http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/college-seniors-find-little-leverage/ College Seniors Find Little Leverage May 25, 2015 by J.J. Cooper If the past few years are a guide, some unexpected names will start popping up in the fourth or fifth rounds of the 2015 draft. Names you may not know. Names that may not appear anywhere in the BA 500 list of the top draft prospects. They’ll be picked because they have talent. They’ve caught some scouts’ eye. But more than anything, they’ll be tapped because they are willing to cut a deal. They are the senior signs. The players who are picked as much for their inexpensive price tag as their prospect status. In an ideal world, they are both value and valued, but in reality, the price tag tops the talent. If you are drafted as a college senior, you are more likely to have finished your degree. You are likely to be mature physically and well-rounded as a player. And you are likely to sign for very little money. There are rare exceptions. Outfielder James Ramsey impressed enough in his senior season at Florida State to move up into the first round in 2012. He ended up with a $1.6 million signing bonus that was below slot, but not significantly so. Righthander Jake Stinnett earned a $1 million bonus last season from the Cubs as a second-round pick out of Maryland. But once the draft gets into the fourth round, the money for a senior dips to $50,000-$100,000. As you get closer to the 10th round, the check is somewhere between $1,000 and $5,000. College seniors have always signed below-market value draft bonuses because they lack bargaining leverage—their amateur careers are over so they have little choice but to sign for whatever they are offered. But the draft bonus rules of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement which began in 2012 have dramatically changed the landscape. Before 2012, money saved by a senior sign freed up money in the team’s draft budget. But the team set its own budget; Major League Baseball had recommendations on draft spending but no enforcement mechanism for those that overspent. Now MLB wields a big stick in terms of potential punishment. Draft pick penalties loom for a team that exceeds its overall spending allotment by 5 percent or more. So if a team wants to spend an extra $200,000 on one draft pick, it has to find savings elsewhere to bring the overall spending back into balance. The first 10 rounds are key, because every pick in the first 10 rounds has a dollar amount assigned to it. A team’s overall budget is the aggregate of its picks in the first 10 rounds. More significantly, if a team does not sign a player drafted in the first 10 rounds, it loses that slot amount from its budget. So it’s imperative to sign every player. Teams can take chances after the 10th round, when there’s no consequence for not signing a player and no impact on the overall budget unless the signing bonus is $100,000 or greater. Enter the college seniors. College seniors lack negotiating leverage. Unlike high school seniors or younger college players, they stare at an abyss, with no significant alternative to continue their baseball careers. It’s the ultimate take it or leave it situation. These negotiations don’t take long because they are not really negotiations. The most important machinations occur in the weeks before the draft. Meetings between scouts and players are key. It’s a chance for scouts to get face time with a player. But when it comes to a meeting with a senior, the meetings often become as important as what happens on the field. The most important aspect of scouting a senior is not his talent as much as his reliability. If a scout misses on a senior’s talent, it’s a mistake, but not necessarily a crucial one. But a team’s draft plans could fall apart if he says he can get a senior to sign for a certain number but then runs into problems. “Yes, they should be compensated fairly, but they have a 20-minute window to do something to convince you,” an amateur scout for a National League team said. “They push themselves up the board because they don’t hem and haw about the money. “Players get confused on what the player-scout meeting is about. They are coached up. It’s 20 minutes to sell how much you want it. The onus falls on the kid to give you that conviction. Do you get a bunch of rhetoric or do you see it in their eyes that they want to sign?” The area scout wants to be able to tell his scouting director that this player will sign, unequivocally. A senior with an agent? Many scouts see that as a sign to move on to someone else. “I need to be able to tell the scouting director, ‘I don’t have this guy as a top-10 round talent, but if we need a budget saver, I promise you I will sign him and he will not screw us over,’ ” the scout said. Teams are looking for players who are focused on the opportunity more than the money. Cal Poly outfielder Zach Zehner returned to school for his senior season after being a seventh-round pick of the Blue Jays in 2014. Zehner said that the extra year of school helped him improve defensively. He’s learned how to drive the ball more consistently. It also has helped him get closer to finishing up his degree. But if a scout calls during the draft, he knows there won’t be a lot of talk about signing bonuses. “You’re willing to play for a plane ticket.You want to play. For me it’s about finding the team that wants me the most,” Zehner said. “Who will give you that plane ticket? It’s not a money situation anymore.” The process begins long before the draft, but decisions happen quickly once the draft arrives. There are more candidates than spots for senior signs, so scouts make calls and ask simply, “Will you sign for this amount if we draft you?” If the answer is yes, the player may get picked. If the answer is no, the scout moves down his list. But even a “yes” answer doesn’t guarantee selection. Many scouts are making these calls, and sometimes that can lead to problems. A college coach recalled one of his players getting a call from a scout who asked if he would sign for $10,000. The player said yes. Soon, another scout called and asked if he’d sign for $1,000. Thinking he had a $10,000 offer in hand, the player said no. He was never picked. The team he said yes to selected other players, and the team he said no to moved on. The player struggled to find a pro job. A devious senior could cause chaos. If he agreed to sign for one number, but then changed his tune after getting drafted, he could sabotage a team’s draft. That early-round pick who agreed to a deal for well above slot can’t be signed until the later-round senior signs for his below slot number. A well-timed change of heart would give a senior the leverage he otherwise doesn’t have. By doing so, the player could also be ruining his own career. The minute he signs a contract, the team that signs him can determine where he plays and how much he plays for the next four to six seasons. Hold out and say hello to being buried on a bench with no real hope of landing somewhere else. As a 22- or 23-year-old senior, such a move would possibly land a slightly higher signing bonus, but also poison the relationship between team and player. It’s a mutually assured destruction—which is why a lot of deals will get cut with very little friction this June. --

※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc), 來自: 59.120.12.253 ※ 文章網址: https://webptt.com/m.aspx?n=bbs/Prospect/M.1432985448.A.D33.html