Draft Day Diary: Day Three

As it turned out, we didn't need to waste time going back-and-forth during our last pick, as Garrett Crochet was still available when our pick came back around. I don't know why the league is allowing me to completely monopolize the 2020 MLB draft, but I'll take it. As it stands, we have four of the projected top ten picks in that draft already, and six of the top twenty. We will likely draft a seventh shortly. If you gave any MLB team the chance to draft seven of the top twenty players in any draft, they'd leap at that chance. The 2020 draft seems to have better-than-average depth, which makes this all the more astounding.

My auction strategy is crumbling before my eyes -- as it always seems to do. As predicted, Luhning sniped the deGrom auction and bid in $500K increments during the final two minutes of the auction until he won the bid. Frankly, I'm shocked that deGrom went for "only" $17.5 million, given the prices I've seen in years past -- and in this auction already.

Our "Plan B" to sign Jake Odorizzi for $7 million seems like a pipe dream at this point. Trevor Bauer, who is far worse than Odorizzi by almost every measurement, is currently fetching an $8 million payday -- and there are still seven hours remaining in his auction! I really don't understand how Jacob deGrom doesn't even earn double what Bauer gets, but more often than not, this league and these auctions are anything but rational.

Right now, the bidding for Max Scherzer is already $14 million. The team currently winning that bid is the Great Lakes Sphinx -- which makes zero sense. Great Lakes has no pitching whatsoever. They have only one starter (Mike Fiers) with more than 114 innings. They have over $32 million to spend, but spending almost half of that on one pitcher isn't going to help matters. This is the Jim Doyle strategy all over again!

If we bid $15 million on Scherzer, we would have enough left to fill that right field position for $3 million, and another $2 million to fill the platoon catching situation. If we bid the same $17 million we bid on deGrom, we'd basically have nothing left to fill those holes.

As it stands, we will have to live with some combination of the following:

-- Steven Matz pitching every fifth game for us.

-- Shohei Ohtani playing right fielder against right-handers.

-- Some scrub catching against right-handers.

-- Jose Ramirez playing every day out of position at second base.

-- A shitty bullpen.

-- No backup infielders, and no bench depth whatsoever.

Of those six shitty options, which is the shittiest? To me, the range of shittiness goes from top to bottom, in order. I can deal with no bench depth. I can add a bullpen arm later through trade. I can deal with Ramirez at second. I can deal with a seven-man lineup against righties (at least for a while.) I can live with Ohtani's shitty defense.

I cannot live with Matz pitching more than a spot start here and there. He SUCKS. He will lose every game he pitches for us. Because of this, I feel like I have to go all-in on Scherzer. If we don't get him, we may be stuck with Matz, and I can't have that.

There are plenty of other starting pitchers available in this auction, but none that I'm crazy about spending "Type H" money to get, other than maybe Odorizzi. But if someone as shitty as Bauer gets $8 million, what on earth will Odorizzi fetch??

I'm placing a $16 million bid on Scherzer at some point today. Pray for me.