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The Orioles have the overall top pick in today's MLB draft. For weeks, if not months, the first year general manager, Mike Elias, was expected to act logically and select the player at the top of almost all the existing repechage: the receiver of the Oregon State, Adley Rutschman.
To date, you have undoubtedly heard about the Rutschman striking the switch and what makes it so special. He has just finished the 2019 season with a batting average of .418 (fourth best in NCAA Division I), a .580 percentage on the base (first) and a .764 slugging percentage (sixth) from of 17 home runs. On top of that, he is considered an above-average defenseman who can stay at the long-term premium catch position, where his bat will play even more.
As the project gets closer, the hype surrounding the safety net has only grown. Jim Callis of MLB.com recently said that Rutschman was the best potential candidate since Bryce Harper. Harper is obviously a polarizing figure, but he was an athletic monster who was entering the 2010 project and has built an impressive career to date. This comparison is damn exciting.
Of course, at Birdland, we can not have beautiful things. Over the weekend, Callis and Jonathan Mayo reported that the Orioles were not yet ready to choose Rutschman. The report says the team is also looking at California first baseman Andrew Vaughn, Vanderbilt player JJ Bleday and Texas high school striker Bobby Witt Jr.
From the fans' point of view, it's a disappointing development, but it's more about optics than anything else. Amateur baseball players are more difficult to follow than their basketball or football peers. The availability of college ball games on television or reliable online channels is sporadic and you can forget about college students. We are at the mercy of baseball publications to tell us who are the best amateurs and these publications explain why Rutschman is such a slam dunk since the beginning of the university season in February. Any other result at this stage may overwhelm the fan base.
What makes the situation worse is some speculation about the Orioles' reasoning for choosing someone other than Rutschman first: money.
Each team receives a different budget in which they must work to sign the entirety of their preliminary class. Each choice is given a value. A team can exceed the assigned value if it wishes, but it must nevertheless respect the constraints of the overall budget. The idea is that the Os might be able to hire a non-Rutschman player for less than the slot, and then use those savings to recruit another talented player later in the draft by offering him an oversupply.
The Orioles adopted this strategy last season under Dan Duquette. They managed to save money by hiring the first player Grayson Rodriguez slightly below his 11th place overall to help pitcher Blaine Knight turn away from his senior season in Arkansas and Drew Rom. a commitment to the University of Michigan. Elias used this approach to perfection with the Houston Astros in 2012, avoiding Carlos Correa, first choice of the consensus, in favor of Carlos Correa, then adding Lance McCullers later, as they knew they could save money. money on the signing bonus.
The logic of this approach is judicious, depending on the actors involved and the potential targets of the project's subsequent objectives. But it starts to make even less sense considering these factors for the Orioles this season.
Rutschman, Vaughn and Bleday are all university juniors. Do some of them really want to go back to school for another year, risk injury and run a lot of money? This would seem unlikely. There does not seem to be any money saving, whatever the choice.
Witt Jr. is the group with a little more weight. He will soon be 19, which would make him eligible again after his second season at the university. If he does not like the contract offer following this project, he can bet on himself and go to the University of Oklahoma for two or three years and potentially earning more money as a slightly lower choice in a future project as project pools increase each season. .
After making their selection in the first row, the O must wait for the choice 42 to make their second choice, then 71 for their third. From there, the difference between the niche values starts to become negligible. If the team manages to save a million dollars on this first choice, will there be a player worthy of such a large amount 41 choices later?
The Orioles have certainly researched this draft and discovered which players would likely stay at age 42 and age 71. Perhaps one could legitimately save money at the top in order to increase quality afterwards. I will give them their judgment about it. FanGraphs thinks they can opt for a high school pitcher or a midfielder at 42.
All this to say that the Orioles must select the number one player in general, which gives them the opportunity to build the best draft class. It could mean choosing a perennial star at the top with a group of guys who end up being scrubs. Or it could mean choosing three or four guys who have a solid career, but nothing spectacular. We will not know the real results in the years to come.
But O does not have to try to be too thin with this first choice. If they feel that Rutschman is the best player available, they should choose him. If they like Witt, Vaughn or Bleday better, pick one. The distribution of money is certainly a decisive factor in a decision so heavy, but it should be well behind the determination of one of these players who has the talent and composition of a future face of the franchise.
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