JUPITER, Fla. – About the same time the Cardinals’ scouts gathered last week in St. Louis to plot how they’ll fan out and spot the talents the team would take in this summer’s draft, they all learned they’ll have two fewer players to find, two whole rounds they’ll just watch.
“It’s a moment that could be deflating as it comes out right before they embark on this four-month sprint that for scouts is the toughest stretch of their year,” said the Cardinals director of scouting Randy Flores. “News broke about the picks we’re losing, word gets around, and almost immediately I heard from our scouts, and they were ready. ‘Let’s go. All right, let’s go out and find the best pick for us, the best pick when we have our turn.’”
On the eve of spring training, the Cardinals were stripped of two draft picks and fined $2 million by the commissioner for being “vicariously liable” in a hacking scandal. In response to a former executive’s illegal accessing of Houston’s internal database, Major League Baseball awarded the Cardinals’ first two picks in the next draft, Nos. 56 and 75, to the Astros. The bonus pool Flores had to work with was nearly cut in half as a result, shrinking to by far the lowest in baseball.
As they prepared to deploy scouts to hundreds of amateur games, the Cardinals learned they would be sitting out the first 93 picks of the draft.
That doesn’t limit their travel or alter their focus, officials said. Just their sights.
“Two reasons,” general manager John Mozeliak said. “We still have a pool of dollars and you don’t want to not scout somebody who might be there. In other words, someone who is projected to go in the first round, we probably don’t need eight looks at this year. But we certainly want to make sure that he’s seen. We want to do our due diligence just in case. The redeployment will be the eight times because we don’t need to sit on someone who is projected to go in the top 10. We do need to see players in the top rounds.”
A year after the Cardinals had four picks in the top 70, their first pick of the 2017 draft will be No. 94. They’ll have a bonus purse of just over $2 million. Unless they trade for a competitive-balance pick, this will be the lowest the Cardinals have drafted since 2002.
A year ago, the Cubs likewise had to sit out the first day of the draft because signing free agents like Jason Heyward and John Lackey left them without a pick until No. 104. The Cubs advertised a pitching-focused approach for that pick, eyeing more predictable, steady college pitchers. Their first four picks were college pitchers.
The Cardinals have looked at such approaches by other teams but “not seen something that is moving the needle for us at this point,” Flores said. “Last year we talked about how the strategy could change — and did — but there was flexibility that was there. This year, the flexibility is diminished, but it’s not absent.”
This past June the Cardinals selected Puerto Rican prep shortstop Delvin Perez with the 23rd pick. Perez had been rated a top-10 player and perhaps the best prep infielder available before news broke that he tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug. He tumbled — but because the Cardinals had scouted him often and had researched his situation, they were in a position to draft him and sign him. Mozeliak likened that readiness to their current situation. There are $1 million bonuses at No. 94 or later, and gems can be found.
At No. 94 last year, the Washington Nationals selected Florida high schooler Jesus Luzardo. A lefty who touched 97 mph, Luzardo zoomed toward the first round before Tommy John surgery in March screeched his season to an end. The Nats, opportunistically, lured him away from a commitment to Miami with a $1.4 million bonus, and he’s their 13th-best prospect, per MiLB.com. In 2015, the Athletics nabbed Georgia prep righthander Dakota Chalmers at No. 97 for a $1.2 million bonus. He’s their ninth-best prospect, per MiLB.com. Five players in the previous two drafts have been selected between Nos. 94 and 101 and received bonuses of $997,500 or greater.
All were high school players. All had a reason — injury, college commitment, raw tools — for sliding into that range. All had the teasing potential to command a bonus beyond their slot.
“Those are the guys that we need to see and understand,” Mozeliak said.
At the same time, the Cardinals’ international spending was not trimmed by the commissioner’s ruling, and that could offer an alternate tributary of talent. In this current signing period, the Cardinals have already shattered their spending limit, so they’ll pay a dollar-for-dollar tax on any bonus until July 2. The Cardinals had a scouting presence this past week at the Caribbean Series, where the Cuban team features several intriguing talents. It’s unclear when or if they’ll be available to sign.
Flores had already been to Puerto Rico for a showcase event by Major League Baseball’s scouting bureau and was on his way this past weekend to see more amateur players in California. The Division I college baseball season opens Feb. 17, and until then area scouts in warm areas of the country will see lower-level games or even practice sessions. Cross-checkers will spend the first 10 days of the scouting season “canvassing” the warm-weather zones before, Flores wrote in an email, “moving on to more specific targets.”
An emphasis for Flores in the coming weeks will be spending one-on-one time with the Cardinals’ five new scouts.
A former reliever for the Cardinals, Flores is entering his second year leading the team’s draft, and the hacking scandal has a nagging shadow. Flores was hired as director of scouting a few months after Chris Correa was fired from the position. Correa was later sentenced to 46 months in prison for illegally accessing Houston’s protected database. Flores now has to navigate around the baseball cost of Correa’s unlawful act. Asked if the lack of any picks in the first 2½ rounds would mean focusing on younger players, 2018-eligible players, Flores said not necessarily. Those players still have a lot of developing to do.
Still, as usual, scouts will be encouraged to keep an eye out for that future.
“So they’ll have an idea where the fish are,” Flores said.