Yanks Post Draft

Back when Stick was running things, close followers of the Yanks knew he was making smart decisions on a daily basis, both in his amateur signings, his draft picks, and in the way he protected those players from George, who could get impulsive and self destructive with trades.  Once the Yanks became dynastic again, they seemed to focus more of their intelligence on income streams like the YES Network, the new Stadium, and the Food business they have with Dallas.  The Yanks became the engine for something else, instead of monolithic and holy winning machine they were always meant to be.

During that period, they let scouts leave, started picking friends kids instead of prospects in the draft, and getting bilked by their own executives in the Dominican Republic. During a period of wild draft spending by teams like Pittsburgh and KC, the Yanks came nowhere near doing what they were capable of doing, and the system became sort of useless.

Then starting several years ago, the scouts started coming back along with other teams' best scouts and they started using cross-checkers again - what's more - they started using using their analytics team to supplement their scouts and started finding better players.

They also retooled their entire player development system, and now their farm system is as strong as it's been since the 1950's - better than it was undet Stick - and better than it was under Gabe Paul.  In fact, through drafting, great trades and IFA splurging, the system is now so jam packed, it's hard to find players good enough to join it.

They found a way this week.  Now there are two major things to talk about: first; what they did in the first and second rounds, and, second; all those RHP's they took.

So, on Monday night, in the midst of a multi-year prospect collecting tear - they took an injured guy.  Clarke Schmidt had been having an amazing junior season, topping out at 97 with two plus breaking pitches, a workable change and plenty of swing and miss. He was headed for the top 10, they he blew his UCL, and had to have TJS.

The Yanks were sitting at 16 for the second time in 3 years (and probably the last time for several years) and seemed to be focused on three preps.  They were Trevor Rogers, Nick Pratto and Matt Sauer. But they had also fallen in love with Clarke Schmidt, the ace of South Carolina, which has been one of their favorite programs as they've rebuilt the farm.  Schmidt was the wild card of the first round, as smart teams realized they could get him for underslot and save money for the rest of the draft.

When Rogers and Pratto went right before the Yanks pick, the Yanks could have taken Sauer. But had they done that, there is no way they were going to get a player as good as a healthy Schmidt in the second round.   So, they apparently made a side deal with Sauer and still got him in the second round.

Instead of ending up with one of their top RHP's and a lesser player in the second, they ended with two of their top targets.  That was smart and right off the bat gave them two more top 20 talents for their own system.  That was HUGE.

Then they spent the next two days of viable picks (ones we can reasonably expect to sign) they took a preponderance of RHP's.  It was like their default setting and they were always set for default.

But that's not what actually happened.

In comments after the draft, Damon Oppenheimer mentioned that they had been studying what had been working for them.  So it seems there was some sort of audit, and what they found was they were crushing it with power arms and power bats.  So in the rest of the top 10 rounds (and all of these players will sign) the Yanks took 6 power righties, one athletic lefty, and a prep slugger so deadly that his league was afraid to pitch to him.  That's a Yankee Bat.

In the next ten or so rounds, they still took a bunch of power righties, and two more Yankee Bats.  Steve Sensley is a lefty swinging homer guy and he will sign tomorrow and probably play RF for SI.  Eric Wagaman was a bit of a mystery because of limited  and bad stats, but he's a JUCO kid with awesome power and they will defenitely be signing for homers if they sign him.

As day three wore on ,they took more relievers, but given the success the Yanks are having with converted relievers like Chance Adams, we won't know how the see them till they sign. One of them, Bryan Blanton, the junior closer from Catawba College says he's signing tomorrow.

The Yanks took far fewer seniors than they had been taking, and took no 24 year olds, and only a couple of 23's and they seem like organizational replenishment, and hopefully future coaches/execs - I don't like to just discard the guys who don't make it, I like to keep them in the family.

Part of the reason they didn't take more seniors was over the last 15 or so rounds the Yanks took signability cases with hard commits.  We'll see if they get any of them, but they didn't draft a bunch of extra seniors, like they had been doing (because they are undervalued and cheap) and we'll have to wait and see if any of them decide to sign.

All we know right now is that the entire top 10 will sign, as well as picks 12 and 21.  We'll look at the rest as they sign.

Instead of drafting to the draft's strengths (which were limited) the Yanks drafted to their own strengths, and end up with at least two first round type talents, and maybe a lot more.