An alternate universe Atlanta Braves draft strategy for Monday: draft an unsignable player

The Glorious Plan B

Here’s the way this would be laid out on Monday night:

• All of the Braves’ preferred picks at #9 are taken ahead of them
• No underslot guys look that viable or otherwise attractive to them
• Given that the major league team is performing well, they could end up picking in the 18-24 range again next season (their ‘regular’ pick is #21 … exactly where they are in the standings at this moment), and missing out on the best of that great class next year.
• Given all that… execute Project Deferment

In this scenario, the Atlanta Braves would draft someone like Jack Leiter… the son of former major leaguer Al Leiter (Yankees, Blue Jays, Marlins, Mets primarily).

Why him?

First of all, Atlanta can’t simply “pass” on the pick… that would end their participation in the rest of the event for the year.  Nor should they try and choose the next ‘Kyler-Murray-2-sport-star guy.  That plan didn’t work so well for the Oakland A’s – they did not get a compensation pick.

So you’ve got to take somebody… and it’s a kid who would be taken exactly for the purpose of not wanting to sign him.  That’s normally not a very nice thing to do.

Leiter The Younger has a very public stance of wanting to go to Vanderbilt, and made it clear to many clubs that it would take a bonus amount of $4 million-ish to bump him from that principled pedestal.

Now sure:  that could be posturing.  That could also be a means of getting non-preferred teams to back off in the hopes that… oh, the Yankees, perhaps?… might draft him instead.

But if you’re gonna screw a kid by drafting him and they low-balling him for the purpose of banking a draft pick next year, then you may as well pick a guy who at least says that he doesn’t want to sign in the first place.

The Braves’ #9 draft slot is worth nearly $5 million.  They would have to offer $2 million (40% of the slot) in order to secure a compensation pick (again) for 2020.  Yes, we know the drill on this now.

The 2020 pick would notch down to #10 overall, but there’s quite the reason to believe that a #10 pick in 2020 would be better – perhaps much better – than a #9 pick in 2019.

The downside of doing this is the same as with last year:  the Braves would lose the opportunity to spend that $5 million slot money, and would have to be careful with the rest of their picks in 2019, starting with #21.

But then again, if this draft class really isn’t that interesting, would it really matter?

Bluff Called, Jeff

Jeff Passan thinks he has uncovered a scheme for gaming the MLB draft.  That scheme is bold, unbelievably expensive, and almost certainly would be doomed to fail for many reasons.

This scheme that the Atlanta Braves could go with… actually has sound merit and purpose.  Unlike Passan’s scheme, this could be executed almost immediately and without few downsides.

You know what else?  There’s probably a few other teams that could try this strategy as well.  You might want to watch for multiple teams to find a reason not to sign their 1st rounder in the coming months.

We could know the direction this goes in a few hours.