Success in first round is hit and miss
As evidence that there are no sure things in the first round of the majorleague draft, all you need to do is look at the roster of the Biloxi Shuckers.
The Brewers have five first-round draft picks playing for their Class AA affiliate, producing a wide range of results. Clint Coulter, taken with the 27th pick in the 2012 draft as a high school catcher out of the state of Washington, later converted to the outfield and no longer is considered a big-league prospect.
Left-hander Kodi Medeiros, taken 12th overall in 2014 as a prep player out of Hawaii, is still being used as a starter with moderate success but many scouts believe he profiles as a reliever in the big leagues. He has a funky delivery and can be very tough on left-handed hitters, and Josh Hader has shown that converting to relief is not such a bad thing.
Outfielder Trent Grisham, whose last name was Clark when the Brewers took him 15th out of high school in Richland, Texas, in 2015, has had trouble staying healthy and since rookie ball has not made the offensive impact expected. Grisham is playing at the Class AA level at 21, so there’s still time to live up to expectations, but he needs to pick it up.
Outfielder Corey Ray was expected to make his presence known quickly after being taken at No. 5 in 2016 out of the University of Louisville as an advanced hitter from a big-time program. But Ray was slowed by minor knee surgery in instructional ball that year, sputtered badly last season but has picked up the pace in 2018, showing flashes of being the hitter the Brewers expected.
The newest first-rounder with the Shuckers, and the one currently profiling to have the highest upside, is second baseman Keston Hiura, taken at No. 9 last year. Hiura was promoted Friday from advanced Class A Carolina after a 4-for-5, two-homer game that boosted his OPS to .901 in 50 games there.
Of those across-the-spectrum results from first-rounders, Brewers scouting director Tod Johnson said, “That’s everyone’s experience with the MLB draft. We try to implement a process that gets us to the best players available in the draft.
“We trust that process; we trust the
work our scouts do; we trust the information we compile here in the office. We feed all of that into our process and follow that consistently. We try to make our process as good as it can be.”
Which is to say the baseball draft is by far the least predictable of the three major sports. That will be the case again Monday evening when the first round begins and the Brewers wait to make the 21st selection.
Though Hiura has the makings of a hitting prodigy, the Brewers have struggled to find value in the first round in recent years. They had another firstrounder beyond Coulter in 2012 in outfielder Victor Roache, a slugger who never reached his full potential and no longer is in the organization.
The Brewers had two first-rounders in 2011 as well and selected college pitchers Taylor Jungmann and Jed Bradley. The former is pitching in Japan and the latter is out of baseball. The year before, prep pitcher Dylan Covey was discovered to have Type 1 diabetes and didn’t sign. In 2009, one pick after the Los Angeles Angels took Mike Trout at No. 26, the Brewers selected Indiana University pitcher Eric Arnett, a colossal flop.
The first round does not an entire draft make, however, which is why the Brewers will line up their board again and do their best to identify the best player available each time their turn comes around. A lot of talent will be off the board when they make the 21st selection
but this year’s pool of players appears to have some depth.
As for picking lower in the draft, Johnson said, “From the process perspective, it doesn’t change things. We still do things the same way. It does change decisions on who we go see during the season, who we focus on now.
“Last year, a week out or so, we had a tighter group we were able to focus on. This year, it’s still pretty broad, just because at 21 you’re not sure who you’re going to be picking from.”
Much of the pre-draft speculation has centered on a deep crop of righthanded prep pitchers. The history of the draft has not been kind to that particular commodity over the years in the first round, leaving the Brewers to figure out if any make sense at No. 21, such as Ethan Hankins out of Georgia, a great talent who could slide down because of a slight arm issue this year.
“There are (a lot of good ones),” said Johnson, who will be conducting his second draft for the Brewers after succeeding Ray Montgomery. “There are no safe players in the major league baseball draft. No demographic is considered absolutely safe.
“There are some with a little more certainty. The college guys are three years older and the good position players tend to give more value at the top of the draft than pitchers have, historically.
“High school righties have had their challenges. We’re certainly not eliminating any demographic or set of players. We do our work on all the players that are going to be in consideration for us. When it comes our turn, we’ll assess that group and take the player we think has the best chance to be a quality bigleaguer. If it’s a high school righty, it’s a high school righty.”
One very interesting player expected to go in the first round is right in the Brewers’ backyard. Outfielder Jarred Kelenic of Waukesha West High School could become the state’s first Top 10 pick and even if he doesn’t go that high, probably will be off the board when Milwaukee’s turn comes.
But what if Kelenic is still there? Would the Brewers take him? Would they take the chance of passing on him and hearing about it forever if he went elsewhere and succeeded?
“He’s a really good player,” said Johnson, whose scouting department knows all there is to know about Kelenic. “I couldn’t say for sure he’s going to get to No. 21.
“We wouldn’t move him above anybody else because he’s a local kid. And we would not pass on him because there might be too much pressure on him. We follow our process. I know if we passed on him and five years from now he’s in the big leagues with somebody else, we’d probably hear about it."
The Brewers will be operating with some handicaps beyond picking lower in the first round. They surrendered their third-round pick to sign free-agent outfielder Lorenzo Cain and the money associated with that selection, dropping their overall bonus pool to $6,611,900, sixth-lowest in the draft, with nearly half of that sum expected to go to their first-rounder.
The Brewers’ competitive balance pick this year comes in Round B, after the second round, instead of Round A as last year, which follows the first round. Accordingly, their first-day selections after No. 21 don’t come until Nos. 60 and 73. With no third-round pick, they won’t select again on Day 2 until No. 125.
“From No. 21 to No. 60, we’re going to see a lot of good players come off the board,” Johnson said. “But there will still be good picks through our first three on that first day. There are good players to be had after the first round.
“It’s a challenge. I enjoy it. It’s exhilarating and exhausting both. Our scouts do a good job all year. It starts almost immediately after the previous year’s draft. That makes it a long process but this is what we look forward to. This is what makes it worthwhile.”