So the signing deadline has passed with the Brewers reaching an agreement with 13 of their first 14 picks in the 2010 draft, and 35 of 50 overall. That's 70% of total picks signed, up from 60.3% (32 of 53) last year. I'm not a draft expert by any stretch of the imagination, but like I did last year, I figured I'd take a moment today to provide a brief overview of what the Brewers have added to the farm system, position-by-position.
Thanks to the folks at Brewerfan.net for doing a great job this draft season keeping us updated on signings and maintaining this list of signed and unsigned players, which was a huge help in putting this post together.
Join me after the jump to read more.
Pitching The Brewers made pitching a clear priority, drafting 28 pitchers (56% of picks), and signing 19 of them. Last year, they only drafted one high school pitcher before the 23rd round (Brooks Hall). This year, they took three high schoolers relatively early, but didn't have much luck signing them: Dylan Covey (R), 1st round Nearly all of the new Brewer pitchers came via college, where the organization drafted 17 players and signed 15: Jimmy Nelson (R), 2nd round The Brewers picked three pitchers out of community college, signing just one: Michael White (R), 13th round For whatever it's worth, the Brewers drafted 20 right handed pitchers (signing 15) and eight lefties (signing four). Here's the quick version, with last year's numbers for comparison:
Joel Pierce (R), 7th round
Chris Bates (L), 15th round
Daniel Gibson (L), 26th round
Conor Fisk (R), 34th round
R.J. Johnson (R), 36th round
Michael Schaub (R), 38th round
Lucas Moran (R), 45th round
Tyler Thornburg (R), 3rd round
Matt Miller (R), 5th round
Austin Ross (R), 8th round
Greg Holle (R), 11th round
Brian Garman (L), 17th round
Thomas Keeling (L), 18th round
Kevin Shackelford (R), 21st round
Ryan Bernal (R), 23rd round
Alex Jones (R), 27th round
Dane Amedee (L), 28th round
Daniel Britt (R), 29th round
Eric Marzec (R), 30th round
William Kankel (L), 33rd round
Seth Harvey (R), 37th round
Scott Matyas (R), 40th round
Marques Kyles (L), 48th round
Andrew Morris (R), 16th round
Steven Okert (L), 43rd round
Pitchers
| Year | # Drafted | % | # Signed | % | HS | Signed | 4Yr | Signed | CC | Signed |
| 2010 | 28 | 56% | 19 | 68% | 8 | 3 | 17 | 15 | 3 | 1 |
| 2009 | 25 | 47% | 14 | 56% | 7 | 1 | 18 | 13 | n/a* | n/a* |
* - Last year I counted JUCO players as college players.
Outfielders While pitching was clearly a top priority in this year's draft, finding help in the outfield was not. The Brewers didn't select their first outfielder until the 12th round, and only picked two before the 39th. They drafted two high schoolers, and didn't sign either: Rowan Wick, 19th round The Brewers' top outfielder and three other signees came from the five collegiate outfielders: John Bivens, 12th round And they also signed one from a community college: Kenny Allison, 39th round
Here's the quick version again:
Alex Simone, 49th round
Derrick Shaw, 40th round
Johnny Dishon, 41st round
T.J. Mittelstaedt, 44th round
Chad Jones, 50th round
Outfielders
| Year | # Drafted | % | # Signed | % | HS | Signed | 4Yr | Signed | CC | Signed |
| 2010 | 8 | 16% | 5 | 63% | 2 | 0 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 |
| 2009 | 12 | 23% | 9 | 75% | 3 | 2 | 9 | 7 | n/a* | n/a* |
* - Last year I counted JUCO players as college players.
Infielders: The Brewers picked up a fair amount of infield depth in this draft, and did so in an interesting way. First of all, they didn't select a single high school or community college player. Second, they signed each and every one of the eight collegiate players they selected: Hunter Morris (1B), 4th round Here's the positional breakdown for those players:
Here's the quick version again:
Cody Hawn (3B), 6th round
Yadiel Rivera (SS), 9th round
Mike Walker (3B), 14th round
Shea Vucinich (SS), 20th round
Greg Hopkins (3B), 24th round
Nick Shaw (SS), 25th round
Jason Rogers (1B), 32nd round
Three shortstops
Three third basemen
Two first basemen
No second basemen
Infielders
| Year | # Drafted | % | # Signed | % | HS | Signed | 4Yr | Signed | CC | Signed |
| 2010 | 8 | 16% | 8 | 100% | 0 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 2009 | 11 | 21% | 7 | 64% | 4 | 1 | 7 | 6 | n/a* | n/a* |
* - Last year I counted JUCO players as college players.
And the positional breakdown, by year:
| Year | 2009 | 2010 |
| 1B | 1 | 2 |
| Signed | 1 | 2 |
| 2B | 4 | 0 |
| Signed | 3 | 0 |
| 3B | 2 | 3 |
| Signed | 1 | 3 |
| SS | 4 | 3 |
| Signed | 2 | 3 |
Catchers The Brewers drafted six catchers (12% of picks) and signed three of them. In 2009, all five were high schoolers, but this year there was an even split, with three high schoolers: Kevin Berard, 22nd round And the highest drafted catcher (and two others) were college players: Rafael Neda, 10th round Again, a quick breakdown:
TC Mark, 35th round
Derek Goodwin, 46th round
Mike Melillo, 31st round
Billy Schroeder, 47th round
Catchers
| Year | # Drafted | % | # Signed | % | HS | Signed | 4Yr | Signed | CC | Signed |
| 2010 | 6 | 12% | 3 | 50% | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 2009 | 5 | 9% | 2 | 40% | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | n/a* | n/a* |
* - Last year I counted JUCO players as college players.
Conclusions
Pitching was a significant priority this year. Last year at this time I complained that the Brewer organization, with a significant lack of pitching depth, didn't do enough to address the situation in the early rounds. This year they appear to have made up for it in both quantity (drafting three more pitchers despite having three fewer picks, and signing five more) and quality (using 12 of their first 20 and five of their first seven picks).
Signing high school players was a significant challenge. The Brewers signed 29 of the 33 collegiate players they drafted, but failed to reach an agreement with nine of the 13 high schoolers they selected, including higher picks like Dylan Covey, Chris Bates and Rowan Wick. Covey's situation was unique to say the least, but even without him the significant majority of high school picks went unsigned.
The organization must be confident in some of the outfielders they have in the lower levels. Even if some of the players at other positions end up moved to the outfield, the Brewers didn't even sign enough drafted outfielders to fill three spots each in Arizona and Helena. Certainly some of the lower picks could surprise, but the fact that the Brewers only signed one outfielder drafted before the 39th round is interesting.
So, what do you think? What are you taking away from this draft?