MLB.com's "Top 50 Draft Prospects" List -
washingtonismoney - 01-28-2012
Of a lot of interest to the Stanford fan for a number of reasons:
http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2012/index.jsp
Stanford junior pitcher Mark Appel is #1; Stanford junior shortstop Kenny Diekroeger is #21; Stanford junior third basemen Stephen Piscotty is #37...and Tyler Gaffney and longshot Jameis Winston aren't listed at all.
MLB.com's "Top 50 Draft Prospects" List -
washingtonismoney - 01-28-2012
Of a lot of interest to the Stanford fan for a number of reasons:
http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2012/index.jsp
Stanford junior pitcher Mark Appel is #1; Stanford junior shortstop Kenny Diekroeger is #21; Stanford junior third basemen Stephen Piscotty is #37...and Tyler Gaffney and longshot Jameis Winston aren't listed at all.
Re: MLB.com's "Top 50 Draft Prospects" List -
washingtonismoney - 01-29-2012
One additional point: I'm by no means an expert on baseball in general or the draft specifically, but it's my understanding that the new CBA for MLB should tighten its "slotting" recommendations--before, it was more of a free market in terms of payments (so you could draft a third rounder and pay him first round money), while now this has (apparently) decreased. So our odds of seeing Gaffney or (should it come to this) Winston being drafted in the 520th round and offered 1st round money have been significantly reduced.
Re: MLB.com's "Top 50 Draft Prospects" List -
97fan - 01-29-2012
I'm not an expert on this at all...but it seems possible that the uncertainty regarding Winston's plans will hurt his position in the baseball draft. If you're an MLB team, you probably don't want to use a first-round or second-round pick on a guy who you're not sure is going to sign.
And if the slotting rules have been tightened, I would think that Winston would need to signal convincingly that he's planning to sign a baseball contract, or he won't be drafted high enough to make signing a baseball contract an attractive option for him.
Re: MLB.com's "Top 50 Draft Prospects" List -
washingtonismoney - 01-29-2012
Looks like my initial memory re: baseball slotting was more-or-less correct. It appears that's there's a fairly stringent cap on each slot*, and Jonah Keri of Grantland writes as an upshot of the new drafting system here (
http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/10571/mlbs-new-cba-is-no-help-to-small-market-clubs):
Quote:Premium young athletes could become more motivated to take up basketball, football, soccer
basically any sport that isn't baseball.
* A luxury tax of 75% of each dollar over the recommended slot, with the total dollar value not to exceed 10+% of the slot value (unless you want to pay with your first-round pick in the next draft).
Basically, whomever gets Winston would seem to be safe, unless he gets drafted in the first couple of rounds. From what I can tell from various baseball draftniks, Winston is not nearly as highly valued a baseball player as he is a football player. It appears to me that the risk of Winston not showing up on campus after signing is overstated, unless Winston has a brobdingnagian spring or some team falls in love with him.