Astros Aggregate Bonus Pool for the Draft
by clack on Feb 20, 2012 3:50 PM CST
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The MLB amateur draft bonus pools for teams has been finalized, now that Raul Ibanez has signed. The bonus pool is a de facto cap on team's total bonuses for the first ten rounds of the draft. Baseball America has a write up on the aggregate pool amounts. The aggregate pool amounts are a function of the bonus amounts assigned to each slot in the draft, plus the supplemental picks for each team. The Astros, with the first pick in the draft, have the second highest aggregate bonus. The Twins have the highest aggregate bonus ceiling, $12.3 million, with the Astros in second with $11.1 million. The Angels have the lowest cap, at $1.6 million. This is likely to be a crappy draft for the Angels, but that is mostly caused by signing of Type A players Pujols and Wilson.
As shown in the BA article, the Astros' pool for the first ten rounds is almost three times (2.85 times, to be exact) the bonus amount that the Astros spend on the first ten rounds in 2011. If the Astros use up their full slot amount on the first pick, the team will have approximately $4 million to expend on the remaining 9 regular picks and 1 supplemental pick in the first ten rounds. The draft picks after Round 10 don't count toward the aggregate bonus unless the team spends more than $125,000.
Teams which will take huge reductions in their draft budgets, compared to the amounts spent in 2011, include the Pirates, Royals, Red Sox, Nationals, Rays, and D-Backs.
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The MLB policy meant to increase parity penalizes 1 of the top 5 teams (payroll wise) and 3 of the bottom 4. That is just ridiculous to me.
I see what Selig was trying to do, keep the best teams from outspending everyone in the draft but that isn’t how it works. The Yankees and Red Sox can pay as much as they want to Free agents but now small market teams can’t be aggressive in a draft to get players signed. Its just dumb. I’m sick of Selig and I’m ready to see him shown the door.
I can’t wait for the season to start so I don’t have to think about this for awhile. Go ’Stros!
This looks like it will be a must follow this season
http://bullpenbanter.com/rtmenu/684-2012-college-baseball-notes-volume-1
Very good stuff on Appel’s start. I really really hope somebody else emerges.
Yeah I hope it didn’t seem like I was saying Appel looked good, just that BB did a good job. That was a really specific recap of why he doesn’t put up good number.
by MadMartygan on Feb 20, 2012 10:22 PM CST up reply actions
I don’t want to overreact, but when I saw the steep inning by inning drop in velocity, I started thinking, “oh, oh, a future closer.”
Thanks for linking my article!
I’m not sold on Appel, and I do think there will be better options on draft day. That said, all three of his pitches will show plus or better at times; they’re just wildly inconsistent and the command needs work.
It’s good stuff. I’ll be looking forward to these, all year.
by MadMartygan on Feb 23, 2012 12:32 PM CST up reply actions
It should be really interesting to see if perceived higher-priced or higher-risk players drop to the Astros, Twins, and others with high bonus pools. Will the new CBA really bring down draft bonuses, or will it just redistribute the talent among the lowest-spending regular season teams?
Really interesting stuff.
Crane recognized building through the farm system and draft as top priority, so I wonder if he will budget in an spend the 11 million figure. Like you said that would be more than twice what the Astros spent on the draft last year. I would be ecstatic if this was the case as that would mean that the Astros probably brought in some decent talent.
by conroestro on Feb 21, 2012 4:38 PM CST via mobile reply actions
Not spending all of the available $ (or close to it) would drastically lower my opinion of the new regime.
by Snake Diggity on Feb 22, 2012 9:41 AM CST up reply actions
Well not spending it reduces the availability of it consequently. That’s the big issue with the system. It increases the leverage of the players by giving them the pull to either get that money or take away that cap space but reduces the ability for the teams to give it because it can put them over the cap if they go overslot.
But if the money is spent on lower round picks, how would you feel, i.e., spend less than slot on 1st round but use up the full pool when lower rounds are taken into account?
I don’t know, I guess it would depend on what I thought of the players they took. My typical stance is that it’s all about value. But I just can’t see any realistic scenario where it would make sense to pass on the best player at #1 to draft better players in the supplemental through 10th rounds.
I doubt we will have to worry about this playing out. If a consensus #1 emerges, I feel confident that Houston will pick him. If not, we’ll probably never know if who Houston takes was their pick only due to signability.
by Snake Diggity on Feb 22, 2012 11:39 AM CST up reply actions
P.S. What a $h!++y year to have the #1 overall pick
by Snake Diggity on Feb 22, 2012 11:39 AM CST up reply actions
Don't Worry
We’ll probably have it next year too.
by seanbergmanrules on Feb 22, 2012 6:51 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
Astros' first pick
There was a discussion at the Astrosdaily Forum that I’ll mention here in order to gauge the reaction.
One of the commenters advocated a strategy of using the first draft pick on prospect who would agree before the draft to a low-ball bonus amount (for example, $3 million less than slot), in order to gain a bigger advantage on on drafting and signing lower draft rounds. The theory is that the first pick candidates aren’t all that great anyway, and the added money for lower rounds might allow the Astros to draft a signability question mark or two, who falls from the first round, in the 2d or 3d round, etc.
IMy current reaction to this strategy is negative because it means that the Astros wouldn’t use the first pick on the best available player but instead probably would have to reach for a player who is normally a late first round or supplemental round pick (since a “reach” pick would be the only ones likely to agree to a dollar amount far below the slot). My thinking is that the first pick doesn’t come around to a team all that often, and if you have it, you should use it to draft elite talent. However, i realize that it’s hard to say it’s a good or bad strategy until we get closer to the draft day and know more about the “consensus” picks.
What would be your reaction to a serious overdraft with the first pick in order to increase the odds of signing better picks in the lower rounds?
I wouldn’t like to see the severe overdraft theory happen, but I would understand the logic behind it if it happened. If this was a deeper draft like last year I wouldn’t mind it, and might actually think it would be the best strategy, but in this case BPA is what I would like to see.
by conroestro on Feb 22, 2012 9:19 AM CST via mobile up reply actions
I wouldn’t be for it. I’m like you, I can understand the reasoning behind it but I don’t see it as being worth it. Even in a weak class, Giolito would still probably be a B+ prospect and someone thats an overdraft would be B- more than likely. So are two B- prospects worth more than one B+, maybe it is maybe it isn’t. I would rather have a higher rated player with our current system still lacking high end prospects and having a good number of prospects who could turn into B- guys.
Do not want. They MUST take the best player available. The success rate for players 1-15 is drastically higher than that of the supplemental and later guys.
by Snake Diggity on Feb 22, 2012 9:42 AM CST up reply actions
The other thing you could do
Would be to leverage a pair or three prospects against each other. You could say “look we want to spend less than slot for the 1st pick, we’ll give you the #2 pick money if you’ll agree to it. We really don’t see an appreciable difference between the two of you, and if you agree we’ll pick you.”
Check out The Dream Shake.
by Patrick Harrel on Feb 22, 2012 11:08 PM CST up reply actions
I don't like it
The only way I would be in favor of it is if Luhnow legitimately believes a guy is very underrated around the league and is actually the BPA (or very close to it at least). If something like that happened it could be a masterstroke, but I don’t think the chances are very good of it in today’s game.
http://www.crawfishboxes.com
Really
Lucas Giolito is my favorite at this point but Appel, Gausman, Buxton, and Marrero among others will likely be in and out of the conversation between now and the draft… I really do not feel that this is a season where there will be a true consensus #1 pick and I think our best hope is that two or three of them separate from the pack, but not from each other appreciably.
The slotting for the #2 pick is about a million below the slotting for #1 so we could reasonably expect to be able to negotiate down towards that figure unless the player we are negotiating with has distanced themselves from the next closest prospect by a wide margin.
Either way going BPA with the first pick is a must, as has already been mentioned the top 15 or so guys in a draft are much more likely to be major contributors to a club than everyone after them… it is even more true when applied to the first 5. Of course this does not mean we cannot go over-slot for some other players… We currently have 11.1 million in bonus money, if we do not exceed our cap by more than 5% we will not lose a pick so I am going to go ahead and call our cap 1.05X11.1 mil = 11.65 mil. If we spend 6.8 mil on our first pick we will still have 4.85 mil left to go.
Personally I would aim high on the next two-three picks depending on who is available. If it comes down to having enough space to sign everyone drafted in the first 10 rounds vs. going for first round talent in the first three rounds and then going on sign-ability for the rest of the draft… or even conceding a few picks from the 4th-10th round… I will go with the higher end talent.
Of course that is just a generalization and gut reaction. Given enough information about the likely success rate/contribution rate of a player based upon historical info and individual scouting vs. the likely success/contribution rate of players that could be acquired through the utilization of the over slot players expected bonus money, a more reasonable decision model could be formed. This is where we find out how good our Decision Sciences department is.
After the first 10 rounds are up any bonus at or under 125K does not count against the bonus cap. So at that point we get to find out just how good our scouting department really is, who can find the singable diamond in the rough? Which is to say both; who can spot hidden talent the with the most accuracy, and who can spot a player that really wants to go pro and is not going to need a big bonus to skip out on whatever amateur eligibility is left to them.
All in all this should really be fun. It will be interesting to see what our strategy is given the new rules… It will be really fun to watch over the next few years to see what changes our strategy may take as the composition of our organizational talent changes.
AstrosCounty interview with Mark Appel
http://www.astroscounty.com/2012/02/qs-as-with-mark-appel.html?m=1
I was pretty surprised to see Mark Appel interviewed by AstrosCounty, and it was a pretty interesting read.
I didn’t realize Appel’s Houston connections, but with all of the talk about draft strategy and reaching with the number one pick, do you think its possible that a Mark Appel selection could be signed at a below slot deal with the apparent desire to be in Houston.
by conroestro on Feb 23, 2012 1:20 AM CST via mobile reply actions
Below slot...
not hapenning. Take the BAP, pay him and move on. There are no “deals” at #1.
by Byyronbb on Feb 26, 2012 4:03 PM CST via iPhone app reply actions
I do not like Appel
He has not performed in college, at all! I would much rather see a guy like Kevin Gausman play himself into the conversation. Since there is no consensus number one and guys ranked 1-20ish are all close to equal, it is imperative Houston scores themselves someone who will not bust. Luhnow coming from St. Louis will probably be looking to go the college route anyway. So, although Giolito may be the best talent, I don’t think Houston will take him. Stephen Perez could be a sleeper. But, I think I prefer Gausman most.
It would be huge if Houston spent all 11 million.
It really is a must. There are teams that can’t spend even 2 million. It is a significant advantage for Houston to be able to spend twice as much as most of the league. Plus their allotted bonuses are more than double what Houston spent last year. They must must spend all of it.
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Houston Astros
Monday, May 28, 2012, 2:10 PM CDT Wandy Rodriguez vs Juan Nicasio Sunny. Winds blowing in from center field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 70. |
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| Mon 05/28 | 7:10 PM CDT | |
| Wed 05/30 | 7:40 PM CDT | |
| Thu 05/31 | 7:40 PM CDT | |
NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cincinnati
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27 | 20 | .574 | 0 | Won 2 |
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St. Louis
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26 | 22 | .541 | 1.5 | Won 1 |
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Pittsburgh
|
23 | 24 | .489 | 4 | Won 3 |
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Houston
|
22 | 25 | .468 | 5 | Lost 2 |
|
Milwaukee
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19 | 28 | .404 | 8 | Lost 2 |
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Chicago
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15 | 32 | .319 | 12 | Lost 12 |
(updated 5.28.2012 at 12:18 AM CDT)
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