Yankee Draft: Paying For the Draft

We cover this every year, and it's gotten even easier for just one successful Yankee draft pick to pay for his entire draft class.   That's because the Yankees tend to throw huge money at their perceived holes.   Witness the past offseason.   So the Yanks really only have three ways to fill their holes: through expensive free agency, costly trades and successful picks and IFA signings.   Before MLB starting assigning allotments, the Yanks were usually spending between 6 and 8 million on their drafts.  Add more if you want to factor scouting costs.    Anyway, because you get six years of control with every player from the season.   When they play well enough to hold down a position for even a year or two, they end up saving the Yankees free agent money, and offsetting the cost of the draft picks who didn't make it.    Brett Gardner, for example has paid for not only his own draft class, but is still saving the Yanks millions today with the new contract he signed.    Look what they gave a comparable player.

So even though the MLB draft has 40 rounds (39 or 38 for the Yanks this year) the Yanks are being efficient when they produce one Yankee per class.    The Giants and Rangers have to do better than that, and of course, the Knicks never have picks.

So 2005 paid for itself and 2006 has paid for itself many itself many times over.  The problematic draft class which is as yet unpaid for is 2007.  At the time, it looked like a pretty solid, well chose group, led by high upside starter reliever Andrew Brackman.

http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/team/draft.jsp?c_id=nyy&year=2007

But Brackman flopped, Romine looks like a backup, and he's been passed on the organizational depth chart.  Suttle was never healthy and Angelini flopped.   Also, in 2007, after years of minor league neglect by the Yanks, they were still having to use picks on organizational players to fill out the SI roster.    Still the biggest problem was the Yankee unwillingness to really spend.

2008 could have been an even bigger disaster given the Garrett Cole situation - and that's on him, not on the Yanks, but currently David Phelps is doing his part to pay for his class.  And Jeremy Bleich just had 10 K's the other day during his latest comeback.  

Adam Warren and John Ryan Murphy are currently at the vanguard of the 2009 class, though that may have some more guys come and kick in.

Whitley and Claiborne are already starting to pay for the 2010 class.  And the `11-`13 classes have yet to be heard from, but each seems to have a few guys who will give the Yanks class value.   So that's good.   2007 has really been the only class that's failed to produce so far, and that was during the period we are all still paying for, when the Yanks wouldn't use their financial might to boost their future.  

They've been pennywise and pound foolish till they prove they're not.  Some proof could come this July, if not this June.