From the Desk of the Commish

Welcome to Draft Day, 2014! Never mind Christmas. THIS is the most wonderful time of the year.

The strengths and deficiencies of this class have already been well chronicled on our forum, but I'll review them anyway. Out of the 50 players in the auction, only 11 are pitchers, and only 8 are starters. Just as a comparison, there were 15 starting pitchers in last year's class. The low supply suggests there will be a great deal of inflation for starting pitching. Adam Wainwright, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Max Scherzer are all legitimate aces, and would likely fetch $10 million or more in any auction. Jeff Samardzija is a nice #2/#3 who would have earned around $6-$8 million in past years, but may see $10MM-plus thanks to that inflation. There is a steep drop-off after that, with Mark Buehrle, Dan Haren and Scott Kazmir as the only other starting pitchers available.

On the offensive side, this is a VERY deep auction class, filled with reliable and consistent veterans. Robinson Cano, Edwin Encarnacion, Prince Fielder, Michael Cuddyer, Carlos Gomez, Ryan Zimmerman, Billy Butler, Yadier Molina and Jose Bautista each has more than 500 PA's and each owns an OPS of over .780 against both lefties and righties. We haven't seen nine hitters in the auction who were that productive against both lefties and righties in many years (if ever.)

Shin-Soo Choo (612/1011 splits), Adrian Gonzalez (747/829), Nick Swisher (918/680), Chase Utley (754/855), Gerardo Parra (501/820), Nate McLouth (640/753) and Jarrod Saltalamacchia (628/873) are all excellent platoon hitters, and a few of them are likely to fetch "Type H" salaries. Brandon Phillips and Yunel Escobar offer above-average defense up the middle, which is always valuable. And Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols, Matt Kemp, Curtis Granderson and Miguel Montero offer rebuilding teams an opportunity to "buy low" on a former MVP candidate.

In terms of positional scarcity, the catcher position was historically weak throughout all of MLB last season, and the auction class is no different. Molina will likely fetch the highest salary of the lot, given his arm strength and high batting average, although he likely doesn't have enough power to fetch Mike Napoli money. There are four other catchers in the auction, but three of them own an overall OPS below .750.

Another position of scarcity is third base. Technically, both Encarnacion and Bautista qualify for the hot corner, but they are both rated "Pr", and would both be defensive liabilities if they were played at that position. Alberto Callaspo is an "Av" third baseman defensively, but hit 702/686 splits are hardly awe-inspiring. That leaves Ryan Zimmerman (809/812 splits, Av range) as the only true third baseman available who is acceptable both offensively and defensively.

Shortstop is another weak area of this auction class. There are five shortstops in the auction, but only one (Reyes) has an OPS over 700. And Reyes only has 419 PA's on the season.

Perhaps you haven't heard, but Tim Hudson won't be in the auction class this year. Although he only pitched 131 1/3 innings in MLB last year, his exclusion from the auction has caused such a stink that it makes Nestle's Field smell like a rose garden. Oddly enough, no one seems to be bothered by the fact that John Lackey, who arguably had better stats than Hudson, while throwing 58 more innings AND in a hitter's ballpark, was also excluded from the top-50. Bronson Arroyo (202 IP, 3.63 CERA) was also snubbed.

Among relievers, Alfredo Simon (2.75 CERA in 87+ IP) has been heralded as the biggest snub, but Tommy Hunter (2.53 CERA in 86+ IP), Mark Melancon (1.78 CERA in 71 IP), Latroy Hawkins (3.03 CERA in 70+ IP), Luke Gregerson (2.07 CERA in 66+ IP), Matt Albers (2.99 CERA in 63 IP), Grant Balfour (2.92 CERA in 62+ IP), Sergio Romo (2.47 CERA in 60+ IP), Jason Grilli (2.44 CERA in 50 IP), Bobby Parnell (1.78 CERA in 50 IP) and Sam LeCure (2.95 CERA in 61 IP), among MANY others, deserve to feel equally snubbed.

If you are a rebuilding team in search of "buy-low" opportunities, the draft offers plenty of potential targets, including Johnny Cueto, Chad Billingsley, Adam Dunn, Victor Martinez, Rickie Weeks, BJ Upton and Jason Kubel.

Despite all the talk on the forum about how much money is floating around this year, there is more than $20 million less than last year. Had it not been for the fact that two owners quit (which allowed the new owners to get out from under bad contracts without penalty), that figure would be more than $50 million. Both the total amount of spending money and the average cash per player are below the historical average:

Year	Total cash available	# of free agents needed	Cash per player	$ spent in auction
2003	$557.1m	360	$1.55m	$328.5m (59%)
2004	$606.2m	343	$1.77m	$363.5m (60%)
2005	$498.2m	292	$1.71m	$318m (64%)
2006	$621.3m	327	$1.90m	$341.5m (55%)
2007	$569.0m	296	$1.92m	$364.5m (64%)
2008	$595.5m	320	$1.86m	$324.0m (54%)
2009	$543.3m	292	$1.86m	$289.5m (53%)
2010	$417.5m	261	$1.60m	$289.5m (69%)
2011	$472.9m	295	$1.60m	$269.0m (57%)
2012	$361.0m	267	$1.35m	$214.5m (59%)
2013	$511.8m	293	$1.75m	$272.0m (53%)
2014	$489.0m	297	$1.64m	TBD

Not surprisingly, the two teams with the most money to spend this winter are the two teams that were allowed to release all of their bad contracts penalty-free last year. Charlotte (nee Atlanta) has a whopping $41.5 million to spend this winter, and Kansas City (nee Dieppe, nee Sylmar) has $40.8 million in funny money, despite the fact that their former owner went nuts on "Type H" free agents a year ago.

After those two, the division-rival Salem Cowtippers ($39.7MM) and New Milford Blazers ($32.1MM) will undoubtedly spend the next several weeks getting into ridiculous bidding wars.

And then there are the St. Louis Apostles, who belong in a spending category of their own. They have a whopping $30.4 million to spend on just 7 roster spots. That average of $4.3 million per player tops the next-highest average by a full $1 million. As St. Louis appears to be in rebuilding mode, I can only imagine what Bobby is planning to do with all that money.

At the other end of the spending spectrum, the Great Lakes Sphinx ($1.2MM), Bear Country Jamboree ($1.3MM), Mississippi Meatballs ($5.2MM), SoCal Slyme ($8.3MM), Corona Confederates ($9.5MM) and Granite State Lightning ($9.9MM) are all likely to be nothing more than casual observers of this year's auction.

At this point, the Class of 2015 appears to be the weakest auction class we have ever had. James Shields, Matt Cain, Chris Davis, Homer Bailey, Troy Tulowitzki and Dustin Pedroia are the biggest of the big-ticket items.

After that group, the best of the lot (at this point) are Carlos Quentin, Elvis Andrus, Nick Markakis, Aramis Ramirez, Andre Ethier, David Ortiz, Coco Crisp, J.J. Hardy, Brian McCann, Doug Fister, Kyle Lohse, Kris Medlen, Mike Napoli, CJ Wilson, Ian Kinsler, Kendrys Morales, Derek Holland and C.C. Sabathia.

2014 Draft Day Preview