Trade for prospects or just draft right to begin with?

[Carp4Cy]

So one proposal for a Donovan trade nets Mike Sorota from the Dodgers and a couple others. He looks like a good hitter in CF.

But why didn't we just draft him to begin with? Cin took him 3rd round in 2024 and LA already traded for him?

We could have drafted him instead of the diminuative Brian Holiday who we took 7 slots ahead from OU (wrong Oklahoma school for the correct Holliday family by the way), who still hasn't pitched in our system?!?! Why draft short SPs when tall strong hitting CFers are on the board?

Also what about Brandon Clarke? That fireballing 6-4" 220 lb lefty? Instead we took the 5-11" Braden Davis (also of OU) 6 slots ahead of Clarke in the 5th round of '24? Are our scouts just in love with OU and destined to overrate their players? (Jimmy Crooks has his work cut out to make the roster). Granted, Davis has done all right with the K's at A/A+, but With a 4.30 ERA his senior year and his size, he probably would have still been around in the 6th round, whereas Clarke wasn't. And with that short frame, Davis has the odds stacked against him from ever starting successfully in the majors.

In that same 2024 draft we took Ryan Campos in the 4th round - was he the Catcher who can't catch? At only 5-8", he has so far posted 3 MiLB HRs in a full season to go along with a 17% Caught Stealing rate. With all the other C prospects in our system, I don't see the point here of drafting more short players. I wonder who else was still available in the 4th round that we will now have to trade for?

[ICCFIM2]

There is a lot of validity to your comments based on apparent athletic upside. At the same time, our top prospect, JJ Wetherholdt is 5'10". Our former top prospect, Jordan Walker at 6'7" appears to be on the verge of washing out. Baseball is a funny game. I do agree with the view that if two prospect appear to be of similar value or skills, take the bigger guy. The second problem, is looking at picks in 20/20 hindsight and in a vacuum. 20/20 hindsight is fine if trying to determine why based on the player. But, many picks after the first round are often based on draft dollars left to sign players. If a team has picked 3 players they are going to need to pay over slot in rounds 1-3, that 4th round player is likely to be a high floor, low ceiling college junior, who in hindsight will look like a terrible pick. I do think the Cards philosophy has started to change in the last couple of years to go for my high upside players. That is also going to result in players such as Chase Davis who appears to be a complete whiff.

[Carp4Cy]

There is a lot of validity to your comments based on apparent athletic upside. At the same time, our top prospect, JJ Wetherholdt is 5'10". Our former top prospect, Jordan Walker at 6'7" appears to be on the verge of washing out. Baseball is a funny game. I do agree with the view that if two prospect appear to be of similar value or skills, take the bigger guy. The second problem, is looking at picks in 20/20 hindsight and in a vacuum. 20/20 hindsight is fine if trying to determine why based on the player. But, many picks after the first round are often based on draft dollars left to sign players. If a team has picked 3 players they are going to need to pay over slot in rounds 1-3, that 4th round player is likely to be a high floor, low ceiling college junior, who in hindsight will look like a terrible pick. I do think the Cards philosophy has started to change in the last couple of years to go for my high upside players. That is also going to result in players such as Chase Davis who appears to be a complete whiff.

I hear you on JJ. He seems to have high value as a MI, but I don't think he profiles as a plus 3B bat at the MLB level. Keep him at 2b and get a real 3B to replace Nado.

And I hear you on the draft, but in 2024, I watched those picks happen in real time, and after JJW, I was very disappointed on the day of. (I was also disappointed about JJ only because Kurtz or Hagen Smith didn't fall to us, but that wasn't our fault). But it felt like in those 3-6th rounds and even later we were just mailing it in. We knew the second we took JJW that he shouldn't require way over slot since he was a college and not a HS star, and indeed he ended up signing under slot. And yet we refused to get agressive with Any HS picks in the ensuing rounds but instead kept reaching for even lower in the draft rankings than was necessary. So yeah, Hindsight and recognizing that Sorota would be this good is one thing - you are correct there. But expecting a couple 5-11 pitchers, and a 5-8 light hitting C to disappoint, is probably going to end up being correct more often than not. We were just being way too conservative and pretending like it was about signability when there was no real risk to begin with, and we had a huge signing pool because we were drafting so high in the first round. It felt more like BDW just didn't want to spend all those $$$ on MiLB players so they went with conservative low ceiling guys to save him money.

[renostl]

There is a lot of validity to your comments based on apparent athletic upside. At the same time, our top prospect, JJ Wetherholdt is 5'10". Our former top prospect, Jordan Walker at 6'7" appears to be on the verge of washing out. Baseball is a funny game. I do agree with the view that if two prospect appear to be of similar value or skills, take the bigger guy. The second problem, is looking at picks in 20/20 hindsight and in a vacuum. 20/20 hindsight is fine if trying to determine why based on the player. But, many picks after the first round are often based on draft dollars left to sign players. If a team has picked 3 players they are going to need to pay over slot in rounds 1-3, that 4th round player is likely to be a high floor, low ceiling college junior, who in hindsight will look like a terrible pick. I do think the Cards philosophy has started to change in the last couple of years to go for my high upside players. That is also going to result in players such as Chase Davis who appears to be a complete whiff.

I hear you on JJ. He seems to have high value as a MI, but I don't think he profiles as a plus 3B bat at the MLB level. Keep him at 2b and get a real 3B to replace Nado.

And I hear you on the draft, but in 2024, I watched those picks happen in real time, and after JJW, I was very disappointed on the day of. (I was also disappointed about JJ only because Kurtz or Hagen Smith didn't fall to us, but that wasn't our fault). But it felt like in those 3-6th rounds and even later we were just mailing it in. We knew the second we took JJW that he shouldn't require way over slot since he was a college and not a HS star, and indeed he ended up signing under slot. And yet we refused to get agressive with Any HS picks in the ensuing rounds but instead kept reaching for even lower in the draft rankings than was necessary. So yeah, Hindsight and recognizing that Sorota would be this good is one thing - you are correct there. But expecting a couple 5-11 pitchers, and a 5-8 light hitting C to disappoint, is probably going to end up being correct more often than not. We were just being way too conservative and pretending like it was about signability when there was no real risk to begin with, and we had a huge signing pool because we were drafting so high in the first round. It felt more like BDW just didn't want to spend all those $$$ on MiLB players so they went with conservative low ceiling guys to save him money.

Nothing but agreement on that draft.
Teams do miss a lot, most draft picks miss, even 1st round, but they seemed to try and get cute that draft.

I think you need to do both as TB does on a regular basis and LA did in your example of
obtaining Sorota. Use all avenues to get talent, attempt waste few although the draft does
have a place for wasting picks.

[mattmitchl44]

All of the above.