Welcome to Draft Day. With how things unraveled for the Chicago White Sox in 2023, the next three days are more important than expected. There’s a lot of gossip about what the White Sox direction will be with their first-round pick. Many college hitters are tied to them, and a couple of college pitchers if they slide, but the front office surprised us last year with the selection of Noah Schultz. My recommendation is to prepare for any prospect demographic.
Before we release our final mock drafts later today, let’s answer some P.O. Sox questions from Sox Machine Patreon supporters.
Big picture question. Why don't trades happen that include draft position in MLB? For example, why can't the Sox trade Lance Lynn for a prospect and a second round pick?
Draft pick trades in Major League Baseball are limited today. Only competitive draft picks can be dealt to other teams for players only and with only one team. No exchanges of draft picks for cash or part of three-team trades. Why trading of draft picks has yet to be expanded to be used as additional trade collateral because it has to be collectively bargained by Major League Baseball and the Players Association.
In the last CBA negotiations, neither party had enough time or much of an appetite to work out a new policy that would allow teams to trade draft picks, much as we see in the other North American professional sports leagues. Regarding the draft, MLB has deemed establishing an International Draft, a bigger fish to fry than working out a trade policy.
Asking around other industry experts, one big concern is teams just giving up on the draft and trading all of their picks. I think that's ridiculous and fear-mongering, but we've seen it happen before in the NFL when Mike Ditka got crazy for Ricky Williams. If that fear does exist, a good step forward in allowing trades is strictly exchanging picks and bonus money within a single draft.
For example, the Chicago White Sox wanted to get into the Top 5 to select prep outfielder Max Clark. The Texas Rangers, who don't have a second or third-round pick, are interested in swapping with the White Sox. Their fourth overall pick is worth $7,698,000, and to complete the trade, the White Sox have offered picks with a bonus slot value that equaled the picks exchanged.
The final hypothetical trade:
Texas Rangers receive picks 15, 51, 84, 116, and 299.
Chicago White Sox receive pick 4.
Now that's a crazy trade exchanging five picks for one from a White Sox perspective, but that would generate some buzz on draft day. Ultimately, MLB's goal is this type of excitement as they want more exposure, like the NFL and the NBA. The only way they ever accomplish coming close to that level of hype is by allowing for draft trades. That happens when MLB and MLBPA amend the CBA. We might have to wait a while.
I used to think the draft could make a difference for the future. With the current decision makers, who have they actually drafted that has made an impact since they’ve been here? TA was good for a year or two but is now below par. So the question is; Because of an organization that doesn’t develop talent well, regardless of draft rank, is it better to draft a college player or high school talent?
The short answer to this question for teams struggling to develop talent is to focus on taking college players.
Longer thoughts about this topic center on how quickly college programs in D-I have either adopted modern techniques or helped innovate development. Almost every program in the SEC, ACC, Big 12, and PAC-12 has a pitching lab. Hooked up with the latest pitch tracking technology staffed with athletic department interns to help feed data to the pitching coach in assisting athletes in throwing with more velocity and spin. I've heard more about hitting labs where schools are beginning to build virtual batting cages. Imagine a batting cage with many sensors and cameras that aid in mapping a hitter's swing.
No matter what former MLB managers say, this data type is essential in developing athletes. I find college programs do a better job of dumbing it down to "Here's how you throw the fastball harder" or "Let's change your swing plane to hit fewer grounders." Add the soft skills of being part of a clubhouse that lives, trains, and travels together, and these college prospects have a smaller transition to life in the minors than prep players do.
So if you're a general manager that has suddenly lost faith in your player development department, I'd focus on drafting college players. After draft day, I'd recommend hiring a new development team.
Listening to Josh's interview with Jim Callis discussing some of the problems that the Sox organization is facing there seems to be a major issue with the Sox approach at the plate, or lack there of. They rank near the bottom in OBP and walk rate. As Callis stated it is really hard to teach this. With the draft upcoming, who are some players that the Sox could target that have some of the best approaches at the plate? (Sidenote: This is what scares me with the Sox repeated connection to Yo-Yo Morales as his biggest knock is he is a free swinger that hasn't developed an approach at the plate.)
One name you’ll hear about later tonight in the first round is first baseman Nolan Schanuel from Florida Atlantic. In 2023, Schanuel batted .444/.612/.864 with 19 home runs and 64 RBI. Now that slash line is imposing, although not at the same level of competition that LSU’s Dylan Crews faced (.426/.567/.713). What makes Schanuel stand out is his crazy walk-to-strikeout ratio. In 59 games, Schanuel walked 71 times with only 14 strikeouts. It’s not often you see a hitter have more home runs than strikeouts, but Schanuel accomplished that feat.
The five college hitters I’ve heard loosely attached to the White Sox have been TCU’s Brayden Taylor, Miami’s Yohandy Morales, Stanford’s Tommy Troy, Vanderbilt’s Enrique Bradfield Jr., and Arizona’s Chase Davis. Below is a table of how these five stack up against one another regarding plate discipline.
| Player | School | BB% | K% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brayden Taylor | TCU | 16.8% | 18.7% |
| Chase Davis | Arizona | 15.5% | 14.4% |
| Enrique Bradfield Jr. | Vanderbilt | 15.1% | 13.4% |
| Tommy Troy | Stanford | 11.9% | 14.3% |
| Yohandy Morales | Miami | 10.8% | 19.8% |
Recently, Mike Shirley commented on how the organization wants to “Find guys that control the strike zone and guys that have power.” That statement disqualifies Bradfield Jr. immediately, as he doesn’t have a power-hitting profile.
Watching Taylor, Davis, Troy, and Morales this year, nothing screamed to me that these hitters would have a better than 10% walk rate professionally. There’s quite a bit of swing-and-miss with each hitter, and they are aggressive early in the count. In those regards, they already sound like White Sox hitters.
One college hitter that best fits Shirley’s comments is my draft crush for this class: Wake Forest’s Brock Wilken. He had a 21.6% walk rate but a high strikeout rate of 18.1%. While there are some concerns about Wilken’s current bat speed improving to a level of hitting elite velocity in the majors, Wilken had the nation’s second-highest ISO at .462. I haven’t heard much interest from the White Sox about Wilken. But Wilken’s numbers this year suggest the type of hitters the White Sox aim to draft.
Praise has been given to Mike Shirley for his draft selections, especially in 2021 and 2022. However, with the White Sox, I've learned to be skeptical. Do you see the recent drafts as more of an encouraging shift in philosophy leading to better draft picks or is the system so barren that any intriguing prospect qualifies as good compared to previous drafts? Or do the Sox draft well but develop poorly?
It's too early to praise or dismiss Shirley for his draft selections. There have been promising starts, but we still need another year or two to see how these classes of players fare in AA or higher. Sure, Terrell Tatum is looking good for being a 16th-round pick at a $125,000 signing bonus. Jacob Burke is doing some exciting things as a $225,000 bonus signee in the 11th round, and the White Sox are taking advantage of Tim Elko's senior year status signing.
Looking at the first-round picks, I like, for Shirley's sake, that both Colson Montgomery and Noah Schultz have made positive impacts early. When I watched Montgomery during the Indiana State Championship game, he showed signs of an advanced feel at the plate and athleticism to stick at shortstop despite being 6' 4". So far, Montgomery's play down the minors suggests that profile is holding up as long as his back does.
Schultz was known to be a very tall pitcher with an unorthodox throwing angle that would devastate left-handed batters. Well, Schultz has devastated every kind of batter in Kannapolis, and his prospect profile is quickly rising.
So if there is a shift in draft philosophy using the first-round pick on prep players with high upside but unknown floors, White Sox fans should be content with what's happened the last two years. High-floor college profiles have not worked in the White Sox's favor, which leads me to the 2020 draft.
What's not encouraging is Shirley's first pick as a director with Garrett Crochet. Before the draft, I thought Crochet was a reliever that could be molded into an Andrew Miller or Josh Hader-type. That's a high floor profile. We can debate how high the ceiling was for Crochet pre-injury. Sure, Crochet could throw up to 100 mph, but he never displayed the ability to maintain that type of velocity for five or more innings.
I didn't see a starting pitching profile with Crochet, and he's spent way more time on the injured list than on the field, which is very concerning after already missing a season due to Tommy John surgery. No team should be taking a reliever with pick 11, and that was not Shirley's best work.
