'We like athletes': Crew on Draft, next steps
Adam McCalvy
@AdamMcCalvyMILWAUKEE -- Five picks, five Division I college hitters.
Brewers scouting director Tod Johnson said that wasn’t the plan going into baseball’s unique, shortened 2020 MLB Draft, but rather a result of the “best player available” philosophy that has long driven the club’s amateur scouting apparatus. As a result, Milwaukee spent each of its first five Draft picks on hitters for the first time since 2003, when Rickie Weeks and Tony Gwynn Jr. led the way.
This year’s Brewers crop included two outfielders (UCLA’s Garrett Mitchell and Cincinnati’s Joey Wiemer), two shortstops (Miami’s Freddy Zamora and Louisiana-Lafayette’s Hayden Cantrelle) and one player who played catcher in high school and shortstop in college but was drafted as a catcher (Central Michigan's Zavier Warren). Warren and Cantrelle are switch-hitters.
“You guys sense a theme here?” Johnson asked. "We like athletes."
But was that a particular strategy this year, in a Draft shortened from the usual 40 rounds to five rounds due to the coronavirus pandemic? Not necessarily.
“We certainly had pitchers that we were considering at most of our spots. It just didn’t fall that way,” Johnson said. “It certainly wasn’t a targeted choice that we made there, but we did feel that the hitters we got were better value, better picks, better talented options at those spots. We decided that was the way we wanted to go. …
“On the pitching side, we feel like we have a lot of depth [in the organization], so we didn’t feel like we had to make sure that at least one or two of these picks were pitchers. We were free to go down the road however we saw it.”
Now what?
For drafted players, the signing deadline this year is Aug. 1.
The Brewers have a pool of $6,078,300 to sign their five picks, including $3,242,900 for Mitchell’s spot in the first round. If a club exceeds its assigned pool, it faces a penalty. Teams that outspend their allotment by 0-5 percent pay a 75 percent tax on the overage. At higher thresholds, clubs lose future picks: a first-rounder and a 75 percent tax for surpassing their pool by more than 5 and up to 10 percent; a first- and a second-rounder and a 100 percent tax for more than 10 and up to 15 percent; and two first-rounders and a 100 percent tax for more than 15 percent.
In eight years with these rules, teams have exceeded their allotments a total of 149 times but never by more than 5 percent. Twenty-one of the 30 teams outspent their pools last year.
The Brewers anticipate signing all five picks, including first-rounder Mitchell, a Scott Boras client who was projected to go higher in many mock Drafts.
“We still have to work out all of the mechanics of the physicals with everybody, but I feel relatively comfortable that we shouldn’t have any issues in that space,” Johnson said.
Meanwhile, for undrafted free agents, baseball is in a two-day quiet period that ends Sunday, at which time teams may sign an unlimited number of eligible amateurs for a maximum signing bonus of $20,000.
Trend wrap
“Trust me, it wasn’t necessarily a targeting thing to go after the college guys. But we did feel like the college class was strong and had good depth and the guys that we liked were there and available at the times we picked. There were certainly a lot of different scenarios that could have taken us down different paths potentially, but at the end of the day we feel like we got a catcher, two shortstops and two center fielders who have all had decent success at the college level and have shown they also have some upside because they’ve all shown some pretty good tools and ability and athleticism in the past. So, from that perspective we’re pretty happy about it.” -- Johnson
First-round fact
Through baseball, Mitchell is friends with recent Brewers Draft picks Brice Turang and Je'Von Ward, who reached out the moment Milwaukee took Mitchell at No. 20 overall on Wednesday.
“Brice called me right away,” Mitchell said. “Je'Von shared some player-to-player information, just … things the Brewers do as an organization that I should be looking forward to. Just being able to go out there and play my type of brand of baseball and play within myself, not more than I possibly can. Getting calls like that get you excited to go play again. I'm prepared. I'm ready to go.”
Day 2 name to watch
Warren, drafted in the third round, is the most unique of the Brewers’ picks in that there aren’t many top prospects who have split their time between catcher and shortstop -- two very different positions from a physical standpoint. The Brewers were among the teams that believe he has a chance to stick at catcher, one of the most challenging positions to develop across the industry. In the lead-up to the Draft, Brewers catching coordinator Charlie Greene studied video of Warren behind the plate.
“We did a good amount of work,” Johnson said. “Pete Vuckovich Jr. is our area scout there, first year on the amateur [side] after doing some pro-side stuff for us, and he did a great job getting to know the kid. The biggest thing about a guy you’re talking about hopefully being a catcher is that they want to do it. We feel like he does want to do it. He’s got the athletic ability and the tools to do it. He’s got the arm to do it. He moves pretty well back there for a guy who’s not been a regular, everyday kind of guy. But he’s interested in doing it.”
Non-drafted free agent strategy
The Brewers will surely add some pitching via the non-drafted free agent pool, but how much? That remained a mystery as of Thursday night, though Johnson said club officials were reaching out to players of interest while the Draft was ongoing, before the implementation of a two-day quiet period.
“Obviously, those players who were not drafted, a good portion of them probably hoped that they would be, and now they aren’t,” Johnson said. “MLB’s idea was to give them a couple of days to sit back and think about what they want to do. Do they want to get their career started for the $20,000 number, or do they want to explore whatever amateur opportunities remain? ... It will probably be an exciting Sunday.”
The last word
“The scattered about part, we managed pretty well with that. There were a lot of different channels -- there obviously was a Zoom channel going, there was texting, we use Slack internally back and forth. Lots of different ways to keep in touch on those things, so I felt like we did a good job with that. … I think overall it was an interesting way to do it. I just told our staff that I hope it’s the only Draft we have to do via Zoom for a lot of reasons.” -- Johnson, on the unique circumstances of this Draft