As always, putting on a clinic for drafting. Got pretty much everyone you wanted at the values you wanted. The no such thing as pitching prospect mentality extremely seriously lol.
I have Hagen Smith in my save, he was a 4.5 star starting pitcher for me for multiple years. If he does half as well for you, could be a massive steal! He could honestly start for you consistently with the ratings he has in your universe
Uresti's stats look unreal, .511 OBP is crazy, hopefully he'll continue once he gets to A ball. It's a solid draft, many middle infielders but I think you get the best available sometimes, and if you have a surplus, use them in trades to get the guys you need or more prospects.
I like the Soles pick at #10- based on last season's Dev Lab it should work out to let him develop outside of the lab until A ball, then regularly rotate Soles in to work on his defense and other shorter programs and see how he does with his high work ethic and adaptability. Your number 2 thru 5 are a real bonus and as you said there will be opportunities to get some pitching down the line. Time to get to work, let's hope the team gels a bit more after the break.
If what the draft gives you is a ton of talented hitters, draft the talented hitters! You do better than the AI (and better than me) at piecing together quality pitching for cheap in trades/FA, so it might be even more value for us to be sort of forced into picking up everyday players.
Another excellent draft, hope you keep the job long enough to see this class develop! Also not too concerned about the lack of pitching in this class - pitching has been the strength of this organization at the major league level for years, team needs stars on offense.
Ha, I hope so too! In retrospect I would have gone with Patterson in the first round if I knew I would have been able to get infielders I really liked like Coronado and Bennett in the second and third. But I think your point about our pitching is right. It seems like I can always find pitchers in their mid-20s in the trade market than can help us at a reasonable price, while outside of Keith, I've never been able to make a trade for an impact position player because the costs are always exorbitant, in my opinion. Hopefully I can keep pushing the right buttons in the trade, free agent, and Rule 5 markets on the pitchers!
Don’t think you should be so hard on yourself about Patterson.. no saying who would have been there if you had selected him first. Soles or Coronado could have gone off the board if Patterson wasn’t there to be picked.
Love the draft - just bring as much talent into the org as possible....you can always trade later on. Also like all the trades, though i would have put someone else at 2b than lewis. Should be a playoff team with some good health
Honestly, I don't know that Lewis will be playing second base come the playoffs, so I get your point. I just want to be in a position where we will have as much flexibility as possible with infielders who can actually hit when we get to September, but defense-wise Lebron, Arakawa, or someone not even on the team right now might be our second baseman by then. But if there's nobody who can actually hit that can play the position defensively, then it could be Lewis!
Hey Old School, I'm not sure if you read comments from your "older" videos or not but you put them out so quickly I can never catch up! :) Hopefully you do because I wanted to ask (since I've been having a similar quandry): With several young draftee's and the amount of time many of them seem to take before being ready for Low A how are you managing that with your rookie level rosters? Do you just carry a very large roster size or are you dropping/promoting players before you really want to in an effort to keep the roster size at a more workable level? Curious to see how you manage the lower levels of your system. Thanks!
I don't know that it's the correct way to do things, but I tend to run a larger roster for my Rookie League Arizona or Florida teams. I force roles for the top prospects on the team to ensure they will get as much experience as possible, and then let the manager decide who else gets the rest of the playing time in a survival of the fittest type approach. After the draft I'll generally do a little bit of roster cleanup with players picked in previous years - trying to promote some to A ball, and cutting a few of the true non-prospects - but I still often have a roster of 40+ in Rookie Ball following the draft. Thanks for watching and good luck trying to catch up!
At this point unless you absolutely need him in the majors due to injury and inability to make a trade for a suitable temporary replacement, it might make sense to keep Ortega in the minors for the rest of the season and the first month of next season before bringing him up mid May next year. That will buy you another year of team control for a guy who is likely a big part of the teams future. He will not turn 25 until mid-late next season, so age shouldn't increase the urgency to call him up. As you have mentioned, he is not much better than Lara and would likely not help impact the offense much if at all this year. Since it's the A's, team control years are vitally important.
Appreciate the thoughts, and I am torn... I think kind of depends how the rest of the season goes. If we are going to make the playoffs without him, then we can afford to keep him down in AAA, but if we're struggling I'll probably bring him up. Can always keep him down longer at the start of next season to make the service time work out!
Torres really hasn’t worked for you this season up to now and with Arakawa also not giving the impetus required the move to bring in Lewis is understandable to try to generate some offence, let’s just hope the change of environment gives his batting the boost it needs. I think Arakawa will be back though as he looks too good to not do so. The draft ended up being a nice one but have you ever had five rounds go before picking a pitcher!! They really weren’t there for you this year though so think the decisions made were perfectly justified. Romo does look decent though if you manage to bring him on board with that 6th pick. Beairsto at 4th could be really good value and I also like what Allinson has so it’s been a good everyday player draft for you I think.
Ha, it definitely might be the first time I have ever gone through the first five rounds without taking a pitcher! I agree we haven't seen the last of Arakawa, he could end up our starting SS next season with the money Rincon is due to get in his final arbitration eligible season...
Calling it now. Patterson will get some CY Young votes during his career and Soles will become a replacment level player. Of course for the sake of our A's I want to be wrong, but for some reason I am not a Soles fan.
