The Brewers had two first round and one sandwich round pick in the first day of the MLB Draft and decided to go for big power bats to supplement the somewhat thin minor league system.
After last season's focus on pitching in the early rounds, the Brewers went with high schooler Clint Coulter and college bat Victor Roache with the 27th and 28th pick. They took OF Mitch Haniger out of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo (same school as Logan Schafer) with the 38th pick of the draft.
The reaction to the Roache pick was wildly varied. As the MLBN talking heads were discussing Roache as having slid to this position, Keith Law was tweeting that it was a massive over-draft.
From Twitter: Victor Roache was rated #22 by Baseball America, #89 by Keith Law, #27 by Jon Mayo, #73 by Lincoln Hamilton.
Roache has a broken wrist and won't be able to resume baseball work for 4-6 weeks. He broke itdiving to make a catch on Feb. 25, prompting a complicated surgery that involved the insertion of six screws, two pins and a metal plate to repair the significant damage.
Coulter has already told local media that he has every intention of signing immediately and not going to college. He said thats why he thinks he was drafted in the first round. He was a high school wrestler and many were pointing to that to show not only his power and strength, but also what he calls his mental toughness.
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Coulter has been a catcher, but he said that teams were working him out as an outfielder. He admitted that he's not a great catcher because he's always focused on hitting.
Roache was drafted in 2009, but decided to go on to Georgia Southern. He broke out this year as a sophomore, hitting 30 home runs and winning Southern Conference Player of the Year.
There's not much info out on Haniger yet. He's known to have great arm strength is looking to be a major league right fielder. He's 6'2" but just 180 pounds, meaning adding muscle mass will be a priority.
The new MLB CBA has changed the way that teams draft and pay for draft picks. From Adam McCalvy: "
Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, each team has an allotted bonus pool equal to the sum of the values of that club's selections in the first 10 rounds of the Draft. By virtue of their extra picks, the Brewers have baseball's 12th-highest pool, a total of $6,764,600.
That includes $1.675 million for the 27th overall pick, $1.65 million for No. 28 overall and $1.359 million for No. 38.
The signing bonuses for a team's selections in the first 10 rounds, plus any bonus greater than $100,000 for a player taken after the 10th round, will apply toward the bonus-pool total.
Any team going up to five percent over its allotted pool will be taxed at a 75-percent rate on the overage. A team that overspends by 5-10 percent gets a 75-percent tax plus the loss of a first-round pick. A team that goes 10-15 percent over its pool amount will be hit with a 100-percent penalty on the overage and the loss of a first- and second-round pick. Any overage of 15 percent or more gets a 100-percent tax plus the loss of first-round picks in the next two Drafts."
