WASHINGTON — In late May, the St. Louis Cardinals were in the nation’s capital for a four-game series with the Washington Nationals.
While each team hopes to contend in their division, the series also was a showcase for how to develop talent.
In the Nationals’ clubhouse were four former Washington first-round, picks: right fielder Bryce Harper, pitcher Stephen Strasburg, first baseman Ryan Zimmerman and third baseman Anthony Rendon. Strasburg, the overall first pick in 2009 out of San Diego State, signed a seven-year contract extension with the Nationals in early May.
“He has got to feel good (about signing with the team that drafted him),” said Washington outfielder Jayson Werth, a first-round pick of the Baltimore Orioles out a Springfield, Ill., high school in 1997.
Over on the third base side, the Cardinals featured their own first-round picks, pitcher Michael Wacha, second baseman Kolten Wong and outfielder Stephen Piscotty. The Cardinals’ roster also included first baseman Matt Adams, a 23rd-round pick; and closer Trevor Rosenthal, a 21st-round pick in 2009 out of a community college in Kansas.
The baseball draft, which allows organizations a chance to develop their own players or trade prospects for proven stars, many times at the deadline in late July. This year’s draft begins Thursday.
“As we approach each draft, it is always about acquiring the most talent that we can at that time,” Cardinals general John Mozeliak said during the series in Washington. “We really do try to focus on the best player available that will fit our organization. People ask us if we draft based on need or best player available. We would like to see a balance. At the end, it is about acquiring the best player we can.”
Doug Harris, the Nationals’ assistant general manager for player personnel, said several things make for a successful draft.
“I think there a lot of variables,” said Harris, a former minor league pitcher with the Royals, Orioles and Marlins. “The intention is to supplement your own system and develop from within. It is important that we maximize (the player’s) value, whether is it is 25th-round pick or not. We want to make him better than a fringe player (if it was a late pick).”
Harris said the makeup of a player has taken on added importance in recent years.
“That is something our (scouts) have done a very good job with,” Harris said.
So what makes a successful draft for the Cardinals?
“When you think about major league contributions defined by one day versus 10 years is clearly different,” he said. “The way we know we are getting value out of the draft is being able to produce somewhere north of six to eight major-leaguers from each draft.”
Players in the Cardinals system know they have a chance to contribute at the big league level.
“It doesn’t matter if you are a first-round pick or 33rd-round pick,” said Cardinals infielder Greg Garcia, a seventh-round pick in 2010 out of the University of Hawaii. “This team will give you a chance if you perform.”
“They do their homework on the guys they want to draft,” said Adams, picked out of Division II Slippery Rock in 2009.
Adams remembers having a discussion with Cardinals scout Brian Hopkins before he began his minor league career.
“He liked the way I played the game,” Adams said.
Wong notes he is generously listed at 5-foot-9 — and that the Cardinals look at more than physical numbers.
“They knew I could play the game,” said Wong, a teammate of Garcia at Hawaii.
While the Red Sox paid a ton to free agent pitcher David Price, Boston has also developed shortstop Xander Bogaerts (amateur free agent in 2009), center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. (first round in 2011) and right fielder Mookie Betts, a fifth-round pick in 2011. Bogaerts and Bradley each had hitting streaks of at least 26 games this year, while Betts hit three homers at Baltimore on May 30.
“An elite player,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said of the emerging Bogaerts during the series in Baltimore.
Sure, the Chicago Cubs went out and signed expensive some free agents, pitcher Jon Lester, right fielder Jason Heyward and second baseman Ben Zobrist. However, the organization also signed and developed third baseman Kris Bryant, a first-round pick in 2013 who was the 2015 National League Rookie of the Year; and outfielder/catcher Kyle Schwarber, a fourth-round pick in 2014 out of Indiana University.
The Seattle Mariners developed All-Star third baseman Kyle Seager, a third-round pick out of the University of North Carolina in 2009; and ace Felix Hernandez, signed as an amateur free agent in 2002 out of Venezuela.
The Seattle scout who followed Seager, the older brother of Dodgers standout shortstop Corey Seager, and signed him was Rob Mummau.
“I saw a kid who could really hit,” Mummau said. “He also showed the versatility to play anywhere on the infield. He was always a kid who worked extremely hard and had a great attitude. I first saw Kyle his sophomore year in college. I felt that Kyle had three main things that allow kids to maximize their ability: major league tools, attitude and work ethic. He became an All-Star a little quicker than I expected, but when a kid has his kind of ability and makeup, it is not a complete surprise.”
Of course, after a player is scouted and signed, it is up to the player-development system to help him make it to the majors.
Heading into this season, the top-ranked organizations in terms of minor league talent, according to Baseball America, were, from first through sixth, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Houston Astros, the Atlanta Braves, the Red Sox, the Nationals and the Colorado Rockies.
So how much communication goes on between scouting and player development once the player is in the system?
“For the most part, it is turned over to player development,” Mozeliak said. “There is still some communication between the minor league manager and the scout. There are times when something may be stated about the player by the scout that the manager is not seeing. Then we will talk it over. We are not silos; there is interaction between all departments.”
Garcia remembers playing for Double-A Springfield in 2012. Several players had strong individual seasons and warranted a promotion to Triple-A, but the Cardinals wanted to keep a core group together, and they won the Texas League title.
“I will never forget that year. We had a great roster,” said Garcia, who made his big league debut in 2014 with the Cardinals.
“We have had players or groups of players mature together and rise up through the minor leagues. We are cognizant of that. Clearly we don’t want to hold someone back if they need to advance. It is nice to keep a set of players together as they advance,” Mozeliak said.
So what is the biggest change in the draft in recent years?
“Clearly the infusion of analytics on how people think about player evaluation,” Mozeliak. “The questions being asked from scouts are a little different than what it looked like 20 or 30 years ago. But those are your eyes; you can’t run from that. There is a synergy between traditional scouting methods and more modern methods being used today.”
Here is a look at 10 top prospects for the 2016 baseball draft, in alphabetical order with name, school, position, height and weight:
Zack Collins, catcher, University of Miami (Fla.), 6-foot-3, 220 pounds
Braxton Garrett, left-handed pitcher, Florence (Ala.), 6-3, 190
Jason Groome, left-handed pitcher, Barnegat (N.J.) High, 6-5, 230
Dakota Hudson, right-handed pitcher, Mississippi State, 6-5, 215
Kyle Lewis, outfielder, Mercer, 6-4, 210
Mickey Moniak, outfielder, La Costa Canyon High, Carlsbad, Calif., 6-2, 180
Delvin Perez, shortstop, International Baseball Academy, Puerto Rico, 6-2, 180
A.J. Puk, left-handed pitcher, University of Florida, 6-7, 230
Corey Ray, outfielder, University of Louisville, 6-1, 190
Nick Senzel, infielder, University of Tennessee, 6-4, 210