For Rays, bunched draft picks create an opportunity for ‘chaos’

ST. PETERSBURG — As has oft been the case over the last 14 years, when finishes at or near the top of the standings left them around the bottom of the draft order, the Rays won’t really know what they’re going to do in Sunday night’s first round until a few picks before their No. 29 selection.

“Once you get into the 20s, you start to say, ‘OK, we have these four or five left,’” said Rob Metzler, the Rays’ senior director, amateur scouting. “You certainly start counting down to say, ‘OK, we’re going to get one of these, and we don’t have to go down here and pull one up.’ And generally, we build the (draft) board so that wouldn’t happen.

“Then you start to make calls, just to check in and make sure that there’s no surprises in terms of players’ interest in coming out and starting their career. So there’s feel to it. And the more experience you have, the more feel you have to work through it.”

And that will be the easy, less stressful part of the opening night of the three-day, 20-round draft.

Sometime approaching midnight, the Rays will make three selections in the span of seven — No. 65, which is their second-round pick; and Nos. 70 and 71, their competitive balance Round B pick and the one they got from the Tigers, along with Isaac Paredes, in the late-spring trade of Austin Meadows.

“Certainly the opportunity at 29 is big, and that’s consistent with what we had last year in the first-round pick (taking high school infielder Carson Williams at No. 28),” Metzler said “Having 65, 70 and 71, that’s a great opportunity for us. And it’s a big challenge, because there’s so much uncertainty.”

The decisions for those three picks — which have to be made with just one minute between selections — aren’t as simple as just taking the top remaining names on the draft board.

Metzler, scouts, cross-checkers, front-office execs and analysts have been assembling it loosely for months, breaking hundreds of names into “general buckets” over recent weeks and planning to work until late Saturday night putting them in specific order, with the chance for second thoughts Sunday morning.

That’s because they also have to balance other things.

For one, the signability of each player based on bonus demands and occasional team preferences. So as their picks near, a crew of Rays staffers will be assigned to check back in with the players they are considering, as well as their families and/or advisors. High school seniors and college underclassmen have the leverage of sticking to college ball and going into a future draft.

For another, the financial constraints of the draft.

Each team has a total bonus pool for the top 10 rounds (the Rays have $7,795,100, which is 20th most; the top-picking Orioles have $16,924,000), with penalties for going over, while each pick has an assigned slot value ($2,547,600 for No. 29).

In efforts to maximize their pool dollars, teams sometimes will shift money around; for example, taking a player higher than he was projected in order to pay him below slot, and thus have more money to offer someone who may be a tougher sign that they took lower. Or, if a top player is unexpectedly available at their selection, to pay them well over slot and scrimp on others.

Having the three picks so closely bunched creates more opportunity to be creative, especially with similar slot amounts: No. 65, $1,077,100; No. 70, $952,800; No. 71, $929,100.

Or, as ESPN draft analyst Kiley McDaniel said: “I would expect them to move money around. To what degree, I don’t know. But if you’re trying to project chaos, I would say the Rays are a good bet.”

Metzler and about 20 others will be working from a conference room at the Trop, huddling during the afternoon game against the Orioles, then getting locked in for the first pick at 7:12 p.m., crossing off names of players they hope they correctly projected to be gone and waiting for their first turn, which will be close to 10 p.m.

Metzler, running his seventh draft, tends to stick to the stock answers, about how they always seek to take the best player available, are open to players from “all four quadrants” — high school and college, pitchers and position players — and never draft for need or to meet any quotas or directives.

ESPN’s McDaniel, though, thinks the Rays have a type, in part because when usually picking from the bottom third of the order “there’s never an obvious best answer,” so teams like that “end up leaning towards the stuff you like because everything is available.”

And for the Rays, that’s often a player with some risk and a high upside.

“It’s up-the-middle athletes and high school pitching,” McDaniel said. ”They index for those more than all the other teams. They don’t really love going college unless it’s just a very unique sort of player, like (2019 first-round pick) Greg Jones, an incredibly unique athlete. They typically like to go college later.”

Metzler disagreed: “I read that from time to time, and I don’t think so. We’re trying to pick the best out of each type of player that might be (available). Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don’t.”

We’ll see Sunday night, and in four to five years.

Mocked up

Here are some of the latest projections for the Rays’ No. 29 pick:

Baseball America: 3B Tucker Toman Hammond (S.C.) HS

CBSSports.com: LHP Connor Prielipp, Alabama

ESPN: LHP Robby Snelling, McQueen (Nevada) HS

MLB.com: RHP Kumar Rocker, formerly Vanderbilt

The Athletic: LHP Connor Prielipp, Alabama

Top picks

Here are the Rays’ top draft picks over the last 10 years:

2012: 3B Richie Shaffer, Clemson, No. 25

2013: C Nick Ciuffo, Lexington (S.C.) HS, No. 21; RHP Ryne Stanek, Arkansas, No. 29

2014: 1B Casey Gillaspie, Wichita State, No. 20

2015: OF Garrett Whitley, Niskayuna (N.Y.) HS, No. 13

2016: 3B Josh Lowe, Pope (Ga.) HS, No. 13

2017: LHP/1B Brendan McKay, Louisville, No. 4; RHP Drew Rasmussen*, Oregon State, No. 31

2018: LHP Matthew Liberatore, Mountain Ridge (Ariz.) HS, No. 16; LHP Shane McClanahan, USF, No. 31; CF Nick Schnell, Roncali (Ind.) HS, No. 32

2019: SS Greg Jones, UNC Wilmington, No. 22; RHP JJ Goss, Cypress Ranch (Texas) HS, No. 36; RHP Seth Johnson, Campbell, No. 40

2020: RHP Nick Bitsko, Central Bucks East (Pa.) HS, No. 24; SS Alika Williams, Arizona State, No. 37

2021: SS Carson Williams, Torrey Pines (Calif.) HS, No, 28; INF Cooper Kinney, Baylor Schools (Tenn.), No. 34

* Did not sign

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