Nice preview. Thanks for the link.

Since the NBA and NFL drafts are major events on the Four-Letter-Network.

Actually, NBA/NFL need LESS marketing. There’s no reason for the hype on those drafts.

" Cheap budgeting has meant the loss of prospects such as Pat White, Brian Matusz, Tim Murphy of the Rangers, Brad Suttle of the Yankees, Chris Davis of the Rangers, Buster Posey of the Giants, and future draft prospects Jake Locker, Matt Harvey, Zach Cone, and Khiry Cooper."

i knew about Davis but Posey and Matusz they are the #19 and 20 prospects in all of baseball and where the 4th and 5th pick in the draft last year

The breakdowns from 2004-2008 are great, and this is the key/damning bit, even though I suspect some of the low-budget results are due at least in part in not having many high draft picks to begin with:

Looking at draft budgeting probably makes Angel fans sick to their stomach. Cheap budgeting has meant the loss of prospects such as Pat White, Brian Matusz, Tim Murphy of the Rangers, Brad Suttle of the Yankees, Chris Davis of the Rangers, Buster Posey of the Giants, and future draft prospects Jake Locker, Matt Harvey, Zach Cone, and Khiry Cooper. While one can’t expect all these players to be signed, as every team picks some guys every year that they attempt to sign that go on to succeed in college, this has been a maddening trend for the Angels. They’ve combined to spend only $4.5 million on the draft over the last two years, equal to or lower than the budgets of 24 of the other 29 teams in baseball for the 2008 draft alone. That utter lack of care for draft budgeting has undeniably harmed the Angels’ system and their current Major League team, as well. Drafting is not done just with the idea of making players into Major League players on your club, but to also have attractive prospects with which to deal for Major League talent. The Angels lack this talent as a result of the poor budgeting.

preferring to use his cash for free agents and immediate impact rather than quality prospects

either way, i agree that there is no excuse for letting guys go unsigned with our first 5 picks this year

Although I think this guy misuses the word budget. Just because the Angels spent $XX on the first 10 rounds does not mean that is what they budgeted.

That being said the Angels made incredibly weak offers to Harvey and Matsusz. I was not aware that the Angels drafted Davis or Posey. Is there any story associated with them not signing?

and i agree with Seiler… there’s no excuse for not signing any of our first picks.

and we could really use some big-power college talent this year. if we could draft a guy with good power and get him into the bigs in 2 years, i’d be stoked.

This absolutely kills me.

The fact that he is in my fantasy league that is…

Kent Matthes hes an OF/RF
G 64 AB 197 H 72 Avg .362 HR 28 RBI 81 2B 14 3B 2 BB 31 HBP 11 OBP .465 K 44 SLG .883 R 65 SB 13 CS 2

hes also a good fielder 0 errors 7 OF assists

he was the SEC baseball Player of Year

http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-sports/2009/05/alabamas_kent_matthews_named_s.html

I’m pumped for this draft – after all of the criticism, I expect Arte will throw a lot of money around. Matusz and Harvey were huge disappointments, but they were very, very high-risk picks, which is why they fell to us to begin with. High risk. high reward. That strategy might inflict some disappointment, but it also brought us Weaver, Adenhart, and Walden.

Cone was a tough one: as I recall, the Halos met his demands twice, only to have him come back asking for more. I’m not attacking Cone – it’s potentially his only opportunity to turn his talent into dollars, so he should go for broke – but when even matching dollars to a kid’s demands still doesn’t work, it seems inevitable that you’ll make mistakes in anticipating signability.

Great link!!!

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today…09/268178.html

I guy I talked about aboive Kent Matthes is 63rd on the list (28th out of hitters) I hope we get him and take him with are 48th pick (just to be safe)

another guy I think/hope we get (he went to us in 2 mock drafts i have seen)
Bobby Borchering hes 16th on the list (5th out of hitters) but hes coming out of HS so he might fall and the Angels usually take best player avaliable so if hes around we will take him

hes a 3B (6’4" 200) heres his senior year stats
G 30 Avg .494 H/AB 38-77 HR 13 2B 9 3B 0 RBI 37 R 33 BB 24 K 15 OBP .626 SB 4 CS 1
he had 9 errors

heres Hank Congers stats so you can kinda compare them
G 24 Avg .449 H/AB 35-78 HR 11 2B 7 3B 1 RBI 27 R 25 BB 13 K 14 OBP .527 SB 1 CS 1
Conger had 1 error

I cant find the the top 100 list for 2006 to see where Conger was ranked but Borchering looks like hes a little better than Conger and more patient

It’d be nice to be able to trade prospects for other prospects, or ML talent, sometime in the next decade.

How does this guy know what the draft budget was. It doesn’t seem like the Angels would tell somebody what the budget was for bonuses.