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With the drastic alterations made to the 2020 MLB Draft, organizations will need to throw out their traditional model for the draft and come up with a strategy to best approach this year’s draft. While many teams will stay true to a simple plan, and number of teams might look to mix things up to get the most out of this draft.Ever since the bonus pool system came into effect, MLB teams have used a number of different strategies to bring in the best group of young talent that they could. For those who are unfamiliar with how the MLB Draft typically works, each pick in the first ten rounds is assigned a pick value. The cumulative total of the pick values a particular team has is what makes up their bonus pool. One strategy organizations have used to take advantage of this is drafting a player that demands more money than that pick is worth in an early round, then saving money sporadically throughout the rest of the first ten rounds to make up for that. Under the current Minnesota Twins regime, the strategy has been quite the opposite. In the three drafts since they have taken over control, the Twins have actually been able to spend over their slot allotment after round five by an average total of $285,600 per year. They were able to do this because they incorporated a strategy of saving money in the first five rounds of the draft, so they could then target players that other teams had to pass on, because they couldn’t afford, them later in the draft. One notable example of this came in last year’s draft when the Twins selected University of Auburn middle infielder Edouard Julien in the 18th round. Prior to the draft, Baseball America had ranked Julien as the 203rd best player in the draft, but he fell to the Twins at pick number 539 because teams were unable/unwilling to match his relatively high asking price. With money that the Twins had saved in early rounds of the draft, they were able to tap into their bonus pool money and sign Julien for $493,000, which is more bonus money than any other player taken after the 16th round received in last year’s draft. With the alterations to the 2020 MLB Draft, the Twins will likely need to recraft their strategy so they can bring in the best players possible with the draft picks and bonus pool allotment that they have. For reference, here are the four picks that the Twins have in this year’s draft, and the bonus pool allotments associated with those picks. Download attachment: Screen Shot 2020-06-08 at 8.52.03 PM.png The Twins total bonus pool allotment for the draft stands at just $4,528,600, which is the 4th fewest in the MLB. It is worth noting that the Twins are without their Competitive Balance Round B selection, as they traded it to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Kenta Maeda trade, as well as with their 3rd round selection, which they gave up when they signed Josh Donaldson, who had turned down a qualifying offer from the Atlanta Braves. So, let’s break down a few different strategies that the Twins front office could employ to best attack this year’s draft. Aggressive Approach The first strategy that we will look at will be going aggressive in the first round. Often times in the draft, good players at the top of most draft boards, especially high schoolers with a lot of leverage, tend to fall in the first round because of a high asking price. Given the conservative nature many teams will likely take to this year’s draft, it is highly likely that the Twins could find themselves in a position to pounce on a high caliber player, that they will need to overpay in order to sign. The Twins have just shy of $2 million in bonus pool money to work with from their rounds 2,4 and 5 picks that they could use to pay over slot with their first-round pick. However, if they do so, the Twins will need to be quite conservative with their remaining three picks, in order to stay within their total bonus pool allotment. This strategy is reminiscent of what the New York Mets (along with a few other organizations to a lesser extent) used in the 2019 draft. For those that don’t recall, in the third round of last year’s draft the Mets decided to select Matthew Allen, a right-handed high school pitcher from the state of Florida. Allen was a highly regarded prospect in last year’s draft, so high in fact that I had him ranked as the 9th best prospect in that draft. Allen fell to the third round because teams felt he would be difficult to sign away from his commitment to the University of Florida. However, despite having already gone $310,000 above slot value on their first two picks, the Mets decided to take Allen anyway, which meant that they needed to save every penny that they could in order to sign him. To do this, the Mets proceeded to draft college seniors, who typically sign for $10,000 or less, with each of their next seven picks. If the Twins followed this strategy with their 4th and 5th round selections, they could free up roughly $750,000 to use with their first two picks. Conservative Approach On the other end of the spectrum, the Twins can look at their limited situation in this draft and decide not to get too cute, but just stay in line with the status quo. That means targeting players who will sign for approximately the same amount of money that the pick is worth. This strategy will prevent the Twins from getting into a bind with their last couple picks, by having to make decisions they wouldn’t otherwise make. From an outside perspective, this is a strategy I expect a lot of teams to use, so they don’t make a mistake with an alternative draft setup that has a lot of unanswered questions. The negative to this strategy, however, is you run the risk of missing unforeseen opportunities by taking the same approach most of the other teams take. There might be a stud player who falls to one of the Twins picks, but instead of taking a chance on that player, you play it safe, and take someone cheaper, or vice versa, and you miss the chance to better utilize draft capital later in the draft. Diversified Approach The final strategic approach that we will look at for the Twins is an attempt to diversify their 2020 MLB Draft portfolio, by splitting up the funds more evenly amongst their four picks. With the nature of how the MLB Draft works, especially so this year, there will be a number of players with second or even first round grades that could fall into the fourth or fifth rounds. If the Twins wanted to, they could try and save a good chunk of money with their first-round pick, which accounts for nearly 57 percent of their total bonus pool, by drafting a player that will sign well under slot value, and then use that money to target players that are falling with their three remaining picks. This way, the Twins won’t be putting all of their eggs in one basket, per se, and instead could select as many as four players with top two round talent. Getting more players with early round talent could be especially important this year, as teams will have a difficult time signing high quality players after the draft, given that they are limited to giving a $20,000 maximum signing bonus to players that go undrafted. This limited bonus could make it difficult for MLB teams to even sign college seniors away from the extra year of eligibility that they have been granted by the NCAA, let alone underclassmen or high schoolers. As you can see, there are a number of different strategies that the Twins could take in this draft, and there are many more that are not even mentioned in this article that are probably being considered by the Twins. While the draft may be a lot shorter than normal, one thing is for certain, it will be exciting to see how the 30 MLB teams approach this unique draft format. Let us know in the comments below which strategy you prefer, or if there is a strategic approach that you like, that was not mentioned above. More 2020 MLB Draft Coverage 2020 MLB Draft Top 50 Prospect: 1-10 2020 MLB Draft Top 50 Prospect: 11-20 2020 MLB Draft Top 50 Prospect: 21-30 2020 MLB Draft Top 50 Prospect: 31-40 2020 MLB Draft Top 50 Prospect: 41-50 MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email Click here to view the article