Brewers will be spectators in early rounds of draft
The early rounds of the 2019 amateur draft will be something of a spectator sport for the Brewers, who have only two of the first 132 selections.
Back in December, at baseball’s winter meetings in Las Vegas, the Brewers were one of the few teams to do anything, trading their Competitive Balance Round A pick to the Texas Rangers for left-handed relief specialist Alex Claudio. That pick will be No. 41 overall when the draft begins on Monday, June 3.
A little over a month later, the Brewers signed free agent catcher Yasmani Grandal to a unique one-year, $18.25 million deal with a mutual option for 2020. Because Grandal received a qualifying offer from his former club, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Brewers had to forfeit their third-round pick in the draft to sign him.
Those moves left the Brewers with only their first-round pick, No. 28 overall, and second-round pick, No. 65 among the first three rounds. After that, they don’t pick again until the fourth round at No. 133.
“It’s different from what we’ve had previously but it doesn’t mean the draft is any less important, or can be any less impactful,” general manager David Stearns said. “That’s the approach we need to take. It’s still a really important day on the baseball calendar.
“We have an army of people that work exceptionally hard to get to those three days and put our organization in a position where we can make well-informed decisions.”
Stearns isn’t going to quibble over losing a third-round pick for Grandal, who has made the expected offensive impact with a .265 batting average, nine home runs, 25 runs batted in, 27 walks, .374 on-base percentage and .851 OPS.
“We thought the signing of Yasmani was a very unique opportunity for us,” Stearns said. “The CBA is designed the way it is for a variety of reasons and we understand when you sign a free agent of that quality, you’re going to lose a draft pick.”
Claudio leads the majors with 27 appearances and has been effective for the most part against left-handed hitters, holding them to a .140 batting average and .477 OPS. It has been a different story, however when allowed to face righthanded hitters, who are batting .323 with two homers and .948 OPS.
Stearns said he does not regret trading the 41st pick for Claudio, who has two more years of control beyond this season if so desired. But he does not plan to make a habit of trading high picks for relief pitchers.
“When you make a trade like that, and trust me, we’re not going to be an organization that gets in the practice of trading draft picks, you understand The Brewers surrendered their third-round draft pick when they signed catcher Yasmani Grandal.
you’re sacrificing future value,” Stearns said. “There’s not a name attached to it (at the time) but you’re trading a prospect for a current major leaguer.”
Beyond losing the two early picks, the Brewers forfeited the bonus money associated with them, leaving a total pool
of $5,148,200, second-lowest among the 30 clubs. By comparison, they gave firstround pick Brice Turang, taken at No. 21 overall last year, an above-slot bonus of $3.44 million.
“That does hurt your ability to be creative after the 10th round or to go overslot like we did last year with Turang,” Brewers amateur scouting director Tod Johnson said. “The year before, we took a couple of guys after the 10th round and gave them more money than slot, (pitcher) Max Lazar and (outfielder) Je’Von Ward. They are both at Class A Wisconsin.
“You can always over-slot a guy if you’re willing to give up (signing) additional picks in your allotment. You have to take guys under-slot to account for that, which we’ve done in the past.”
As for surrendering two early picks for Claudio and Grandal, Johnson said, “We’re in a competitive window right now. Obviously, we had a good team last year and we still have a good team. David is going to make decisions where he sees opportunities to improve the team at the big-league level right now. In some cases, that’s going to require giving up some of our draft capital.
“We’re trying to win at the big-league level, not be organization of the year or (have) the ‘best draft’ or those types of things. David is very good about including those costs in his decision process. He’s not giving up those things lightly.
“From our pick at No. 28 to No. 65, there will be a lot of guys that come off the board that we like, and even more guys we like before our fourth-round pick on Day 2. But we gave that up for an every-day catcher and a reliever leading the league in appearances. We have aspirations of playing deep into October again, so that’s the tradeoff.”
Despite losing those two picks, Johnson said the Brewers have prepared for the draft as they would any other year. They lightly scouted the players expected to go at the top of the first round, because none will slip to No. 28. That doesn’t mean the Brewers won’t get a good player, however, according to Johnson.
“There will still be good players there at No. 28,” he said. “A lot of people have said they don’t think this is a very good draft class but I’m not in agreement with that. I think it’s at least average, if not better. There are going to be interesting players all the way through it.
“We’ll do our process the same way. We’ve scouted pretty much the same as we do every year. Honestly, we haven’t spent as much time scouting guys considered the consensus top of the draft. That’s always the balance every year. You only have so many days to see the class.”
The lost picks will not prompt the Brewers to veer from their policy of drafting the best player remaining on their board, regardless of position.
“David is pretty firm on that,” Johnson said. “(Abandoning that strategy) is a good way to get yourself in trouble. We’ll line them up and take the guy we think is best.”
With only two of the first 132 picks, the Brewers certainly want to feel they got the best players available.