May 23, 2013

MLB Draft: Indians Select Lovegrove, McClure, Baker

June 5, 2012 by 12 Comments

The MLB Draft is continuing forward today, and the Indians have now made their first five selections. Let’s learn a bit more about the latest three selections since second-rounder RHP Mitchell Brown.

At pick No. 110 overall in the third round, the Tribe picked RHP Kieran Lovegrove from Mission Viejo HS (CA). He is 6-foot-4 and was a big favorite of ESPN’s Keith Law, who ranked him 47th overall. Lovegrove went 6-3 with a 1.58 ERA during his senior season, and is committed to play at Arizona State.

After that, Cleveland stayed in the high school ranks in picking OF D’Vone McClure from Jacksonville HS (AR) at the No. 143 pick in the fourth round. The right-handed hitter, who is 6-foot-3 and a solid athlete, batted .412 (35-for-85) with 12 doubles, one homer, 15 RBI, 26 steals and 28 runs scored during his senior season. He is committed to play at Arkansas.

The team’s fifth round selection (No. 173 overall) then was RHP Dylan Baker from Western Nevada Community College. Baker, who is 6-foot-2 and also was initially though to be a second-round prospect, was the Scenic West Athletic Conference’s Pitcher of the Year this season. He finished with a 13-0 record and a 1.91 ERA, striking out 126 batters in 84.2 IP.

 [Related: The Skinny on Tyler Naquin, Your CF of the Future]

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  • kjn

    So we get a collge-committed top 50 prospect at #110. I may just be crazy or that’s where we’re going to use some of that first-round slot savings.

    Meta-game!

  • mgbode

    so we go under slot (potentially) in round1 and take a bunch of guys who might take over slot the next few rounds.    interesting strategy.

  • kjn

    Great minds, my friend…. great minds…

  • MallaLubba

    Can someone write an article explaining the complexities of the MLB draft? I have never understood how a team can draft a player who was initially drafted by another team (see Naquin by Baltimore) or why a team would draft a player at all that they can’t even get (see these guys that are going off to college). The slots…the caps…ugh it makes my head hurt.

  • mgbode

    yes indeed :)

  • mgbode

    that part is simple.   if you don’t sign a player by a specific date, then he goes back into the player pool to be drafted (next time around for a college junior, but he has to wait 3years if he’s a HS senior going to college).

    Alot of these HS seniors are willing to skip college if you pay them $X.   But, if you will pay less than that, then they want to go to college and prove they are worth more.  It’s a gamble by them.

  • Foghorn Leghorn

    so does that mean that we have talked to these kids and figured out that if we offer X, that they will skip college ball?  How do you ensure you’re not wasting the pick?  Are there indicators that a kid is willing to skip college?

  • kjn

    Sometimes drafted players won’t sign and opt to go to college instead. It’s why you hear a lot of people talk about “signability” and it’s why you’ll see much hyped-talent get signed in later rounds since teams don’t always want to use a high pick on a guy who will probably go to college anyway.

    As for the new slotting, MLB assigns a dollar value to each pick in the first ten rounds. The slotting is kind of a suggested value for the pick. Teams can spend anything they want on any individual pick, but if they overspend on their entire pool (total suggested values of all their picks in the first ten rounds) then they are met with heavy penalties, monetarily and in future picks.

    Long short, baseball draft is stupid. Always has been. Always will be.

    The new system is in place to keep total salaries down as a whole, which it’ll probably do. But it’ll also lead to a whole lot of ridiculous strategies and situations.

  • mgbode

    no way to ensure it and Scott Boras refuses to give any information before the draft.  but, plenty of others apparently do give out the information as it’s often cited.

    there are a bunch of little rules where you can get a different pick the next year if you don’t sign a 1st rounder, etc. but then you are getting into the hairy stuff.

  • mgbode

    good summation, but important distinction that we mentioned on the other thread is that their “entire pool” only counts for the picks they signed.

    so, if they sign picks 1,2,5,6, and 8 then those are the only suggested values that get added up to determine their pool.

    (I know you know this now, but putting here for completeness so others will know it too)

  • kjn

    True. I just wanted to drop the basics though.

    Cause if we’re mentioning other rules: all picks after the 10th round are capped at 100K. Any amount paid over that goes against the teams pool total as well. Same applies to undrafted players too.

    I seriously have no idea how any team plans for the million contingencies that might occur.

  • MallaLubba

    Thanks for the explanations, all. It’s no wonder I’ve been confused by the process. I’m sure once this info leaves my head again, I’ll be confused about it all over again.