s not the end of it. Have you ever heard the term “Player to be named later” (PTBNL)? Often in trades a team can work out the final details later and they will negotiate a list of possible prospects to select from to consummate the trade. A recently drafted pick can be included on the list. The deal just has to be finalized within 6 months.

There is no exact science to this. Phuture Phillies has gone through the trouble of compiling the mock drafts around the league and found that 8 experts have us selecting 8 different players. Lovely. I’ll give you a peak at Keith Law’s list including those around the Phillies selection at 26:

• Kruz Schoolcraft – High school pitcher whose height makes teams drool. He’s 6’8″ and 230 pounds. That makes for easy and durable velocity.
• Xavier Neyens – High School 3rd baseman with power
• Riley Quick – Huge College Pitcher from Alabama. He’s 6’6″, 250 pounds. That’s a big boy
• Josh Hammond – High School shortstop who also pitches. That means he has a cannon
• Sean Gamble – High school 2nd Baseman who is fast enough to move to center. He’s a serious athlete…which generally makes me nervous knowing the Phillies history.

In later rounds, hope for as many high schoolers as possible or players with at least one elite tool.

Cool Names

Like any draft, you are going to hear some truly ridiculous names. Here are my favorites (any name with a completely unnecessary “y” is out):

• Ike Irish
• Kruz Schoolcraft
• Gavin Fien
• Gage Wood
• Sean Gamble
• Riley Quick
• Steele Hall
• Briggs McKenzie
• Chase Shores
• Murf Gray

Last Thing

Teams only have until August 1 at 5pm to sign their picks. If they do not, then they lose that draft pick. If anyone in the first 3 rounds goes unsigned, then the team that selected him gets a compensatory pick in the next draft. That’s why you see teams take risks on high schoolers with signability concerns later on. They don’t want to waste a pick on someone they don’t know if they can sign.