Blue Jays Draft 2017: Part I – The Strategy

With the June 12 MLB Draft fast approaching, the Blue Jays need a game plan – and the willingness to move outside it

The Jays have the 22nd and 28th picks in the upcoming MLB draft, and as such have the opportunity to add some impact-level talent.

This article is the first in a series of three.  In it, I will discuss some of the “strategic” questions that the Jays should address in 2017, in terms of the types of risk that they might find acceptable.  In the second article, I will analyze the mock drafts, identifying and discussing some of the most recommended candidates for the Jays at #22 and #28.  And in the final article, I will discuss a few of the “dark horse” candidates who have been discussed as possibilities for the Jays in the first round.

Is the best strategy to have no strategy?

Some writers (and managers!) feel that the best strategy is to just take the “best player available”.  This has some merit, but there are two issues.  First, it is very difficulty to determine what constitutes the “best player”.  Does a high floor compensate for a lower ceiling?  Does a high ceiling compensate for an unusually high injury risk?  And how much does heart and drive compensate for physical disadvantages?

If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else …. Yogi Berra

And secondly, even if you can answer these questions, there are still other factors to consider beyond talent.  Is the player signable at a reasonable price?  What is his injury history, and what are the implications going forward?  How strong is his university commitment?  And for each of these (and many other) factors, what is the team’s appetite for this risk?

Teams should (and do) ask themselves these questions in advance, to be prepared

Philosophical questions

In a similar article last year, I discussed the questions of talent vs makeup, high school vs college and player strengths vs. team development strengths. But these are not the only strategic questions that a team should be asking itself.

Toronto Blue Jays

The position predicament

In 2014, the Jays selected Max Pentecost with the 11th overall pick.  Max was an above-average defensive catcher with a good hit tool.  But, as good as his hitting was, it is unlikely in the extreme that he would have been a first round pick if he were a first baseman, or a corner outfielder instead of playing at a premiere defensive position.

Obviously, this is an extreme case.  But consider a player like Keston Hiura, who has been linked to the Jays at #22.  He has one of the best bats in the 2017 draft, but his defense (he has played second, center and left) is average at best.  As a healthy second baseman, he would likely be a top-10 pick.  But as a left fielder (with arm issues) …?

The data dilemma

Ideally, before spending a first round pick a team would like to have as much data as possible.  But it is not uncommon to have a player with high upside for whom, for various reasons, limited recent data is available.  In some cases. the player could be coming off an injury (think Cal Quantrill in 2016) .  But it could also be Heliot Ramos (another potential Jays pick) in 2017.  Ramos has potential plus power and speed tools, but at 17 he is one of the youngest players in the draft and he has limited experience playing with a wood bat and against higher-level competition.  Any high school draft pick is risky, but Ramos would be doubly so.  Risk vs reward?

The pitching paradigm

It used to be conventional wisdom that a team should not draft a relief pitcher in the first few rounds.  It was acceptable to consider a pitcher’s bullpen potential as a fallback position, limiting the risk of the pick, (think T. J. Zeuch in 2016) but the less likely the rotation spot the lower the draft position.

The recent mega-contracts for high-level bullpen arms have likely caused teams to challenge that paradigm, and be more receptive to players with high bullpen probability.  Could this affect players like Tanner Houck, who many scouts are now seeing as a power reliever or closer?

Next: Blue Jays' Aaron Loup not performing well despite numbers

The bottom line

Drafting young amateur players is an exercise in risk and return.  Teams need to determine the type and magnitude of risk that they are willing to accept, and the level of upside they require in return.