Interesting!

Red Sox over, Royals under. Those are the only two I actually feel strongly about.

Purely on hunches, I think Marlins over, Giants under, and A's under, and I see how I could miss badly on Oakland...

Averages out to 81.2, which is I think about half a win over the expected average (which will be less than 81 due to rainouts that don't get made up). Even at -105, though, I don't think playing 30 unders is a moneymaking strategy. (Let alone -110).

Yankees under, TB over, KC over, Oakland under, Philly under, SF under. And yes, book it, the Blue Jays will win exactly 81 and a half games this year.

BTW, BA has listed the Aggregate Bonus pools  for the first 10 rounds of this years draft. The Jays pool for their 14 picks is almost equal to what they spent on the 11 top ten round picks they signed last year.  Some teams pools are  taking a huge hit  from what they spend last year in the 1st 10 rounds - Pirates and Nats $10 million less, Dbacks and Rays $7 million less, Royals $5 million less. Thank you Bud for reining in these large market behemoths.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/

My five are:
A's over.
White Sox under.
Philly under.
Giants under.
Red Sox over.

As I expedcted before opening the list, Texas is projected to be the best team in the AL again -- but along with ... Detroit? even with Fielder, I just don't understand all the lvoe the Motor City Kitties are getting ...

Anyway ...

• Over: TOR, OAK, MIA
• Under: BOS, DET, STL

Boston and LAA on the over. Baltimore and Seattle on the under.

Toronto and Cleveland over.
Detroit, Texas and Philly under.

That number is too high for Detroit, but their division is so weak, it's hard to see them going below 90.

And Thomas is right. White Sox are a strong bet to go under. Again, though... if you assume the Royals are a paper tiger, as I do, someone has to win those divisional games...

Rest of their division is pretty weak.

My picks: San Doggy Dogg over 71. Baltimore under 71. 

I am surprised by a lot of those lines. Toronto over isn't easy money for the first time in a while. And I have no idea which AL Central teams to take the over on, though I strongly doubt it'll end up as a four-way tie for last. I think the White Sox may deserve more respect than they're getting in this thread...

WIthout thinking about it too much I like:


Over on TO
Over on Baltimore
Over on Seattle
Under on Yanks
Under on Phils
Under on Cincinnati
Under on White Sox

OT: BA has the Bonus pool calculations for the 2012 draft. The Blue Jays, who are tied with two other teams for the lead with 14 picks in the first ten rounds, are fifth and have almost as much to spend in the first ten rounds this year as they had last year:

Team	Picks	Bonus Pool	2011/Top 10	2011/Total
Twins	13	$12,368,200	$5,072,300	$5,902,300
Astros	11	$11,177,700	$4,705,800	$5,545,800
Padres	14	$9,903,100	$10,345,600	$11,020,600
Cards	14	$9,131,100	$4,055,000	$4,554,000
Bl Jays	14	$8,830,800	$8,990,000	$10,996,500 

http://ht.ly/9aVJn

On topic-

Over:
NYY (easy)
TBJ (ditto)
LAA
Wash
Pitt.

Under:
Det. (slightly)
CWS
St.Louis
Cubs
Sea.

I'm not a betting man, but if I were, I would go over on the Rays. The offense will be good enough, the defense will be very good, and the pitching is going to be excellent and deep.

I think the 2012 draft has the potential to be a real plus for the Jays, not just because of the # of high picks, but also because I expect AA to develop an effective strategy to make the most of the team's dollar limit (for example, by targeting certain high-ceiling HS players likely to sign for slot amounts and/or by drafting 14 outstanding talents and using the alloted funds to sign only 8-10 of them - which would still be a great success).

If you draft but don't sign picks, your pool diminishes by the slot amount of each of those unsigned picks. So if the Jays only sign 8 of 14 top 10 round picks, and the total slot for the 6 unsigned picks was, let's say, $3.8 million, the Jays could only spend $5 million on the guys they do sign.

Syndergaard/Sanchez were the perfect types of picks. High upside kids who were willing to quickly sign at or below slot to get an early start to their careers.

Thanks for the corrective, hypobole.

It's interesting: the sum of all the aggregate pools in 2012 is (according to Jim Callis) $189,903,500, whereas last year teams spent a total of $191,876,250 in the first ten rounds. So, at first glance, the draftees shouldn't suffer too much as a whole this summer. However, if you factor in the number of players who turn down their offers each year (eg, HS players who decide to go to college), the actual amount spent in 2012 could be significantly less than $189M - if I understand the new system correctly.

In any case, I expect AA to draft a lot of high-upside HS talents with an inclination to turn pro (like Norris and Dean). If I recall correctly, the prep talent in 2012 is supposed to be stronger than the available college talent.

Talking Draft Strategy is very interesting. Hypopole & Greenfrog. Thanks for the links, information & suggestions for possible strategies.

My thoughts in general ie the parameters :-

1) The higher you finish like the Rays the worse pick and lower the budget you are given. This will happen to the Jays if they win 90+ games.

2) Looking at the 2010 draft as a sample to make a working sheet:- 1st pick D McGuire @ $2mil, 2nd choice A Sanchez @ $.5mil. We do not know the budget for those picks which were #11 & #34. We spent $2.5mil of our budget. If we do not sign McGuire we do not lose the budget for that pick. that budget is carried forward to the next year. It is possible that Sanchez was signed for under the budget eg budget is $.6mil and he signed for $.5mil so we get $.1mil to spend on other picks. If the $.1mil is not spent then we lose it.
Please note that I don't know the fine details of the draft budget rules, so I would be wrong in my thinking.
3) T Beede budget & pick are carried forward to 2012. I am sure there is more than 1 way to deal with this.

At the state of the franchise, the Bauxite did a great job of talking to AA. Thanks to him AA seems to think that signing bonuses will drop significantly.
So for example J Paxton turned down/lost his chance to start his career with the team that drafted (37) him in 2009, fortunately for him he was good enough to get picked high again in 2010 (132) & signed this time so he got good money and was able to start his pro career. He took a risk & if he did not sign again well...taking more risk. The Jays got to forward #37 pick $ and Seattle used #132 budget$.

Of course AA will come up with something brilliant. As will many Bauxites.

Yeah, I expect a mix and match. Some picks who are signable cheap (ideally high potential) and some who are tough signs that they will take as late as possible. IE: an early pick used on a guy who will sign for well under the limit might be a good idea to 'bank' $1 million that you can then tell 2 guys picked later will be theirs if they sign first but guy #2 will have no more than slot.

No question the first year of this new system will be a challenge for all GM's, with future years strongly influenced by whoever figures out the best method to maximize talent gained per dollar allocated.

Cleveland over; Detroit under, Boston over.

17 teams are 81.5 or better; only 12 teams below 81.

Only 13 teams had winning records in 2011, with 16 below .500.

Perhaps a good strategy would be to go under on all 17 teams that are 81.5 or better.

My three unders were the teams projected to win the most games.  That is probably not a coincidence, although in each case, there is a little more to it than that.