More on the MLB Draft - Toronto Blue Jays Edition

For more on the 2012 MLB Draft click here.

Here, I went through an exercise in which I "drafted" for the Pirates in 2012.  I estimated their draft budget based off a few factors, used players from 2011, and "drafted" them using 2012 picks.  Each player was still available at their draft slot and I made sure I stayed under the draft limit I imposed of 9 million dollars.

For the Pirates, I drafted the following players.

8 - Francisco Lindor - Carlos Correa (16) - HS SS
43 - Andrew Chaffin - Kyle Zimmer (32) - College RHP
53- Jason Esposito - Stephen Piscotty (37) - College 3B
72* - Andrew Susac - Josh Elander (48) - College C
* Projected position

I did the same thing for the Blue Jays.  This coming June, the Blue Jays will draft 17th, 22nd, 48th, 55th, 56th (adjusted by projecting each of the unsigned type A and B free agents to sign), and 81st (2nd round pick) before having their normally slotted picks in the 3rd-10th round.  I included the second round pick, because like the Pirates, the Blue Jays probably won't be able to duplicate a signing of Daniel Norris's magnitude in the 2nd round (Josh Bell for the Pirates).  I used the 1.5x multiplier for 2010 slot numbers and added 3 million for rounds 2-10 (explained in more detail in the first article) to arrive at a number close to 10.5 million, and then rounded up from there.  I rounded up because according to Pirates President Frank Coonley, the Pirates will have close to 10 million, but using the 1.5x system, the end numbers is less than 8.5, so it seems the 1.5x multiplier may be a bit low.

For the 17th pick, I chose for the Blue Jays, high school pitcher Robert Stephenson.  At 22, I picked college outfielder, Mikie Mahtook.  For their three supplemental picks, I chose high school pitcher Kevin Comer (Comer was actually drafted by Toronto),college third baseman Jason Esposito, and college catcher Andrew Susac respectively.  With their second round pick, I chose Matt Dean, who the Blue Jays drafted in 13th round this past year.

17 - Robert Stephenson - 2.0 - B
22 - Mikie Mahtook - 1.1 - B
48 - Kevin Comer - 1.65 - C+
55 - Jason Esposito - 600K - B-
56 - Andrew Susac - 1.1 - B-
81- Matt Dean - 750K (rounded up for the purpose of math) - B-

Adding those bonus numbers, the figure is 7.2 million.  That leaves 3.3 million dollars to sign the rest of the top 10, rounds 3-10.  All must be signed, because otherwise that money for that slot is forfeited and not counted towards the pool.  Using the rest of the Blue Jays top 10 from 2011, they signed 5 more players for  nearly 2.5 million dollars.  That means, the Blue Jays would have had a smidgen over 800K to sign three players in rounds 5, 9, and 10.  That easily could be accomplished with three college players in those rounds or if the Blue Jays can finagle a few extra hundred thousand dollars elsewhere from other players, maybe another solid upside high school player and two college guys.

Doing what I did on my Pirates post - taking the players drafted and finding a reasonable comparison in this years class - and the Blue Jays could end up with a draft similar to what follows.  Use this link for references on who the players are.

17 - Robert Stephenson - Walker Weickel (12)
22 - Mikie Mahtook - Tyler Naquin (35)
48 - Kevin Comer - Ryan Burr (40)
55 - Jason Esposito - Stephen Piscotty (37)
56 - Andrew Susac - Josh Elander (48)
81 - Matt Dean - Rio Ruiz (28)

Now, I am somewhat limited by only having a top 50 list with detailed write-ups and guys like Stephenson, Comer, and Dean aren't rated nearly as high as the counterparts I chose for them, so a real draft class may not be as strong.  Still, it doesn't look bad, even though the Mahtook pick is simply replacing Beede.  Regardless, the Blue Jays have plenty to look forward to come this June, especially with AA at the helm and even despite the new CBA draft rules.