2022 Twins 10-round Mock Draft

14 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

I respectfully ask, "Why not?"

All joking aside, while Wallner is actually a very good athlete, just simply transitioning someone to catcher isn't as easy as it sounds.  Firstly, I don't know if he's ever even played the position.  It's hard enough to jump to it in HS, let alone in college and especially in professional ball. 

Second, would he even he a willing participant in the switch?  I'm sure he would do it if he was told to, but would his heart be in it? Hard to say.  You might add, "What about Bechtold? He's doing it?".  While this is true (and please correct me if I'm wrong), I believe Bechtold volunteered and added that to his repertoire of positions to increase his chances of advancing and making it to the show.

13 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

Thanks.  That did help.  But it almost sounds like a slimy backroom deal if you do it right.  It sort of defeats the purpose of the draft (parity) if you can negotiate before you select.  Weird.

True, I imagine it would seem to sort of defeat the purpose of the draft from that vantage point. Until the league can no longer draft HS kids, we will continue to see things like this play out.  A top HS kid in the country has a huge amount of leverage going into the draft.  At that point they have garnered (usually) a huge amount of interest from colleges and the pros.

If they so choose, they can and often do leverage that to get the best deal they can.  A LOT of kids coming out of HS really do want to go play in college though and to lure them away from that dream, it usually takes a bit more money (Enlow is a good example in that the Twins went over slot to lure him away from LSU).

Another kid I know of who graduated ahead of my son from his HS had a good number of teams really interested in him as an outfielder (Cubs and Red Sox chief among them and they probably would have taken him in the Top 10 rounds).  However, he had always wanted to play for UGA and really wanted to honor the offer they had given him.  So his thought was, if you want to draft me and have me sign to give up my dream of playing in college, it has to be Top 4 rounds or the equivalent money.

Note: I have the utmost respect for this young man and his family.  They truly are amazing people.  Plus if you watch any UGA games this fall you may see him playing WR this year for the football team (he was freakishly fast coming out of HS).

So this (IMHO) is where you see the deals and agreements in place before the draft.  Signability becomes a huge issue for both college (D1/Major JUCO) and Pro teams.

39 minutes ago, MN_ExPat said:

All joking aside, while Wallner is actually a very good athlete, just simply transitioning someone to catcher isn't as easy as it sounds.  Firstly, I don't know if he's ever even played the position.  It's hard enough to jump to it in HS, let alone in college and especially in professional ball. 

Second, would he even he a willing participant in the switch?  I'm sure he would do it if he was told to, but would his heart be in it? Hard to say.  You might add, "What about Bechtold? He's doing it?".  While this is true (and please correct me if I'm wrong), I believe Bechtold volunteered and added that to his repertoire of positions to increase his chances of advancing and making it to the show.

Also Wallner is 6'5".  I think there might be more tall catchers in professional baseball now than ever before after Sandy Alomar and Mauer proved it's possible to be tall and a good defensive catcher, but I would guess that there is still more of a challenge for a tall guy to learn to use his body effectively behind the plate.

Guys like Mauer, Alomar, and Wieters had tons of reps to get there, and I doubt it would go well generally for a guy trying to do it for the first time in AA.  Not to mention the wear on the player from playing at catcher which can have an adverse effect on their offense. 

If the idea is to turn him into a catching prospect, they would most likely do better just trading him for the best catching prospect they can get in return.

14 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

Thanks.  That did help.  But it almost sounds like a slimy backroom deal if you do it right.  It sort of defeats the purpose of the draft (parity) if you can negotiate before you select.  Weird.

Not that I have inside information or a perfect memory of drafts, but I think the strategy of trying to push a player down in the draft is pretty tricky and probably hasn't really been executed effectively very often.

The Mets have $4.78 million allocated to their first pick at #11, and the Cubs at #7 have $5.7 million allotted.  If they wanted to push one of the consensus top 7 down they would have to be offering them well over $6 million, since the player would otherwise see their floor value at around $5.7 million, and they would also probably have a decent chance at going a slot or two higher as well.  So if the Mets went over their first pick slot by $1.5 or $2 million they would have to either make it up by signing lesser guys to below slot deals later in the draft, or if they can't manage to save enough money they start losing picks in future drafts.  It sort of defeats the purpose, especially in the MLB draft where good players routinely come out of later rounds and high picks still bust quite a bit.

The Mets' #11 pick is actually a compensation for not signing Rocker at #10 last year, so they actually have another 1st round pick at #14, giving them a unique opportunity to try something like that this year.  They could get an underslot deal in place at #14 with someone that doesn't expect to go until late in the 1st round otherwise, and use the savings to up their offer at #11.  In most situations it can be a lot trickier when the team is trying to save money on 2nd and 3rd round picks that have smaller slot values and smaller gaps between where the player could reasonably expect to go otherwise.

There is always a lot of talk about bonus pool manipulation because it can be fun to speculate, but I think when it comes down to it, most teams have ended up going pretty straightforward with their picks most of the time, going with their favorite of of the still available picks.  There are a few good examples of creative strategies but I don't think it actually happens that much.