1969 Rookie Draft

[leecemark]

--The rookie draft is now open. There will be no clock until June 6th so you've got plenty of time to think things over, make deals, etc. If there is an error in any of the traded picks please point it out as soon as possible. Errors not corrected before that pick is made won't be corrected nor compensation made. The player picked would simply move to the true owner of that slot.
--Remember that the deadline for non-tenders/buy outs is your first selection in this draft. Once you make a pick you are committed to all the players still on your roster. The live portion of the draft is still scheduled for 8PM EST, June 6th. If we've managed to get through 2 rounds then you can all have your Friday night back and we'll just go on an 8 hour clock at that point.
--All players who made their major league debut in 1969 are eligible for this draft. If you haven't already done some scouting then now is the time to get on that.
--Expansion owners if you want to use your franchise tag on your first pick in this draft you need to do so before the end of the draft.


Round 1
1m or 12m depending on franchise tag choice
1) Thunder: Thurman Munson (franchise player)
2) Wranglers: Carlton Fisk (franchise player)
3) Brawlers: Vida Blue
4) Appletonia : Darrell Evans (franchise player)
750K
5) Angels from Gamblers: Bernie Carbo
6) Diablos: Dave Cash
7) Badgers: Gene Tenace
8) Knights from Angels: Dave Roberts
500K
9) Hard Cider form Shoeless Joes: Ron Bloomberg
10) Thunder from Redbirds: Dick Drago
11) Cloverleafs : Jerry Ruess
12) Knights from Skipjacks : Toby Harrah
All players from here down are 250K
13) Gamblers from Knights: Gary Gentry
14) Cloverleafs from Hard Cider: Steve Garvey
15) Hard Cider from Gold Sox: Wayne Garrett
16) Hard Cider from Legends: Tom Bradley


Round 2
17) Cloverleafs from Thunder: Chuck Taylor
18) Wranglers: Bill Buckner
19) Brawlers: Clay Kirby
20) Appletonia: Bill Lee
21) Gamblers: Ken Tatum
22) Skipjacks from Diablos: Barry Lersh
23) Brawlers from Badgers: Carl Morton
24) Angels: Ted Sixemore
25) Appletonia from Shoeless Joes: Pedro Borbon
26) Redbirds: BIll Russell
27) Hard Cider from Cloverleafs: Bob Johnson
28) Appletonia from Skipjacks: Oscar Gamble
29) Knights: Ron Klimkowski
30) Hard Cider: Billy Grabarkowitz
31) Redbirds from Gold Sox: Steve Renko
32) Skipjacks from Legends: Reggie Cleveland

2a
33) Redbirds (compensation pick): Tom Griffin

Round 3
34) Knights from Thunder: Lloyd Allen
35) Wranglers: George Foster
36) Badgers from Brawlers: Gene Garber
37) Appletonia: Fred Kendall
38) Legends from Gamblers: John Ellis
39) Diablos: Al Fitzmorris
40) Badgers: Billy Conigliaro
41) Appletonia from Angels: Dick Woodson
42) Hard Cider from Shoeless Joes: Jim Colborn
43) Redbirds: Tom Timmerman
44) Cloverleafs: Mike Kilkenny
45) Skipjacks: Fred Scherman
46) Knights: Bart Johnson
47) Angels from Hard Cider: Ike Brown
48) Shoeless Joes from Gold Sox: Marty Perez
49) Hard Cider from Legends: Leron Lee

Round 4
50) Thunder: Jack DiLauro
51) Wranglers: Bill Butler
52) Cloverleafs from Brawlers (via Badgers): Coco Laboy
53) Appletonia: Mike Garman
54) Gamblers: Mike Nagy
55) Diablos: Make up due
56) Badgers: Bob Didier
57) Legends from Angels: Bob Reynolds
58) Shoeless Joes: Fran Healy
59) Redbirds: Paul Doyle
60) Cloverleafs: Lou Marone
61) Skipjacks: Paul Edmuindson
62) Knights: Bill Zepp
63) Hard Cider: Rick Lamb
64) Angels from Gold Sox: Ron Woods
65) Legends: Jerry Morales

Round 5
66) Thunder: Sid O'Brien
67) Wranglers: Cesar geronimo
68) Badgers from Brawlers: Jerry Robertson
69) Appletonia: Billy Wilson
70) Gamblers: Steve Arlin
71) Diablos: 2nd makeup due
72) Badgers: Bill Burbach
73) Angels: Steve Hovley
74) Shoeless Joes: Joe Decker
75) Redbirds: Phil Hennigan
76) Cloverleafs: Mike Wegener
77) Skipjacks: Marcel Lachman
78) Knights: Jim Lyttle
79) Hard Cider: Billy Brooks
80) Gold Sox: Scipio Spinks
81) Legends: Tom Hilgendorff

6th round
82) Thunder: Jerry Cram
83) Wranglers: Gary Neibauer
84) Gold Sox from Brawlers: Van Kelly
--Thats all folks

[jkc32]

Looks like I'm going to be a spectator for quite awhile. Sure hope no one takes the guy I'm looking at for pick #47!

[Erik Bedard]

If my guy falls to #72, I'll be absolutely thrilled. Of course, I didn't see him falling to #9, so I traded it for a pick in a better year.

[Sockeye]

If the player we want isn't available at the 5th pick, we may consider trading down. Something to keep in mind for someone interested in trading up at that time.

[Windy City Fan]

The Windy City Thunder draft .... Thurmon Munson!

And he will be tagged as the franchise player.

[Erik Bedard]

Definitely not who I would've picked there, but there is an argument for him.

[leecemark]

--Munson wouldn't have been my pick for the Knights, but he may have been if I was an expansion owner. One of the better catchers in the league from year 2 right up to the end. There are a few players who deliver more over the course of their careers, but in every case you'd be paying 12M for some developmental, injury or just plain bad years mixed in with the good ones.

[Erik Bedard]

I wouldn't even consider him for the Gold Sox, what with a youngster named Bench who's taken over the catching spot. But that's the argument for him, and it's a fairly good one. He may be the best franchise player available this year when factoring in position (without that I'd take one other guy ahead of him as an expansion team).

[catcher24]

--All players who made their major league debut in 1968 are eligible for this draft.

I think Mark meant 1969.

Mark, you may wish to edit your list to reflect that since our trade, the Hard Cider will have my first and third round picks this year. Since Mark has my 2nd rounder, it looks like the only pick I'll get out of the top 32 is the Gamblers 2nd rounder, which I have.

The Munson pick was a good one, but it wouldn't have been my top pick. Different perspective.

[BlueBlood]

Munson was a great pick if you're an expansion team and applying the franchise player. Meaty bat in an offensively weak position. Only other options here were to pay 12 million for pitching right off the bat which is absolutely crazy. If they play '69-75 you could get them for virtually nothing, six great seasons. You could then probably grab the same pitcher later for a little more but it would still be less than 12 million a year on average for a guy that works 1 out of 4 days, if that.

I think I know what the next two picks are going to be. One has a monster year but doesn't really play for the upcoming two, so they'd be absolutely worthless to apply a franchise tag towards but could really amp up any team in that season and pull off big playoff wins. The other is a consistently great pitcher for the next six years at least. I really doubt I'll be using my franchise tag, to be honest. It's a lot to pay for pitching. After six years, I could run out and buy someone else with a bigger year for a little more money, if not the same in some cases. Munson was the pick I was really worried about. If he were still around when my turn came, I'd have honestly spent at least a week sitting here trying to figure out what to do.

[leecemark]

--Honestly I'm not sure that the franchise tag is a great deal for anybody in this draft. There are several people who its reasonable for, but the have to be good for a really long time to pay you back for the overpay up front. If you keep the guy for the 6 cheap years until free agency you get a 20% advantage on resigning him as a free agent anyway. Unless the guy is going to be worth alot more than 12M (and if you look at the FA auctions you'll see the biggest stars getting 20 or more) then its tough to make your money back. OTOH you all have a huge amount of cap space and you can only sign so many free agents..... KW must be weighing these issues now

[catcher24]

--Honestly I'm not sure that the franchise tag is a great deal for anybody in this draft. There are several people who its reasonable for, but the have to be good for a really long time to pay you back for the overpay up front. If you keep the guy for the 6 cheap years until free agency you get a 20% advantage on resigning him as a free agent anyway. Unless the guy is going to be worth alot more than 12M (and if you look at the FA auctions you'll see the biggest stars getting 20 or more) then its tough to make your money back. OTOH you all have a huge amount of cap space and you can only sign so many free agents..... KW must be weighing these issues now

Mark makes a very valid point here. If the player has a huge upside and a 15 to 20 year career, it would most certainly be worth applying the franchise tag. In the first six years, if the franchise tag is not used, you'd be paying the player only 13.5M for the entire six years. If the franchise tag is used, you're paying the same guy 72M over the six years, or 58.5M extra $$$. If you don't apply the tag, the player becomes a free agent, but you do get a 20% advantage to resign. You bid 20M for his next five years, meaning anyone else has to bid 24M at least (unlikely, but not unheard of). Using the dollars you've saved, the extra 8M per season that this player will cost you now ABOVE what he would've cost as a FP, times the five seasons you resign him for, is only 40M, meaning you're still 18.5M ahead after 11 seasons, and at this point most players will start to decline (although not so much now as back in the 70s).

If this were real life applying the FP tag would almost certainly be a mistake, because you could use those extra $$$ over the eleven years to invest in various ways. However, the long term picture is sort of ignored in the CKL, as you have to worry only about your cap from year to year. Applying the FP tag will hit your cap more the first six years, but save you cap space thereafter for likely as long as you keep the FP. And as expansion teams, you guys have the extra cap space up front, so were I in your shoes I would probably use it. But that's a determination each will have to make for themselves.

[Hack_Miller]

--Honestly I'm not sure that the franchise tag is a great deal for anybody in this draft. There are several people who its reasonable for, but the have to be good for a really long time to pay you back for the overpay up front. If you keep the guy for the 6 cheap years until free agency you get a 20% advantage on resigning him as a free agent anyway. Unless the guy is going to be worth alot more than 12M (and if you look at the FA auctions you'll see the biggest stars getting 20 or more) then its tough to make your money back. OTOH you all have a huge amount of cap space and you can only sign so many free agents..... KW must be weighing these issues now

I'm so weighing those issues....


Here's my analysis of the econmics of the Munson pick. You guys please double check my math and make sure I'm getting this right.
Basically to tag a guy you will overpay him to the tune of 64.5 M during his first six years under team control. Munson plays exactly five seasons after this 6th year before his tragic death. Even if he would have fetched 22-24 M on the free agent market, you still only get back 50-60 M of that original 64.5 M.

Never mind Lew answered the question in the previous post much clearer than my rambling....didn't see it until after I submitted my post....

[leecemark]

--The difference is you are overpaying the player in the years when you don't expect to compete (or the first couple of them anyway) and saving significant cap space later - when you can use it to pick up whatever pieces you need to complete your contendng teams. I'd say overpaying for years 1-2/3 are worth it for the savings in years 7-?. The years when you might regret it are 3/4-6 when having a cheap star could allow you to sign somebody else. It all depends on the player and how long you want to make sure you can keep him. Several guys from this draft are likely to fetch 20M deals when/if they hit the market in 6 years.

[Sockeye]

Mark makes a good point. IMO it's better to invest and overpay for a player in non-contending years only to have a bargain in the contending years when it could make a difference in a championship team. There are still at least 3 - 4 players who I could see bringing in 20-25 mill per season on the free agent market over the course of the next two free agent cycles. That is seasons 7-11 and 12-16. Thus making them worth the franchise player tag. The secret for the expansion teams is finding those 3 or 4 players who are still producing 15 seasons from now.