Lauber, who writes for the Wimington News Journal, wrote a wrapup article yesterday about the Phillies (in)activity at the Winter Meetings. The article itself is your standard fare, nothing exciting. However, he posted a followup in the comments section, and this is the part I’m interested in
You raise a very interesting point about the Phillies’ reluctance to go over slot value to sign draft picks. Was talking about this with a few people today before leaving Nashville, and it probably merits its own blog post/story in the paper someday soon. For those who don’t know, MLB sets a “slot value” for each pick in the draft and frowns upon teams that sign their picks for above slot. The Tigers are a routine offender. Yet, there’s no punishment besides a slap on the wrist. The Phillies typically adhere to the slot value, and sometimes, it costs them a chance to sign a pick (Brandon Workman last year is a prime example). One of the reasons the Tigers were willing to include Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin in the Cabrera/Willis deal with Florida is that they’re confident they can quickly reload their farm system because of their aggressive approach to signing picks. For whatever reason, the Phillies’ decision-makers don’t have that ability. So, they’ve decided to hoard what few prospects they have rather than package them in a mega-deal. It’s a philosophical divide that often gets overlooked. But it’s rather important, too.
Article link here. More below the fold
Lauber highlights something I’ve been banging the drum about. Jim Salisbury highlighted similar things for me in the Q/A he did right before the draft last June. Phillies ownership doesn’t really allow the team to go over slot to sign premium talent. This year, we went over slot on 3 players, Julian Sampson ($390,000), Jiwan James ($125,000) and Jacob Diekman (not certain, likely $75-100k) in the draft. While that’s certainly nice, we went under the slot recommendation on a few guys in rounds 3-10, so some of the extra money was offset. Teams like Boston, New York and Detroit are constantly disregarding the slot recommendations, and the results show in the strength of their farm systems, especially in terms of their elite prospects.
The constant argument will be “at what point is it not worth it”, and the answer is simple. Every single baseball player is a risk. Ryan Howard carries a certain degree of risk in 2008, just like signing a 17 year old high school kid carries risk. Obviously the further away from the majors you are, the higher your risk. But you also have to calculate the money you will spend on a player, and how much money you can save by developing a player, as opposed to “buying” a free agent. For example, the Tigers gave Rick Porcello $3.5M in a signing bonus, as well as a 4 year contract with 2 option years, which will likely be picked up. The total value of the deal is around $11M. If Porcello shoots through the minor leagues as many suggest he will, by the third year of the 6 years (counting the 2 options), he’ll be pitching in the majors. The price of a league average MLB starter these days seems to be $7-8M a year. If Porcello pitches even 2 full seasons in the big leagues before the end of his 6 year deal, and he’s league average, those 2 years on the open market would cost Detroit between 14 and 20 million dollars, depending on salary inflation over the next 6 years. If he pitches 3 full seasons, his cost would be between 21 and 30 million. Now that’s only assuming he’s a league average pitcher. He’s been lauded as the best prep arm since Josh Beckett. If year 5 and 6 on his contract 2012 and 2013, he posts ERA’s in the low-mid 3’s, he’s no longer league average, he’s elite level, and elite starting pitchers are now making $11-15M a year. At that point, how does Detroit’s $11M investment look?
All players are risks, and not every player should be given a huge signing bonus if they don’t deserve it. But teams like Detroit and Boston realize that the Amateur Draft is the best way to acquire talent in today’s market. You pay a kid $1M now, he could save you $30M down the road. Sure, the odds are against prospects ever making it, but if you hedge your bets and invest enough, and invest it properly, you will save yourself money down the road. The Tigers broke slot on Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, and it just got them one of the best hitters in baseball, who only happens to be 24. It also got them Rick Porcello, who could be the next Josh Beckett, or even better than Josh Beckett. You have to take risks, but for cost controlled talent that doesn’t require you to give up talent in return, the decision should be a no brainer.
Edit>
I wanted to add this. The Phillies don’t have to take risks like Porcello to be effective in the draft. 3 moves where they could have made an impact with a bit more cash
* Sign Brandon Workman. He supposedly wanted $500K. We got nothing for that pick, except a similar pick in this year’s draft, which could result in the same scenario
* Instead of taking Tyler Mach and paying him nearly half of the recommended $171,000 slot bonus, draft Brad Suttle, 3B from Texas like the Yankees did. They gave him $1.3M to sign, we gave Mach $95,000
* Draft Casey Crosby in the 5th round instead of Michael Taylor. We gave Taylor $131,000, the Tigers gave Crosby $748,000. Crosby needed TJ surgery at the end of the summer, but his projection is still a #2 SP
By spending an extra $2.3 million, we’d have ended up with 2 high ceiling arms and a college 3B who is projected to be at least an average MLB third baseman. Instead, we got Tyler Mach, who projects to be a utility infielder, and Michael Taylor, a toolsy college outfielder who’s never really gotten anything out of his substantial physical tools.
Phuture Phillies 
This is why the only hope for Phillie fans is a change of ownership.
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Yes, the Phillies have become extremely cheap on the development side. Not too many years ago we spent about twice as much as we do today on bonuses (Gavin Floyd by himself got $4.2 million, more than our total spending in either of the past two season). Some have argued that the Phillies are just supporting Selig as good citizens for the good of baseball. Yet, you don’t actually need to bust slot to rebuild the farm. The Mets didn’t break slot last draft, though there is talk they have changed their minds on that, but signed at least a half dozen large bonus primo Latin American talent. The Phillies won’t do that either. Toward the end of the Wade era, there seemed to be a couple million dollars a year shifted from the player development bonus budget to the major league salary budget, and that budget allocation has not been returned.
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The Tigers are a great example, and I’m glad you’ve highlighted them. An organization that hadn’t had a winning season in 13 years, that just three years was running out a lineup that included such stalwarts as Eric Munson, Bobby Higginson, and Alex Sanchez, all of a sudden has possibly the best lineup in baseball.
Why? Because they opened the wallet up, signed a key free agent or two (Pudge and Magglio), and stocked their minor league system full of top end talent.
It takes good leadership, certainly, but there’s no reason that the Phillies couldn’t do the same. Of course, that would require spending money at the minor league level as well as the major league level, and I’m not going to hold my breath on that.
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This is so depressing. The ownership forces us to pay huge amounts of money for league average pitchers in free agency. The Philly front office really needs to recognize that we need to rely on the draft because the pro market is so inflated.
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this is not new information. good points, but already known. it is also not going to change. sorry my brothers of missery.
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Shows how screwed up baseball is. The rich teams now get richer in the draft as well.
I would not necessarily blame the stinginess of management though. A lot of teams are refusing to go over slot because that is what Bud demands. Even teams with a lot of money – the Mets come to mind – have refused to go over slot based on Bud’s directive.
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It’s not new, but it needs to be stated. It’s good to see this kind of thinking making it’s way into the press though.
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The Phillies would probably fail at this, too. They’d draft and bust slot on the wrong players. Too much projection and too little current skills evaluation. Boston is a team that busts slot becasue they see so much talent on their board, they can’t pass it up. They have guys who should be off their board before the 2nd round starts and they’re still there in the 5th round and beyond. And that’s even after they use their normally extra supplemental picks. The Yanks are starting to play this game too, along with Detroit and the Angels. Guess who had the most prospects to deal this week at the meetings? What can Bud Selig possibly do? I think nothing. What would it cost the Phils to actually bust slot on 3 good players? No more than a 1-2 million. Peanuts in the grand scheme of things.
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Lauber’s concerns are mine as well. No, it’s not new and
yes, it needs to be trumpeted loud enough to be heard
by ownership. But I fear things won’t change because
ownership is satisfied to be “competitive” each year and
try to get something by spending nothing in their dealings.
We talk about the Phillies having a killer instinct in dealing
with their competition. I would like to see ownership
develop a killer instinct. With the formidable nucleus the
team has, now would be the time for ownership to step
up and obliterate their competition. Loosen the purse
strings, guys!
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“For whatever reason.”
The reason is clear: they’re cheap.
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Alright, guys. Think about this:
The Phillies draft based mostly on projection, not on guys with proven skills. Imagine having a Jacoby Ellsbury in our system or on our team versus a guy like Greg Golson. If that doesn’t get you pissed off, I don’t know what will.
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Those that say the Phillies wouldn’t gain anyway by busting slot, because they would just bust slot for the wrong guys are just plain wrong. They don’t even have an argument, other than mentioning a guy like Golson, who may still succeed. The truth, for any who take an honest look at the results, is that the Phillies have well above average, even excellent, scouting and prospect identification skills.
They will have some misses, every team has misses. A lot due to injury, some to high risk/high reward projection picks. But, I don’t see how you can argue with the Phillies draft success. This is a team that has missed a lot of picks through FA signings, gotten very few bonus picks, failed to sign more than its share of primo draftees, never been allowed to bust slot in a meaningful way, and yet has produced an incredibly impressive string of talent from the draft: Rolen, Estrada, Rollins, Burrell, Utley,Howard, Bourn, Hamels, Myers, Madson, Kendrick.
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I trust them much more on pitchers, especially prep pitchers, than I do on hitters. I have no doubt that if money were not an issue, Porcello and Harvey were probably right at the top of Wolever/Arbuckle’s wish list.
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allentown is correct: I can’t imagine many teams, maybe not any teams, got more out of their early-round draft picks between 1996 and 2002 than did the Phillies (Rollins, Wolf, Burrell, Myers, Utley, Hamels). They’ve also been fairly good at finding bargains in the later rounds (Madson, Howard, Kendrick, Geary). I’d be much more confident in getting a good return on investment by their busting slot than playing the rigged free-agent market.
The issue with slotting is that it’s a classic free-rider problem. Teams that aren’t constrained by slotting derive an enormous competitive advantage over those that keep to the guidelines.
Given the oft-expressed concerns about resource imbalance, it’s a painful irony that the teams willing to go over-slot happen to be the big-spending clubs anyway. It would make a lot more sense for the Royals or Marlins to spend an extra $3 million on Rick Porcello than to try and outbid anyone for, oh, Jose Guillen.
Needless to say, none of this is to let Phillies ownership off the hook. Wonderful as the division title was, I have a deep fear that its ultimate effect might just be to confirm those smug bastards in their inept practices.
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I’m going to post on here what I posted as a comment on Lauber’s blog, so here it is, edited so that it makes sense in this context:
First thing’s first:
This ownership and this GM are skimping in all areas – player development, drafting, and free-agent signings. Busting slot to sign and develop amateur talent is the working model, everybody else is just playing Bud’s game. If the Phillies are to gain any credibility and respect in the game, this is what they’re going to have to do. Other teams will pick up on it, and perhaps when the current CBA runs out, the topic of slot recommendations will be brought up and either tweaked for market inflation or done away with altogether.
Unfortunately for us loyal Phillies fans, we’ve become used to this type of treatment. I’m only 17, and sports journalism is what I’m going to college for. I want to cover the Phillies much the way Scott does. I hope that by the time I’m in a position to do so, this ownership has either:
a) gotten a new mentality
b) changed, or
c) signed key free-agents that can help the club get over the top.
However, I’m not holding my breath on this.
Scott raises a good point, and there’s been some discussion over on PhuturePhillies about what you said regarding busting slot and what it means for the trade market. I absolutely think that you should do a piece on this and encourage your colleagues and readers to write about it, in the newspapers and to the front office.
I’m so sick of seeing this team spinning its wheels. As others have said, this team is two or three pieces short of a world series winner. Those pieces lie in the bullpen and rotation, maybe the outfield as well (if they don’t re-sign Rowand). Why sit on the future when this team’s clearly built to win now and in the next 3 or 4 years?
The way this team drafts is the fundamental issue that has to change if the team has any shot at being elite. Too much is focused on projection — on raw guys who have all the tools to be superstars (see Golson, Greg) and not enough on guys with proven skills, such as Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston’s electric center-fielder (who was drafted out of Oregon State).
This is a great discussion, and the press needs to get involved in it for there to be any change at all. Until then, us fans will just have to sit on the future.
And dajafi, the Phillies have had pretty good success drafting prep arms, but they tend to draft position players based on tools and projectability, rather than on guys with proven skills who have had time in college to show what they can do. There’s an inherent risk in drafting any type of amateur talent, but the risk is less if you draft a kid whose progress and development has been proven over a longer period of time.
Also, if this busting slot business is relegated to the top-spending teams, why are the Phillies not doing it? We’re in the top 10 in terms of payroll and are fans in one of the largest markets in the country. Those “smug bastards” have very little idea what to do with an amateur draft, and it has to change if this team is to remain competitive both now and in the future. If you don’t believe me, go back to Scott Lauber’s example with the Detroit Tigers – they traded elite talent to win now because they are highly confident that they can replenish the farm system in the next two or three years with elite talent that they likely bust slot in order to sign.
For those of you without a link to Lauber’s blog, which I check every day along with this and Beerleaguer, here it is: http://www.delawareonline.com/blogs/phillies.html
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Thanks on great part to places like Phuture Phillies, the main stream media can take notice. I read Lauber first everyday and savior Phuture Phillies as last on my rounds.
Desert is always a treat.
It used to be only the Yankees did this stuff and traded the Nick Johnson’s of the world for what they needed.
Baseball players always wanted to play for the Dodgers and date California girls.
Then the Red Sox came in. Then the Angels. Then the Tigers! of all teams, and now the Cubs.
The Mets also have huge payroll resources because of NYC.
Last year the Phillies had extra top pics and did not flash the cash. Next year if we do not sign a Type A Free Agent
(I hope we don’t now) we will have 6 picks in the first 3 Rounds. Will we spend? Didn’t last year. Sampson and Diekman aside.
Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Mets, — Angels, Tigers, and Cubs.
With the status of too many teams and not enough Free-Agents driving up prices, spending an extra 10 million in the minors per year will over achieve Kevin Millwood, Eric Milton, or Freddie Garcia.
Would you sign Rowand for 12 million while Jimmy Rollins makes 7.5 Mil?
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That’s market inflation. Jimmy Rollins was signed to that deal a long time ago, and nobody’s saying he doesn’t deserve a raise. There’s a lot more pressing needs on this team, and I’m sure once more contracts come off the books, he’ll have dialogue with the organization about a contract that will keep him with this team for a very long time.
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Rob–
I agree with everything you say accept Phillies drafting of position players. I still don’t think any team has been as efficient as Phillies in turning the number of draft picks they spend on position players into star position players. Some were no-brainer college guys like Burrell, or a college guy like Utley that we evaluated a lot more accurately than the many teams who drafted above us. Some were ‘reaches’ to grab college talent in not great draft rounds — Bourn in the 4th round, Howard in the 5th. Others have been projectible HS kids — Rolen, Rollins who was not that high on anyone else’s radar, Kevin Stocker whom we would not have gotten to post-season without and was on nobody’s radar screen. And there is HS position player talent in the minors today, from Golson who is better than you fear, to Marson who is a likely star, to guys with a good chance like D’Arby Myers and Dominic Brown, to guys with higher probability but lesser ceiling like Harman.
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Oops, strike Stocker.
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Allentown,
Don’t you think that it makes more sense to draft more college position players, such as Burrell or Utley, because they’re more disciplined hitters and will move through the system quickly than to draft toolsy guys (Golson, Myers [although he’s performed well so far], or Brown) who may take 5 or 6 years to reach the majors?
To me, it’s a better use of both time and money to sign and develop college players (NOT necessarily pitchers — more mileage on the arm is never a good thing) than to draft toolsy guys who might only have a couple of good years. Guys from college are, in my opinion, better set-up to have a good, productive career than the toolsy HS guys.
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You shouldn’t have to choose one or the other, you should be able to find both.
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But for position players, doesn’t it make sense to pick guys that’ll move through the system quickly? Then get good, young high school pitchers, and mix in some very good high school guys, like Cardenas. That’s the ideal farm system, which is something the Phillies clearly do not have.
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Well, it’s not that easy. Jimmy Rollins was a high ceiling/high risk prepster out of California. He wasn’t the finished article after 2 years, and probably was put in the bigs before he was completely ready for it. Burrell was the finished article. What I think the Phillies have to do is balance it out. You need to draft advanced college bats, but in every draft, you also need to take 4 or 5 guys like D’Arby Myers and Dominic Brown. No team drafts 90% college guys, or 90% prep guys, finding the blend is the key. Where the team took a low ceiling guy like Tyler Mach, a cheap college senior, they could have taken a higher ceiling high school middle infielder like Will Middlebrooks, who fell to Boston in the 5th round.
The thing is, many of the best players in baseball today were drafted right out of high school. Some of them took longer to develop than others. Look at the Top 10 in the NL in OPS this season
Chipper Jones (High School)
Prince Fielder (High School)
Matt Holliday (High School)
Albert Pujols (Community College)
Ryan Braun (College, 3 years)
Barry Bonds (College, 3 years)
Chase Utley (College, 3 years)
Ryan Howard (College, 3 years)
Miguel Cabrera (High School)
David Wright (High School)
5 prepsters
4 college guys
1 JuCo guy
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PhuturePhillies,
It looks like we agree that elite college bats need to be drafted and that a good mix is needed.
So, what’s in the Phillies mix? A lot of pitching, because that’s what they’re good at developing, and not much in the way of bats.
I’m not sure what exactly the Phillies draft philosophy is (or seems to be), maybe you could shed some light on that for me?
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Rob —
The problem is your qualifier — ‘elite’ college bats. Yes, I would look to take one in the first round, if available. The surest possible first round pick. But, we’ll be drafting in the 20s in first round and there often aren’t any elite college bats left, at least not coupled with acceptable gloves. So yes, if you can get an elite/very good college position player in the first or supplemental round, or even second round, I would go for it. After 2nd round, my view on college position players is that it is generally a case of what you see is what you get, without much surprise upside. There are the rare Howards, who were well thought of but then fell in draft because of an injury and/or bad junior year. You can get lucky on those guys.
We have known we needed a 3B for some time. By our point in first round, the top college 3B have been gone. That leaves you hoping to develop a second-tier college guy like Costanzo who has obvious holes in his game or gambling on a HS kid like Mattair. Both are gambles. Mattair likely has higher upside by lower odds of making majors at all, and as you sayhe will take 2 years longer.
We did well on the Rolen pick, but a long string of high round HS 3B since him have bombed. We really liked Terry Jones, Kiel Fisher, Blalock in their first seasons. Mattair may be the one that makes it. You really seem to need to take multiple shots on HS position players to have one pan out. But you can succeed in later rounds than with college guys.
I agree, HS pitchers in the later rounds is your best option.
The real point is we need to get two handfuls instead of one of true prospects out of each draft. College or HS guys with higher ceiling. That probably requires some slot busting.
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I posted on backshegoes about this yesterday, but the point is very important to understand. There is obvious short-run gain to paying over slot for players. On average, you save money on free agents in the process. However, if every team signed players over slot, the collusion of oligopolists (teams) would quickly erode and teams would lose lots of money– and then no one would even be able to gain by paying over slot. It’s not worth breaking down the collusion and losing tens of millions a year in the future to save a few million in the short-run.
I don’t like it, I wish the Phillies would be able to be one of the teams that did it, but there is an obvious risk in profits that I can’t really blame them for doing. Certainly, if too many teams went over slot, they would all lose out in the long-run.
To me, what makes sense is to find other areas to spend money where there is no set rules– go crazy is Latin America. There are no rules about how much to pay those prospects to sign as far as I know, so you don’t have to risk the profit of colluding on the draft bonuses by putting money there.
It’s important that we understand the Phillies are a business and not blame them for not paying (or foregoing) millions for our enjoyment. The collusion of draft bonuses and the reserve clause and arbitration rules are the MLB’s way of colluding to increase collective profits.
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Matt, I understand your point, I do, but I disagree. I’m not worried about 20 other teams suddenly going over slot, I’m asking the Phillies to take the advantage while it’s still an advantage. Only a small handful of teams “abuse” the draft and pay ridiculous bonus amounts outside the first round. Because very few teams are willing to use this method, I think it’s still a very worthwhile concept. If you start getting more teams paying more money, the competitive advantage is reduced. But until we get to that point, I think it’s wise to exploit the system. Again to stress, I’m not complaining about not giving Porcello $11M. I’m complaining about not giving our 3rd round pick $500K, or not spending an extra million on an impact player that drops. There are limits to everything, but the Phillies aren’t even pushing the boundaries, they are lock step with the Commish, for the most part.
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Ultimately, I think it comes down to whether you see this collusion as sustainable. If it were going to eventually break down, then there would be an incentive to start paying over slot early on and take advantage.
I think it’s probably even more sustainable as the gap between free agents and 0-2 service time players grows. In fact, as that gap grows, it’s probably a better time to cheat and pay above slot since there is more risk for other teams to punish.
Allentown pointed out on BSG that when Selig tried to lower the proposed slot payments, nobody went along with it. Selig isn’t the main issue here. As free agent salaries grow, slot payments have to grow as well or it won’t be an effective collusion.
As far as whether to try cheating on 3rd round picks, that sounds a little more palatable, but too much of that going on is still going to lead to those payment systems unraveling as well.
Ultimately, a more realistic form of collusion could probably be done. There could be a recommendation that only 5% of your draft picks get paid over slot, and see if teams will stick to that. There also needs to be a more direct way to punish the individual team rather than doing something that would punish the entire league. I am at a loss to figure out what that is, since it’s not like anybody can just not trade with the Tigers or something like that. A half-decent solution is what the owners do now– restrict who gets to own teams by voting down guys like Mark Cuban.
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Rob … You have mastered the woebegoten-Phillies-fan rant at a very tender age. You have a bright future as a WIP caller. I acknowledge that the farm system is thin, but to claim that the Phils only know how to draft and develop pitchers is to take a very short view. Howard, Rollins, Utley, Rolen, Burrell _ not many organizations can claim that sort of success at drafting and developing hitters over the past decade.
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Rob, you might find this article from way back in 1996 interesting: http://www.citypaper.net/articles/091996/article034.shtml
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I think the draft is the least of the Phils concerns for the reasons discused above. Outside of the bleak period where the phils recklessly sacrificed their first and second round picks, the haul from the early rounds has been impressive. Golson was a mistake – but I was thrilled with the Drabek pick who I thought was clearly the best player available when they picked. I think the Savery pick was pretty solid as well, although I would have preferred Porcello.
What I don’t understand is why the Phils refuse to spend serious money in Latin America. I am sick of Australian and Brazilian prospects. Over the last 10 years I give the Phils a B+ in the draft – they get a D in international signings.
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That’s true. If the Phillies had a few international signing seasons like the Mets just had, the farm would be up to speed in a few years and we would not have to worry about not busting slot in the draft. Especially if we hang onto our draft picks as we did last year and pick up a bonus pick or two.
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