Yank draft picks on board, but going nowhere

TAMPA — Last week was just the beginning. Getting through a weird, abbreviated draft after being shut in at home with no amateur baseball to watch, now the Yankees have to plan the future for their farm system in these unusual times.

With no agreement to restart the major-league season between the league and union three months into the shutdown for the coronavirus pandemic, there is practically no chance for a minor-league season. So there is no plan in place for Yankee draft picks Austin Wells, Trevor Hauver and Beck Way to start their careers once they sign.

“The players are champing at the bit to get going. Right now, we’re trying to meet and decide how we move forward with these guys,’’ Yankees top scout Damon Oppenheimer said last week.

There is some talk of expanding fall instructional leagues to get players who missed out on a season some time this year.

Despite MLB plans to scale down the minor leagues by cutting teams in the future, the Yankees have to find more players to add to this year’s class. The scouting department will supplement its three picks with amateur signings.

Sunday, the market opened on players passed over in the draft. Those players are missing out on six-figure bonuses because MLB cut the draft from 40 rounds to five. Under the new rules, teams can only sign them for a $20,000 bonus, so the assumption is that most will head back to college and take their chances that the bonuses will be far larger in future drafts.

Oppenheimer pointed out that those who do sign can play with the bonus and finish their degree while the Yankees pay for it as part of the tuition assistance program. That is one of the things the Yankees talked to players about as the team’s scouts began building relationships with the players during Zoom calls months ago.

They hope those relationships will help in this phase.

“It’s an even playing field in terms of the money, so now it becomes if a player has an affection for you and believes in the people, then you might have a better shot,” Oppenheimer said. “We wouldn’t even be close to being able to recruit these guys or try to show them what it’s like to be a Yankee without the boots on the ground from the area scouts and crosscheckers. The relationships they’ve built have been unbelievable, and (our scouts) are in a unique spot having never been home and sleeping in the same bed for 70-some days in a row,” due to social distancing.

“It’s crazy, but it happened and these guys have just found a way. They found a niche to talk to the player, to recruit the player, to dig deep, and they’re going to be a huge part of what starts on Sunday with the process of trying to acquire some players for $20,000 because everybody’s going to be kind of in the same boat.”

The Yankees scouts went all out to make sure they stood out. They made individual videos to show the tradition and what the Yankees’ Player Development department could do for each player’s career.

“We’ve got the N-and-Y (logo) that obviously attracts some people,” Oppenheimer said. “But I think that we’ve shown there’s more to it than that and that their career could be enhanced by everything that we have to offer.”