2024 Draft Signings Thread

[MilwaukeeBeers]

Also a good dose of copium to make you all feel better. Bitonti would have easily been a 1st round pick this year after one year of school. Pratt would have as well. Adamczewski would have been in the round 3-5 range Letson likely the same. 2023 has a chance to be a generational class.

Everything will be OK even though I am a harsh critic of this years myself. There WILL be pop up arms from 2024 that show in the top 30 it is just how the Crew does business. 2025 is gonna be real fun too. 

[biedergb]

14 minutes ago, MilwaukeeBeers said:

2023 has a chance to be a generational class.

And our 2024 international class has a chance to be really really good based upon the summer so far. Multiple players with all star seasons (Made, Pena, Ortuno, Anderson, Martinez) and some with upside from offense/defense (Corobo, Quintana).

[CheeseheadInQC]

I think this year’s draft set up poorly for what seems to be the Brewers’ strategy: grab a couple of hitters early and then get a large number of pitchers, including high school pitchers that few if any teams are drafting or signing in similar numbers. The problem is, pitching was really expensive this year. It makes sense, if you have few really good players but more money to go around, the leverage shifts to the players. The question is, should the Brewers have shifted strategy? Should they have focused more of their bonus pool on hitting? Perhaps, but they might not have believed it to be worth it given the talent available.

[jay87shot]

OK, this is off topic but how much can an undrafted free agent sign for?

Could a team work with someone like William Schmidt who pulled out of the draft and not get drafted and then sign them as a UDFA for like 10 million. That way the player gets payed and goes to a team they want or is there a max for UDFA.

Also have we signed any UDFA other than Feilder, is there a timeliness to sign undarfted players.

[CheeseheadInQC]

10 minutes ago, jay87shot said:

OK, this is off topic but how much can an undrafted free agent sign for?

Could a team work with someone like William Schmidt who pulled out of the draft and not get drafted and then sign them as a UDFA for like 10 million. That way the player gets payed and goes to a team they want or is there a max for UDFA.

Also have we signed any UDFA other than Feilder, is there a timeliness to sign undarfted players.

I think the rule is similar to 11th-20th rounders, although I don’t know if the $150,000 base is the same.

[CheeseheadInQC]

If my counting is correct, the other teams averaged signing one high school pitcher each. The Brewers signed six of the 35 total.

[StearnsFTW]

8 hours ago, MilwaukeeBeers said:

Man seems like he took advantage of the situation. Jeez that is a ton... good for him. This draft class.... I am gonna be nice and say I'm quite disappointed. Thankful for the international class we currently have.  No Nunnallee (I assume) is a kick in the balls when that was the prime consolation to whiffing on Levonas. No Malamazian and it gets gross. 

Pretty gross overreaction imo

[Jim Goulart]

 

[Jim Goulart]

 

[bigred]

12 hours ago, LouisEly said:

None of us know what happened with that.  He could have changed his mind.  Maybe he met a hot girl at Wake Forest on a visit and things escalated.  Pretty ladies have caused many a young man to change his mind about things (and make bad decisions).

Truer words have never been spoken. Lol

[Jake McKibbin]

 

Even if the Brewers offered him overslot on draft day and he said no, I'm fairly certain with their program and an offer like that that they were confident he'd sign on. I have to say I'm actually quite amazed that he hasn't, and I think 99% of people in his shoes on that day would have done so.

He'll have his reasons for sure, and the Brewers should have done more work on why he was rejecting the offer but I have to say I'm still kind of astounded it wasn't enough

 

[bigred]

12 hours ago, MilwaukeeBeers said:

Also a good dose of copium to make you all feel better. Bitonti would have easily been a 1st round pick this year after one year of school. Pratt would have as well. Adamczewski would have been in the round 3-5 range Letson likely the same. 2023 has a chance to be a generational class.

Everything will be OK even though I am a harsh critic of this years myself. There WILL be pop up arms from 2024 that show in the top 30 it is just how the Crew does business. 2025 is gonna be real fun too. 

They wouldn't have been available for this years draft, if they went to division 1 schools. 

[biedergb]

1 hour ago, Jake McKibbin said:

 

Even if the Brewers offered him overslot on draft day and he said no, I'm fairly certain with their program and an offer like that that they were confident he'd sign on. I have to say I'm actually quite amazed that he hasn't, and I think 99% of people in his shoes on that day would have done so.

He'll have his reasons for sure, and the Brewers should have done more work on why he was rejecting the offer but I have to say I'm still kind of astounded it wasn't enough

 

True. There may be other factors we will never know.

But from a financial aspect - he just bet that he will be a top 20 pick in 3 years, and maybe even more like a top 15 pick since he will get his money 3 years later.

I can see if it was maybe an organization that has little success developing pitchers, or one with little chance of playoff relevancy, but outside of being in Wisconsin (which may seem like it is practically nowhere land for a NJ kid, having grown up in NJ myself) this is lunacy from a money perspective.

I know he is talented, but there must be data out there on the # of high end HS pitchers (those top 100 draft eligible) who don't sign and what their college careers and future draft outcomes are.

Oh well. The team spent all its draft bonus pool, but none of the 5% overage. They did sign 16 of 22, which is pretty good considering the # of HS picks. Below the level of the expectations of most fans, but that expectation is pretty high these days. Far cry from years and decades ago where the expectations were low.

[bigred]

9 minutes ago, biedergb said:

True. There may be other factors we will never know.

But from a financial aspect - he just bet that he will be a top 20 pick in 3 years, and maybe even more like a top 15 pick since he will get his money 3 years later.

I can see if it was maybe an organization that has little success developing pitchers, or one with little chance of playoff relevancy, but outside of being in Wisconsin (which may seem like it is practically nowhere land for a NJ kid, having grown up in NJ myself) this is lunacy from a money perspective.

I know he is talented, but there must be data out there on the # of high end HS pitchers (those top 100 draft eligible) who don't sign and what their college careers and future draft outcomes are.

Oh well. The team spent all its draft bonus pool, but none of the 5% overage. They did sign 16 of 22, which is pretty good considering the # of HS picks. Below the level of the expectations of most fans, but that expectation is pretty high these days. Far cry from years and decades ago where the expectations were low.

Maybe the Levonas family is mega rich, and $$ doesn't matter much to him? 🤷‍♂️

[snoogans8056]

1 hour ago, biedergb said:

Oh well. The team spent all its draft bonus pool, but none of the 5% overage. They did sign 16 of 22, which is pretty good considering the # of HS picks. Below the level of the expectations of most fans, but that expectation is pretty high these days. Far cry from years and decades ago where the expectations were low.

I wonder if we just ran out of time on the 5% overage. 

We ended with something like $700k left to spend after spending every last dollar for years. 

[Playing Catch]

There was no replicating 2023. I think that set many people up for disappointment with this draft.

I'm a little surprised that so many posters are SO disappointed by the Payne pick. It was a surprise pick, sure. The consensus boards had him in the #50-#100 range, but we see high schoolers in every draft that get first round money later on. What does it matter where he was picked? And considering his age and athleticism? I mean based on the Brewers success lately, if he's dominating AZ like Adamczewski did this year? I dunno, I just have a lot of faith in this organization to pick good players. In addition, we don't know what the bonus demands of the other players were. Many players insist on signing for slot. If the Brewers were determined to stay under the slot value, then the team is looking at a different set of players, where perhaps Payne is "ranked" the highest.

The strategy bit them a little when Levonas didn't sign, but if he does, they don't sign 4 or 5 other guys. So they got quantity over quality. Never a bad thing when drafting arms.

[Brewer77]

It’s not as fun on paper as last year’s draft, but it’s probably not fair to compare the two. Long way to go, but after 12 months it’s looking better than any draft since I started following 

This year’s group is an abnormally high variance group with all of the high school pitchers taken. It’s going to take three years to get a strong feel for how good/bad it is. If you look back three years from now and a couple of the high school pitchers look like they would’ve commanded multi-million dollar signing bonuses had they went to college, then this draft was a smashing success. If not, it’s going to be a tough path to calling this one successful

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 minutes ago, Brewer77 said:

It’s not as fun on paper as last year’s draft, but it’s probably not fair to compare the two. Long way to go, but after 12 months it’s looking better than any draft since I started following 

This year’s group is an abnormally high variance group with all of the high school pitchers taken. It’s going to take three years to get a strong feel for how good/bad it is. If you look back three years from now and a couple of the high school pitchers look like they would’ve commanded multi-million dollar signing bonuses had they went to college, then this draft was a smashing success. If not, it’s going to be a tough path to calling this one successful

Welcome to Brewer Fanatic!

[MilwaukeeBeers]

5 hours ago, bigred said:

They wouldn't have been available for this years draft, if they went to division 1 schools. 

True it is more a commentary on the caliber of prospect they are after seeing them in the actual system. Just a hypothetical kind of like IF Chourio was draft eligible in 2022 he would have been a top 3 pick in the draft. 

[MVP2110]

So now that we know who signed and who didn't how would we rank this year's class individually? I'm assuming Meccage is #1, then Payne #2? Where do the day 3 guys we signed fall?

[biedergb]

I would go Meccage - Payne - Burke - Smith - Broughton as 1-5 based on rankings and also giving the higher end college players some priority. But just my opinion. I think Meccage/Payne are clearly top 2 ceiling wise.

 

I think the next level is a mix of Dinges, Molina and the other HS pitchers (Tobias, Dorchies, Renz, Dubanewicz), then the other college arms (DeBerry, welch, Holobetz, Welch, Garcia and Hardin) in no particular order. And that is mostly due to draft position and signing bonus. And at this point last year I would have like Yoho and Kuener as the bottom of my list (with Austin and Manfredi), and yet here they are two AA pitchers with a successful first pro year. And Manfredi is holding his own at A+. So a lot can change in the next year.

[sveumrules]

44 minutes ago, MVP2110 said:

So now that we know who signed and who didn't how would we rank this year's class individually? I'm assuming Meccage is #1, then Payne #2? Where do the day 3 guys we signed fall?

Looks like Braylon Payne came in at #19 on the most recent BF voting.

Scrolling the ballots, if I counted right, Meccage was on eleven of the twenty four ballots with a high placement of #12. He was listed above Payne on three of those eleven.

Payne was listed on fifteen ballots with a high placement of #8.

Burke ended up on ten ballots with a high placement of #9.

[snoogans8056]

Burke being teamed with Luke Adams, Pratt, and Arienamo infield in A+ should be fun boxscore watching.

Same with Dinges and Payne joining the Yophery, Adamczewski, Bitonti, and Baez 18/19 year old top of the order.

[Jim Goulart]

 

[patrickgpe]

On 7/31/2024 at 4:43 PM, Jim Goulart said:

Plus the Adames comp pick after the first round…

Maybe i'm wrong again, but I thought players that were traded can't garnish one for the club that loses him. 

EDIT: NM, i see that only applies to players traded during the season before FA, so that wouldn't apply. BIG DRAFT for the crew in 2025