Sign The Preps!

As Phil Hughes, whom the Yanks drafted at 17, won his 10th, and Robinson Cano, whom the Yanks signed at 18, continues to lead baseball in hitting, it's a good time to look at why it's so important that the Yanks aggressively go after high school players in the draft, and teenagers in IFA.

First thing's first, let's get a big definition out of the way. What is a Yankee? Yeah, on one level it is a guy who plays for the Yankees. On another level, it is a baseball player, that is so good that he can take control of a starting position in the field or the rotation or pen, for a number of years and do so with so much traction that the Yankees FO doesn't have to continually look to spend money, farm assets or both to replace him.

Now, an average player cannot really be a Yankee, because they will always be looking for his replacement and will eventually find one and replace him, as they did this past offseason with Melky Cabrera. He just wasn't good enough to take the CF job for good, and so they had to spend money and farm assets to replace him with someone who is good enough (probably) to be a Yankee in Curtis Granderson.

Though Curtis is not terribly expensive by Yankee salary standards, he cost Austin Jackson, Ian Kennedy and Phil Coke. Those were valuable assets. And when the FO cannot trade for a Yankee, they have to go to market and pay free agent salaries. We all saw what Tex, CC, and AJ got last year, and they could still stand to upgrade AJ. And that's is why Phil and Robbie are so unbelievably valuable to the Yanks: they were both able to come up to the bigs and be Yankees, thereby saving organization tens of millions and a multitude of prospects.

So why do preps and teenage IFA's have a better chance to become Yankees than College picks do? If a prep player ends up going to college, he's going to have the amount of baseball he can play limited by NCAA rules and class schedules. Thus, he's not going to get the same dedicated development time as a teenager in the Yankee system would. What's more, the development he would get would be with an aluminum bat.

Adjusting from aluminum to wood bats in one of the biggest challenges a college player has to tackle when turning pro, and frankly, it weeds out some of them. College pitchers have it even worse, though they generally pitch just one day of the week, they are often asked to pitch well more than 100 pitches per outing, which is abusive, and the programs don't take as good care of them as the pro's can who have prehab and rehab programs and long range plans for their pitchers.

Finally, college players in most cases will be in their 20s while preps will always be in their teens. This year, for example, the Yanks first two picks Cito Culver and Angelo Gumbs are both just 17. While, their first college senior pick, Kyle Roller, is already 22 - and that's pretty young for a college senior athlete - most of whom are 23 or 24 by the time they red shirt and play four years.

By virtue of who gets the pro coaching first, prep picks virtually ALWAYS have more upside than college picks. And the Yankees have to be in the upside business on the amateur side. They are not looking for eventual major league players, they are hoping to find some Yankees. Prep players have the most upside but they also have the most leverage so they demand the highest bonuses of any players in the draft with the exception of any underclass collegians taken in the top 5 or 6 overall. But this money is a pittance for the Yanks, because if an entire draft class produces only 1 Yankee, it has saved them millions.

To illustrate, in the not too distant past the Yanks hired Carl Pavano to fill a roster opening and hopefully be a Yankee for 4 years and 39 million dollars. The Yanks generally have a draft budget of around 8M, give or take. So Pavano, who flopped, cost them the same as 4 drafts and part of a fifth. When the Yanks miss on a prep overslot pick, like Carmen Angelini or Garrison Lassiter, it's still only costs them a fraction of one draft budget, and if their respective drafts produce one Yankee each, the value of that Yankee will dwarf the cost of the entire draft including the price of the flops.

This is essentially why the Yanks, given the scouting advantage they are building both domestically and internationally, should draft and sign even more preps and teenage IFA's.

This year, Yanks drafted 19 prep players in draft. That's the most that they have drafted in the Damon Oppenheimer era, which began when Brian Cashman solidified organizational control in 2005 and realized there was a better way to find Yankees. On the collegiate side, they picked one DES hitter, Rob Segedin of Tulane, and a bunch of hard throwing collegiate pitchers like Kahnle, Burawa and Jacob who will compete for Yankee bonuses in the wood bat leagues this summer.

Of the 19 prep players, seven of them are pitchers; Encinas, Morton, Dean, Rutckyj, Kish, Dezse and Brown. They are all starting pitchers. In each of the last 2 drafts the Yanks have signed 4 of their prep pitcher picks. The truth is, they should sign all of them. Now, I don't think they will, but I wouldn't be surprised if they signed 5 or 6 of them. Over the past two years, the Yanks have improved their crosschecking program and instituted a policy of having a performance coach interview all of the kids they are hoping to draft. What they are hoping to do is find the kids who are really ready to turn pro and aren't just looking to get bonused. If you read interviews with these kids (pitchers and position players) you will see a lot more determination and toughness than you'd see a few years ago in the post draft interviews.

The reason I think they will sign more this year, is that they didn't really draft any college starters who'd need a bonus like Cotham and Stoneburner last year. Also, because of the growing network of Yankee scouts, a few of these drafted pitchers have what I'd call "special relationships" with the Yankees. Dean and Kish have both known Northeastern Area scout Matt Hyde for years. Kish has even played for his summer teams. Meanwhile, Dezse is a teammate of Michael O'Neill, Paul's nephew who the Yanks took, and no doubt comes with trusted references. The Yanks are definitely going to sign Encinas and Morton whom they took high and won't be playing in amateur leagues this summer. They are also probably getting Evan Rutckyj, the Canadian lefty, who floated a 1.6M bonus demand, but had no takers for it. He wants to sign and it seems like they'll find common ground and get it done. He, Dean, Kish and Dezse can all pitch their way into the plans, and Dezse got off to a great start yesterday, hitting 95 on the gun in a summer league game. Thus, I think we're getting 5 or 6 this year and that will be a very good thing.

On the postional prep side, the Yanks took 11 OF's and one SS, Cito Culver, who has already signed. Because there are already some high upside OF's in the system on the international side, the Yanks are not going to sign all 11 of these guys. But they should sign a bunch.

It looks like the Yanks already have deals in place or are about to with Gumbs, Taylor, Gamel and Austin. That leaves super high upside kids Mason Williams and Kevin Jordan on the outside right now. They think Williams will sign because, though he has floated a top ten bonus demand, he's been coming around the Yankee complex to work out since last November and they think he wants to play. People vote with their feet. Kevin Jordan was sick for much of the year, so the Yanks want to sumer follow him. I hope even if they do sign Mason Williams, they will also sign Kevin Jordan because both have 5 tool potential and the talent to eventually be Yankees.

I'd hope they'd also sign high upside late picks James Ramsey and Jaycob Brugman, though I fear, the Yanks are just looking at those two as insurance for Williams and Jordan. I'd consider it progress if they just got the top 6 signed.


In all, the Yanks know everything I've told you. They know they only way to really lower the major league payroll is to start producing their own Yanks. And the best way to do that is by bonusing high upside draft teens and IFAs. Now they know this, but so far have been a little resistant to going all the way in the draft. I think things are starting to change though. I think Phil and Cano, minor leaguers like Montero, Romine, Joseph, Heathcott and Murpy are showing them the best way to build a Yankee is through the system and getting them in that system when they are teenagers.

We should have some more signing news soon. We need those pitchers.