Day 2 of the draft goes today at 1 PM.  Round 3-10, where the Jays get pick #9 in each round so another 8 picks today.  This will finish off the picks that must be signed or you lose cap space.

Draft day is here. The Jays pick at #9 and #11 in the first round. The draft begins at 7pm and if you have the MLB Network on your Rogers cable you can watch it live. The Jays should have made their two first round picks by 8pm. The draft will run two rounds tonight. Rounds 3-10 will go tomorrow starting at 1pm and the draft will run to its conclusion on Saturday.

The Blue Jays need to draft and develop talent successfully to drive winning at the major league level.  Alex Anthopoulos adopted this as a core belief and when he was hired as general manager he focused on improving the Jays drafting and player development.  How successful has this new approach been? AA has been on the job for just four years, which is too early to fully judge his drafts, but we can make some observations. 

The signing deadline for Rule Four draftees is today at 5pm EST.

Finally Gregor Chisholm gets the goods.

Earlier today we were wondering when the Blue Jays would announce who they had selected. I heard they announced they had signed 16 players so I went to the official site and clicked on the press release. Here is the full text of the release:

The TORONTO BLUE JAYS have signed 16 of the 40 players selected from the 2013 First Year Player Draft and five from the top 10 rounds.

As you can see, the press release left out a few details. However Gregor has delivered.

The Draft is here!  I'll post our picks here and scrounge what I can on our new Blue Jays.

10. Phil Bickford RHP HS California

LA Times article

Scouting

More Scouting

In all honesty, it’s a lot more difficult to speculate with any conviction on who the Jays might select at ten than at seventeen and twenty one as we did quite well last year. Alex Anthopoulos was on Buster Olney’s podcast the other day and said the same—that it’s difficult to figure out who is going to fall to ten. At the backend of the first round you’ve probably got two or three guys you know are going to be there and probably don’t mind “reaching” for someone that quite possibly could be available in the supplemental—especially so when you have extra picks as the Jays have had in recent drafts. This year at ten, the Jays are probably looking “up” at the draft board than down.

It’s getting close to that time of year on the baseball calendar when reality starts to set in for the majority of teams that the minor league free agent they signed is going to be pitching 150 innings of 5.00 ERA ball this year, or that 38 year old defensively deficient first baseman on his eighth big league team is going to hit .240 in the four hole the rest of the way.  Closer to home, that $12 million dollar pitcher you just traded for and are on the hook for two more seasons at $19 and $20 million dollars stinks.  Needless to say, a distraction from the present reality focusing of future success would be welcome at this point.  Yes, the First Year Player Draft is less than a month away.  Our Blue Jays hold a fairly high selection this coming June along with two other selections in the first one hundred picks of the draft and are sure to use those selections on a number of players who should bolster a farm system that has been somewhat strafed this past year

Sam and Kelekin gave us great coverage of the draft this week. Today Kelekin wraps it up with his summary and his opinions on the best of the draft. We will also use this thread as the signings thread. Over to Kelekin.........

With the 2012 draft in the rear-view mirror, it’s time we examine some of the players drafted by the Blue Jays and grade the draft. There is no question that this was a top-tier draft by Toronto, taking many high ceiling players in the first three rounds.

Sam and Kelekin did a great job yesterday with their draft board.  They didn't get everyone they wanted but getting two of their "wants" in a competitive draft is pretty good.   They are back with their day 2 wish list.  Drafting for day 2 starts at noon today.  Sam and Kelekin will add capsules of some of the drafted players in the comments section as the day progresses.

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Rounds two to fifteen of the 2012 MLB Draft will take place on June 5, 2012.  After what was a solid first day of drafting the Jays will look to day two of the draft to continue to add high upside talent.  In past drafts, teams drafting early on day two would have likely contacted prospects to re-evaluate bonus demands, and in most cases there would have been an early rush on those prospects that had fallen due to signability.  Some teams seem to have set themselves up to perhaps take a run at some of the prospects with bonus demands, but it appears as though most have  blown their bonus allotments on their first pick(s).  I don’t know if I have a great handle on where the Jays sit at the moment.  I think all their picks so far are signable, yet I don’t know if there are any major bargains of the lot.  Davis might get done below slot and maybe Stroman, but Smoral will want some money and both Nay and Gonzales will want to be paid to forgo college commitments to Arizona State and Texas respectively.  In sum, I don’t think you’ll see the Jays going after any of the guys that are considered tough signs. 

 

 

Bauxites sam and Kelekin have stepped in with their predictions for the draft.  Thanks guys.

 

The first year player draft is upon us and what has taken scouts, crosscheckers, the director of amateur scouting, special assistants to the GM, and the GM months and probably years to compile, Kelekin and I have done in a couple days.  In fairness, our draft board is only for the Jays’ first couple picks, while the Jays will be working off a board of hundreds of names all personally scouted by staff several times over.  For example, Jays’ scout Blake Crosby was reported to have seen every one of Aaron Sanchez’s starts in his draft year.  Unfortunately Kelekin and I have not seen these prospects in person, but we have done our youtube research and based a lot of our board off the various scouting reports that circulate on the Internet.  We have tried to provide links to each player on our board so readers can formulate their own opinions.    

Bauxite Sam posted this in Vince Horsman thread, and it seems well timed so we're going to put it up here. Note to all, see the contact us link just under logo at the top of the page for information on how to submit a pinch hit. Thanks Sam.

The Rule Four Draft or Amateur Draft or First-Year-Player Draft is around the corner and many baseball media outlets have started to ramp up their coverage of the event. The draft is for amateur high school and college players from colleges in Canada, the U.S., and Puerto Rico. On June 4, 2012 at 8pm round one will take place. Rounds two to fifteen will take place on June 5, 2012, and rounds sixteen to forty will take place the following day on June 6, 2012. As I'm sure many here are aware, much of the change in the collective bargaining agreement between players and owners focused on changing the rules around the draft. There is now a very strict limit on the bonuses teams are allowed to offer amateur players. Teams work off a "bonus pool" for picks from rounds one to ten. This bonus pool is based on draft order and number of picks. The other change and perhaps most welcome one is the advancement of the signing deadline. The deadline which used to be in August and effectively prevented newly signed players from appearing in competitive games and tormented fans for two months of will he-won't he sign has now been moved up to July 13, 2012. Hurrah for that!

Over the years the Jays have had many first round picks that worked out (Halladay) and many that didn't (Beede). But what if the Jays took the guy who came after their #1 pick - IE: instead of Romero they drafted Troy Tulowitzki. How often did the Jays make the right choice, and how often the wrong one?

A lot of young men are going to be made awfully rich today. The Jays have yet to come to terms with 24 of their 55 June draft picks. Obviously a number of the later round picks will not sign but the Jays have a number of big fish left in the pond. Let's take a look.

Opera Bob's is starting their series of "JAYS DAYS" and I thought it would be a good opportunity for a beer club. Check the details below.