LSU=Champions

Mac Marshall class was absurd. What’s even more absurd is he’s the leading one to get on campus and he never threw a pitch and yet the class was still historically good.

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If Schmidt were coming here, his write-up would read differently IMO.

Perhaps his mind isn’t yet made up, but I think this is more of a tell that he’s going the JUCO route. Hope that reading of the tea leaves is incorrect but won’t lose sleep over this. Talk about lagniappe.

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the first 2 picks in last year draft both took over 2.5M+ under slot deals

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To further drive home this point, every #1 overall pick in the new MLB Draft format (for the past 6 drafts starting in 2021) has taken at least a half million dollar cut off their slot value and the average of all 6 comes to $1,432,133 under slot.

In fact, just taking the first 5 overall picks in this year’s draft, the average was $1,026,020 under slot.

All these players taken in the 1st round, shite damn near every player in the first 5 rounds, agrees to a number with the team before that team selects them, and the rest of it is just a matter of pool finagling. Otherwise the team is not marrying themselves to that selection. The rare exception to this just so happens to be Logan Schmidt and Cleveland :lol:

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Derick did sign underslot, but It's not that much underslot. I mean 6.2M is not bad at all.

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It’s not a knock on Curiel at all. It’s entirely a reflection of the system in place.

MLB teams don’t trade draft picks like in the NFL and NBA. Teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates sitting at the #5 overall pick a guy like Curiel obviously because they want him but also because of the added value they gain by signing a player whose “number” is below the #5 overall pick’s slot value. Curiel’s number, like most players, was going to be based more in line with where he saw himself as a ranking versus all draft eligible players (Curiel was uniformly ranked in the #10-15 range of all overall players). By and large, these players care less about what number they’re selected and more about what their value is and, thus, what number corresponds to that value. It’s intentional that the Pirates plan was to sign Curiel to the amount that corresponds more to his ranking value, which happened here to be a multi-million dollar savings to the Pirates, and in turn the Pirates then use those pooled savings from Curiel on selections later in the draft that they know will cost them more to sign (again, based more off of those players overall ranking on the board) than the slot of the specific pick. For comparison, the slot value for the #12 overall pick was $5.89m, well within range of what Pirates inked Curiel for at $6.2m. It’s a fair and reasonable deal for both sides and honestly the expected deal all along.

I knew Evans signed but I missed that it was for $300,000. Seems quite a bit short sided, but then again this is inherently subjective. He must have really wanted to start his pro career.

:sadface:

*turns off Jim Callis’ push notifications*

Spotrac isn’t fully updated, and these are my calculations so very subject to human error… but by my math, the only 2 other top 10 round selections noted as unsigned from Spotrac’s info (Peterson 1st and Lewis 4th) were announced yesterday as true full slot signings, so their remaining pool for Schmidt is unchanged. With the 5% overage ($403,352), the max the Guardians would be able to pay with their remaining pool ($1,236,660) is $1,640,012 before they are penalized by losing a draft pick in next year’s draft. Even tho that’s more than Schmidt’s slot of $1,598,900, he was always considered a massive overslot signing. $41,000 overslot is pennies. Certainly interesting and way less than his rumored number. There’s seemingly some smoke here.

Ashton Larson just announced he’s transferring to Texas Tech.

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Harden to Houston

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History repeating itself.

It’s a testament to how stacked the 2023 CWS field was that you knew, in the moment of us being there watching our games and other teams games, that this was one of the best collaboration of not just individual players but overall teams in Omaha ever. And especially our side of the bracket. Often times this sort of thing isn’t so apparent in the moment but is looked back on years/decades later from a historical perspective. But not 2023.

The data also supports it. I’ve seen some analysis done by some of these new age college baseball algo accounts that had our pathway to a natty, limited by just the teams we had to play in CWS as opposed to entire postseason play, as one of the top 3 toughest in modern history.

Be honest, how many times have you cranked it already to the MLB HR Derby?