The most boring and insignificant Draft Day in Salem franchise history has officially ended. We had only $4.6 million to spend on eleven players, so we were forced to watch most of the proceedings from the sidelines. Never have I been more grateful to have no money! The auction was as wild and crazy as predicted. Several bags of popcorn were consumed while we watched that feeding frenzy play out in real time.
The only player we thought we had a remote shot of signing was Omar Narvaez, but as it turned out we were $1.5 short of winning that bidding war. So, we waited and waited and waited, while hundreds of players came off the board. Finally, we made our first pick of the winter in Round 15 of the draft. Below are the eleven players we signed, along with our glowing scouting reports that prove our brilliance.
Round 16: Alex Colome
Heading into Round 11, we had a choice. We could have taken one $2 million player and four $500K players or we could have taken two $1 million players and four $500K's. We rolled the dice. And we lost. Big-time.
The guy we had our eye on for that 11th round pick, Tejay Antone, came off the board. Just because that didn't provide enough salt to rub into our wounds, Antone went to the despised Los Altos Undertakers -- one pick after ours. We could have had him, but we played it too conservatively and paid the price.
We narrowed down our choice in Round 16 to Colome, Ryan Jeffers, and Mike Mayers. Ultimately, we decided on Colome because he was the safest choice of the three to give us value in 2022, plus he provides the bonus of having value this season as well. Relievers with lopsided splits (685/712 for Colome) are always a useful weapon to have. We also gambled that Jeffers and Mayers would still be there in Round 17 when we would make our second $1 million pick, but of course, Jeffers went three picks before us in that round.
Round 17: Robinson Chirinos
Mayers was still available with this pick, but we felt that he was so under the radar that he would fall to the $500K rounds. To this point in the draft, we still didn't have a backup catcher, and Chirinos was the only one available with acceptable stats against right-handed pitching. Our thought process here was that we'd get that one pick out of the way that we "need" in 2021, and then spend the rest of the draft focusing on 2022 and beyond.
Of course, two rounds later, Mayers went to the Highland Freedom.
Round 21: Sam Tuivailala
I know what you're thinking. "You JUST wrote that you'd spend the rest of the draft focusing on 2022...and yet Tuivalalalala has zero future value! What gives?" Well...in the heat of the moment, a lot of pre-planned strategy gets crumpled up and tossed in the waste basket. That's exactly what happened when we reached the 21st round.
Tuivailala was the best pitcher available, albeit he "pitched" only 41+ innings on the projection disk. We are roughly 90 innings short of usage in our starting rotation, and Tui will get us halfway there. His 615 OPS against righties will be very useful against certain righty-heavy teams.
Okay, NOW we can focus on the future, I swear!
Round 22: Tommy La Stella
Say what? Tommy La Stella is "the future??" Well...yes! The guy is very underrated! He has played basically one full season (549 PA's) from 2019-2020 combined, and hit .289/.356/.471 over that period, with 21 homers, and a 47/40 BB/K ratio! He's usually rated at multiple infield positions, to boot! Don't underestimate the value of someone like that!
Why the projection disk was so down on him, I'll never figure out, but he should easily be worth his $500K salary a year from now. Trust me.
Round 23: Codi Heuer
Heuer is part of a very young and talented Chicago White Sox bullpen that is arguably the best in baseball. He's a side-armed tosser who throws in the high-90's with a whiff rate that ranks among the best in the game. Our goal, basically, for the remainder of this draft was to find at least one bullpen diamond-in-the-rough for 2022. Heuer is as good a bet as any.
Round 24: Matt Foster
An MLB teammate of Heuer's, Foster came out of nowhere last year to have a phenomenal MLB debut at age 25. He made big gains in velocity a year ago, and now looks to be a big part of that vaunted Chicago bullpen.
Round 26: Jonathan Hernandez
Hernandez has been a prospect forever, it seems, but that's exactly the type of player that tends to scoot under the radar and seemingly come out of nowhere to become the Next Great Relief Weapon. He throws gas, has a killer slider, and will likely become a multi-inning reliever in the mold of Chad Green.
Round 27: Matt Wisler
Speaking of sliders, Wisler fell in love with his 70-grade slider so much that he ditched all of his other pitches and threw that slider almost exclusively! The end result was the best season to date (25 IP, 1.07 ERA) for the former top prospect. He was just signed by the Giants last month, and they have a habit of turning nothing into something when it comes to pitching.
Round 28: Jose De Leon
It seems as though we draft this guy every year, hoping that all of the hype finally pays dividends. De Leon was once considered one of the top pitching prospects in the game. Then he got injured and disappeared for a while. Now, I'm reading reports from training camp that his fastball has jumped several miles per hour and his secondary pitches are becoming real weapons. When asked to name the one guy who stood out at camp above all the others, the Reds' new pitching coach didn't hesitate to name De Leon. I'm buying the hype. Again.
Round 29: Jake McGee
This pick earned the coveted Sylvester Family Seal of Approval. McGee was arguably the best reliever in baseball in 2020. He struck out a whopping 42% of the batters he faced! BUT...it was only a 20-inning sample, he turns 35 years old this year, he still has no MLB home at the moment, and he's been susceptible to the gopher ball throughout his career, so he works with a razor-thin margin of error. Still...42%!
Round 30: Daniel Norris
We've danced with Norris before, only to be severely disappointed. At one point, we thought he would become the Next Jon Lester. Or maybe the Next Erik Bedard. Instead, he was just a stumbling, bumbling, mess. His velocity fell into the high-80's. His secondary pitches became flat and lifeless. But then, the Tigers moved him to the bullpen last year and Norris found a second life. His fastball returned. He enjoyed a taste of success. Now, he has fallen in love with Detroit's new pitching coach, who is heavily into analytics. Who knows? Maybe there's some magic there. It's worth a 30th-round gamble!
***
In addition to the picks we made ourselves, we also traded for two draft picks:
Round 19: Jason Vosler
Funny story. As we approached our fourth and final pick of the farm draft, Akron GM DJ Shepard began inquiring as to whether anyone would be willing to trade their pick for a 26th-rounder. At that point, we were planning to take Vosler with our farm pick, but felt that he could probably be had in the free agent draft pretty easily. So, we traded the pick.
Fast-forward to Round 18. DJ let us know that he had enough money to make a $1 million pick with his final pick, so we could have that pick instead of his 26th-rounder. What a steal! This trade couldn't have worked out any better! Mike Mayers -- who, remember, we nearly took in Round 17, was still available! We basically traded our last farm pick for Mayers! What an incredibly fortunate turn of events!
One pick -- ONE MEASLY PICK! -- before DJ's pick in Round 19, and Mayers was still available! Oh, boy!
Of course, you already know what happened. Team Sylvester snatched up the ONE guy we had our eye on with that pick. We couldn't find anyone else worthy of drafting, so we just went with Vosler.
So, in the end, instead of paying $100K to draft Vosler in the farm draft, we paid $1 million for him in the draft. Genius!
We are strongly hoping that Vosler's career takes the same trajectory as Luke Voit's and Max Muncy's. If not, we REALLY screwed up here.
Round 27: Gregory Soto
We tried everything we could think of to get Trevor May's contract off our hands prior to Cutdown Day, to no avail. He's a fine pitcher. At least, his stats indicate that he should be a fine pitcher. But we had our fill of Trevor May in 2020, and we want no part of him going forward. We're still wiping off the stench from his performance with us a year ago.
We found a taker in Ravenswood, who probably ended up with a bargain because of our bias. We almost asked for their 26th round pick in return, but didn't want to get greedy, so we asked for their 27th, which turned into Soto. He is yet another young reliever that began his MLB career like his head was on fire. In his first ten innings, he was looking at a 3% walk rate and 31% (!) whiff rate. With his 98-mph fastball and plus-slider from the left-hand side, he was looking like the second coming of Andrew Miller.
Of course, he cooled down a little after that and finished with a whiff rate of "just" 30%, while his walk rate ballooned to 13%. Still, there's a lot to like here. Well worth a 27th-round flier - and hopefully worth whatever May ends up contributing over the next two seasons.
