Friday, December 4, 2009

Rays 2010 Draft Pick Update

Tampa Bay RaysThe Rays picked up a supplemental First Round pick today when catcher Gregg Zaun signed with the Milwaukee Brewers. Here are the Rays picks as of now in the first three rounds:

First Round
17th overall (not protected if the Rays sign a Type A free agent)
31st overall (compensation for not signing LeVon Washington, protected)

Supplemental First Round
35th overall (compensation for Type B free agent Gregg Zaun, protected)

Second Round
52nd overall (not protected if the Rays sign a 2nd Type A free agent :)

Third Round
79th overall (compensation for not signing Kenny Diekroeger, protected)
84th overall (not protected if the Rays sign a 3rd Type A free agent ::)

Supplemental Third Round
None

The 31st and 79th picks will be lost if the player selected fails to sign. These will continue to change as the Rays and other teams sign free agents. The Rays will receive another Supplemental First Round pick if a team signs Brian Shouse, a Type B free agent (which will be above the pick received for Zaun since Shouse was ranked higher).

With all of these picks, what should the Rays draft strategy be? Signability is clearly important for the 31st and 79th picks since they will be lost if the player doesn't sign, but what should they do with the other four picks? Go high risk/talent/hard-to-sign guys? Play-it-safe picks?

6 comments:

  1. If Zaun was a type B, then he's a supplemental 2nd rounder, not 1st... right?

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  2. Also, the compensation picks for Diekroeger and Washington are the unprotected ones, not the other way around.

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  3. From my transactions.doc file:

    Free Agent Compensation
    A club may receive draft-pick compensation if it loses a free agent if:
    ·the player signs with another club before December 2, or
    ·the club offered arbitration to the free agent but failed to re-sign him.

    Compensation is based on the free agent’s place in the Elias Sports Bureau’s ranking of all major league players by position based on their performance during the last two seasons.

    Players are ranked by league in one of five positional groups: 1) 1B/DH/OF, 2) 2B/SS/3B, 3) catchers, 4) starting pitchers or 5) relief pitchers. The statistical criteria, which vary by position, are not public.
    ·Type A players:
    oThose who rank in the top 20 percent at their position. (Before the 2007-08 off-season, the Type A pool consisted of players ranking in the top 30 percent at their position.)
    oCompensation for a Type A player is the signing club’s first-round draft pick and a supplemental pick between the first and second rounds.
    ·Type B players:
    oThose who rank between 21 and 40 percent. (Before the 2007-08 off-season, the Type B pool consisted of players ranking between the top 31 and 50 percent at their position.)
    oCompensation for a Type B player is a supplemental pick between the first and second rounds.

    Exceptions
    ·If the signing club’s first-round draft pick falls in the upper half of the first round, that choice is protected and the signing club loses its second-round selection instead.
    ·If a club signs multiple free agents within the same category, its earlier pick goes to the team that lost the higher-rated player.

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  4. "Protected" refers to being lost if the Rays sign a free agent. The #31 and #79 will be lost if those pick fail to sign again in 2010. The other 4 picks would get the Rays a pick one place later in 2011 if they fail to sign.

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  5. Wow, major brain fart on my end with the after round 2 thing.

    And the protected thing makes sense, I guess there's just two ways to think about it. Don't really see the Rays going after any type-A free agents anyway.

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  6. You scared me for a second that they had changed the compensation again.

    Zaun was the lowest ranked Type B, so expect that pick to keep dropping with every Type A and B signing, they all will be above his spot. It really depends how may of the A's and B's accept arb and how many become free agents.

    Same applies to Shouse, if he accepts arb, we will not get another pick.

    It will be interesting to see how the Rays handle all these picks, gonna cost a lot more than 2009 did.

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