DRAFT NOTEBOOK
By Allan Simpson
May 2, 2007

DFE Rule In Its Final Days

The draft-and-follow process has been an integral part of the baseball draft since it was incorporated in 1987. But with significant changes to the draft, which were authored last October as part of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between Major League Baseball and the Players Association, the draft-and-follow rule (or DFE, as in draft, follow and evaluate) will bite the dust effective with this year’s draft.

How it will impact the draft is yet to be determined, but it’s expected that teams will draft significantly fewer players—especially those that are earmarked for junior college. In recent years, most of the players picked in the last half of the draft were draft-and-follow selections, along with a sprinkling of early- to mid-round picks.

Teams selected a typical draft-and-follow with the intention of following his progress until a week before the following year’s draft before making a decision to sign the player. Only about 60-70 draft-and-follows were signed each year out of a pool of more than 500 players. But with a new uniform signing deadline of Aug. 15, all players must now sign by that date.

“I don’t think anyone knows yet what impact the new signing deadline will have,” a National League scouting director said. “The draft-and-follow had its proponents and served its purpose, but I can’t help but think there will be fewer players drafted now because you won’t be as inclined to draft a player unless you’re prepared to sign him—and there are only so many players you can sign.”

While the draft-and-follow process was enacted in 1987 to coincide with the abolishment of the January draft, a form of the draft-and-follow rule has always existed in the draft. In the first 22 years of the draft, a vast majority of the players in the regular and secondary phases of the January draft were junior college players. Teams had the option of signing their picks immediately or waiting until the player’s junior college season ended. If they didn’t sign the player at all, he went back into the June draft pool—much as occurred when the more conventional draft-and-follow rule was implemented. The difference was that teams had about 18 weeks to follow a draft pick under the old system while the more established draft-and-follow rule provided 51 weeks.

The January draft (and the secondary phase of the June draft) was phased out in large measure because of the cumbersome nature of two drafts in January and two in June. Teams also believed that, with four first-round draft picks each year, an increasing number players were getting an inflated sense of their worth. A more subtle reason was the unhappiness expressed by junior college coaches, who were increasingly upset that some of their better players were signing with big league teams just as the junior college season was starting.

While there is a strong likelihood that fewer players that are earmarked to attend or return to junior college may be drafted now, most junior college coaches are ambivalent to the latest change in the draft rule.

“I don’t think the abolishment of the draft-and-follow rule will hurt us at all,” said St. Petersburg (Fla. ) College coach Dave Pano, whose team has six players under control from the 2006 draft. “If players want to play pro ball as soon as possible, then they will go to junior college. If they want to wait three years, then they will go to a four-year school. I’ve already had three guys call me that had signed with four-year schools but had since decided they wanted to go in the draft in a year.”

Added Arizona Western College coach John Stratton: “I think there will be fewer players drafted, period. I think we will still get the same players we’ve been getting, but fewer with the draft tag on them that are possible drafts again a year later.”

Eastern Oklahoma State College coach Aric Thomas says he is prepared to take a wait-and-see approach, but expresses concern that more players might end up in four-year schools.

“If teams draft players and use the summer now as the follow period, then I believe everything will remain relatively the same,” Thomas said. “They will track these players in the summer leagues and see if they want to sign them before schools starts. On the other hand, if teams stop drafting players once they have their short-season teams completed, around the 30^th round, then I think the undrafted players will more likely attend four-year schools.”

A handful of junior college coaches were more adamant that the abolishment of the draft-and-follow process will have a negative impact on junior college baseball generally, and players specifically.

“I think the elimination of the draft-and-follow rule has caused some fringe players who were going to be draft-and-follows to sign with some mid- to low-level Division I schools,” Yavapai (Ariz. ) JC coach Sky Smeltzer said. “It’s happened with three kids we were recruiting.”

“If they draft a guy now, we’ve got a good chance to lose him,” added Spartanburg Methodist (S.C.) coach Tim Wallace said. “If they drafted one of our players before, we had a good chance to get him back. There are a couple of our pitchers that might have been drafted before, but may not get drafted at all now.”

David Shelton, assistant coach for defending national champion Walters State (Tenn. ) CC, which has seven players under control from the 2006 draft, offers a contrasting opinion and believes the rule change will be a boon to junior college players.

“It may be a positive in the long run,” he said. “When players are under control by a team, they are not scouted heavily by other teams. This closes a lot of doors for those players. I really believe that without the draft-and-follow rule it will create a lot more of an open market for those players. Last year, when we won the national championship, we had only two players that were under control. All our others players were wide open to be scouted by everyone. It seemed like we had five or six different major league teams at every game, and we had six players drafted off that team.

“This year, we have seven players under control and the majority of scouts we see are the scouts who have players under control. I had one scout tell me, ‘why do I need to see your guys more than once because all of your players are under control.’ “I would imagine that if none of our players were under control this year we would be scouted a lot more heavily.”

Historical Take on DFE Rule

Through the years, there have been a number of significant draft-and-follows who have made their mark in the big leagues. In 2006, there were 51 players who originally signed as draft-and-follows, including the likes of White Sox lefthander Mark Buehrle, Indians DH Travis Hafner, Athletics righthander Rich Harden, Astros righthander Roy Oswalt and Yankees lefthander Andy Pettitte.

The original poster boys for the draft-and-follow process were catcher Rick Wilkins, a Cubs 23^rd-round draft pick in 1986, and the late Darryl Kile, an Astros 30^th-round draft pick in 1987. Both players improved their stock so much over the course of their draft-and-follow years at Florida CC and Chaffey (Calif. ) College, respectively, that the Cubs and Astros were compelled to pay them six-figure bonuses rather than risk losing them to the upcoming draft. Wilkins earned $125,000 from the Cubs and Kile $100,000 from the Astros—the equivalent of first-round money at the time.

The implications of the draft-and-follow rule came to the forefront in 1991 when Howard (Texas) JC righthander/shortstop Frank Rodriguez, who was drafted in the second round by the Red Sox a year earlier, went to the 11^th-hour—literally hours before the ’91 draft—before agreeing to a then-record $425,000 DFE deal with Boston.

Rodriguez’ window to sign with the Red Sox was extended beyond the close period (normally one week before the draft) because his team advanced to the final day of the Junior College World Series, which ended two days before the draft. The narrow time frame available to sign Rodriguez backed the Red Sox into a corner but they knew he would be one of the top picks in 1991 had he gone back into the draft. His bonus was $175,000 more than Chipper Jones received from the Braves as the No. 1 overall pick in the 1990 draft—a sign of the bargaining leverage occasionally afforded draft-and-follows through the years.

Sparked by Rodriguez’ record bonus, the money paid to elite draft-and-follows spiraled upward over the next few years. In 1998, the Athletics drafted California high school catcher Gerald Laird in the second round, but he elected to attend Cypress (Calif. ) College. A year later, he signed for $1 million, the first seven-figure bonus given to a draft-and-follow. In 2001, the Yankees paid McLennan (Texas ) CC lefthander Sean Henn, a 26^th-round pick a year earlier, a $1.7 million bonus.

A year later, four junior college pitchers—American River (Calif.) College lefthander Manny Parra, Bellevue (Wash.) CC righthander Blake Hawksworth, Sacramento City College righthander Sean Smith and Connors State (Okla.) College righthander Humberto Sanchez, all 16^th- to 31^st-round selections in 2001—earned bonuses of more than $1 million.

Lefthander Adam Loewen established a bonus record for draft-and-follows in 2003 that will stand the test of time when he agreed to a major league deal with the Orioles that provided a $3.4 million bonus. Loewen was Baltimore ’s first-round pick in 2002 but failed to reach an agreement with the Orioles before enrolling at Chipola (Fla. ) JC. With only minutes to spare before he would have re-entered the 2003 draft, Loewen agreed to a record deal with Baltimore .

Clearly alarmed with signing bonuses to draft-and-follows reaching unprecedented levels, the commissioner’s office decided to strong arm teams into being more fiscally prudent—part of an overall strategy to curb runaway inflation of bonuses in this decade. In the case of draft-and-follows, MLB rationalized that if a player was no better than a mid- to late-round pick less than a year earlier then his worth couldn’t possibly improve that much in less than a year to warrant a huge signing bonus.

The evidence of MLB’s hard-line stance came in last year’s draft when the two most attractive draft-and-follows, St. Petersburg College righthander Pedro Beato and Motlow State (Tenn.) CC righthander Bryan Morris, both of whom were reportedly commanding bonuses in excess of $1 million, did not come to terms with the Mets and Devil Rays, respectively, before the close period. The two pitchers re-entered the 2006 draft and Morris, a third-round pick in 2005, was re-drafted in the first round by the Dodgers; Beato, a 16^th-round pick in 2005, was taken by the Orioles as a supplemental first-round pick. Both ended up getting the seven-figure signing bonuses they were seeking as draft-and-follows, with Morris signing for $1.325 million and Beato for $1 million.

But by pressuring the Mets and Devil Rays to not sign Beato and Morris for seven-figure bonuses as draft-and-follows, MLB was clearly setting the wheels in motion to eliminate the process entirely, something it succeeded in doing in October.

Latos, Walden This Year’s Headliners

The two most attractive draft-and-follows this spring, in the last year of the process, are Broward (Fla.) CC freshman righthander Matt Latos and Grayson County (Texas ) College righthander Jordan Walden. The 6-foot-5, 210-pound Latos is under control to the Padres, who drafted him in the 11^th round a year ago, while the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Walden is property of the Angels, who selected him in the 12^th round last June. Both players have until May 31 to sign, or they will go back into this year’s draft pool.

Latos and Walden were considered potential first-rounders a year ago, but their stock waned in the weeks leading up to the draft—Latos mainly over concerns about his makeup, Walden over concerns that his velocity had taken a pronounced drop from the previous summer, when he was clocked at 99 mph.

Both pitchers have regained much of their worth this spring in junior college, but it remains to be seen whether the Padres and Angels will meet—or be allowed to meet—their bonus demands, which may exceed $1 million. That’s roughly the going rate for late first-round picks in the last few years, and most scouts believe Latos and Walden are first-round talents—and could well go in the first round in June if they do not sign before the draft.

San Diego general manager Kevin Towers, assistant GM Randy Smith and vice president of scouting and player development Grady Fuson were all in Florida in the last week of April to see Latos make his final start of the 2007 season. Latos was clocked from 94-98 mph, and touched 99—representative of the velocity he has shown all spring—as he blanked Indian River (Fla.) JC on four hits. He threw no-hitters in his two previous starts and did not allow a home run all year.

Broward coach Bob Deutschman says the makeup issues that plagued Latos in the past weren’t a major problem this spring. Rather, the emphasis was on Latos’ long, lean athletic frame and his power stuff.

“He’s got a very athletic body and a big league arm, and I firmly believe if he was a junior at an established four-year program that he would be in the top five picks overall,” Deutschman said. “At 19, he is very, very projectable.”

Walden has flashed similar dominant stuff this spring at Grayson County . The Angels are also expected to make a serious run to get him signed before the draft, though it is anticipated the commissioner’s office will again discourage teams from paying bonuses in the seven-figure area. Teams are required to get approval from MLB for bonuses that exceed $180,000.

While Latos and Walden have merited most of the attention this spring among the group of elite draft-and-follows, they haven’t been the only ones commanding special attention.

Among some of the other top draft-and-follows are Meridian (Miss.) CC righthander Jordan Brown (Braves, 21^st round), Seminole (Fla.) CC righthander Rob Bryson (Brewers, 31^st round), Delgado (La.) CC outfielder Lee Haydel (Brewers, 19^th round), San Diego Mesa College righthander Bryan Paukovits (Royals, 44^th round) and Lake City (Fla.) CC shortstop Jovan Rosa (Cubs, 22^nd round). All are considered possible top five rounders should they re-enter the draft in June.

According to scouts, Haydel ranks right behind Latos and Walden as the most desirable draft-and-follow.

“He’s very similar to (Tennessee outfielder) Julio Borbon,” said an area scout. “He’s faster and has a better arm, though is not as big as Borbon. But he has gotten a lot stronger in the last year.”

Borbon is expected to be a mid first-round pick in this year’s draft, while Haydel projects as a possible sandwich pick or second-rounder—if he re-enters the draft. He was expected to sign with the Brewers upon the conclusion of his junior college season.

The Florida junior college season typically ends earlier than other states, and at least four Florida juco players have signed to date as draft-and-follows. The list includes Latos’ teammate Sergio Morales, a 12^th-round pick of the White Sox in last year’s draft. Morales, an outfielder described as the best all-around athlete in this year’s Florida junior college class, would have been a fourth- to sixth-rounder had he re-entered this year’s draft, according to scouts.   

Meanwhile, some of the nation’s top junior college talent this spring went undrafted a year ago and are not subject to the draft-and-follow rule. They have no pre-draft options and will enter this year’s draft.

Among the junior college players not under control who could surface in the top five rounds are righthanders David Dinelli of Sierra (Calif.) College, Leroy Hunt of Sacramento CC, Justin Miller of Johnson County (Kan.) CC, Mike Southern of West Hills (Calif.) College and Matt Thompson of Santa Rosa (Calif.) JC, third baseman Matt Clark of Riverside (Calif. ) CC and outfielder Kade Keowen of LSU-Eunice.

Though not a true draft-and-follow, Keowen is symbolic of the improvement that a player can make after a year in junior college. He played sparingly in two years at Louisiana State but has blossomed this spring at LSU-Eunice, the 2006 Division II Junior College World Series champion. Though still somewhat raw because of two years of relative inactivity, he has displayed legitimate five-tool ability after getting the opportunity to play every day after transferring to LSU-Eunice after the fall semester.