I think that, the past couple of years at least, that ownership is looking at the draft and Jeff Luhnow the same way. They think that their guy is smart enough to find talent that’s underappreciated, and, thus, less expensive. Some of the ‘raw’ college pitchers with poor track records we’ve seen picked fall into this thought pattern, I believe.

Please note I’m not trying to call the Cards cheap here; only trying to make a point about the way they seem to look at things. I think they believe that if they bring in the right people to coach or draft or whatever, that they can essentially beat the system.

As far as the early part of the decade goes, I agree with Lou. With the abysmal quality of the Cards’ drafts for most of the early 2000s, (with the 13th round of the 99 draft excluded) I think DeWitt and co simply didn’t have faith their people would make the correct draft choices, regardless of the money spent.

Overall, I think this is indicative of a more systemic situation, in that the Cardinals, for awhile now, have been stuck in an overly conservative, risk averse mindset. The draft is a perfect example. The team, I believe, has sought too many ’safe’ picks, both in terms of a players’ likelihood of reaching his (most often) modest ceiling, and also in the potential financial loss of the player not panning out. They have failed to properly apply an across the board dollar standard and realise that even the highest draft bonuses are comparable to very middling MLB talent contracts. The difference, of course, being the rate of return. The savings a team can bank during a player’s cost conntrolled years causes the possible return value of even a large signing to shoot far out of proportion to ML contract money.

The Cardinals have been in this sort of hidebound, not even near the boundaries of the box much less outside it mindset for awhile now. There are seemingly some changes, though, in the thinking recently, with people like Brent Strom being brought innot in spite of, but because of their unorthodox thought processes. This, combined with the success that Luhnow has already had in replenishing the farm system, gives me hope that we may see a bit more creativity, and a bit more willingness to take on risk, in the very near future. Hopefully, beginning with the 13th pick in this year’s draft.

Well the Braves have been an excellent team for the past 15 years. 2007 gave them the highest draft pick they’ve had since 1991. From 1994 to 2001, the highest draft pick the Braves had was the 26th pick in 1995 and slot money wasn’t as great then as it is now. I would expect the Braves to have given out 3 or 4 of their top 5 bonuses in the 2000s.
BTW, just looking at their top 5 bonuses, their #3 bonus was handed out to an international signee in 1997(Jung Bong).

“I agree that #4 is a contributing factor but it’s hard for me to ignore that the Cardinals are the ONLY team in all of baseball that haven’t handed out a heft signing bonus this decade. There’s something more to this than just having low draft picks.”
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I think a lot of it has to do with what the Cardinals top 5 signees have gotten. 1.675 million is a lot to match, even for a late first round pick. To give that kind of money to a pick after the first round is a big risk.

A good study might be to look at how many teams in the 2000s haven’t had a top 15 pick in the draft. Exclude 2008 because the draft hasn’t happend. A top 15 pick greatly increases the chances a team will hand out a top 5 bonus. I know right now the highest pick the Cardinals have had in the 2000s is the 18th pick and they gave Kozma slot money and it still wasn’t top 5.
Your #3 reason goes well with what I’m saying too and it goes hand in hand with #4.

But we are talking about the top 5 bonuses handed out by the Cardinals. No matter who was selected there, the Cardinals were going to be handing out one of their biggest bonuses. The Cardinals were burned more by bad scouting than by poor spending.
Hutchinson is really the only one of the five that has been a case of poor spending. They didn’t have to give him THAT much money. But the Cardinals did have to give Shaun Boyd his money or else they lost a first round pick.
The point azruavatar was making was that poor spending has altered the clubs ways of spending in the draft. I don’t think Boyd backs up that claim. You’ll see in June that the Cardinals are probably going to be handing out a top 5 bonus to sign the 13th pick. Its slot money and the Cards have spent slot money on almost all of their recent 1st round picks.

I’m thinking of the constant rotation of scrap heap pitchers, the parade of stop-gap solutions at second base, etc. And in the draft, the strong preference for college boys and other “projectable” players. They should be commended for not throwing away money the way many teams have on free agents and signing bonuses, but isn’t this also the reason we’ve got a system full of guys who project in utility roles? At some point, you’ve got to take some risk and go after a guy like Porcello who could be an impact player.

And while signing bonuses have grown, they still seem relatively cheap compared to the salaries of free agent journeymen like Cesar Izturis.

I agree that #4 is a contributing factor but it’s hard for me to ignore that the Cardinals are the ONLY team in all of baseball that haven’t handed out a heft signing bonus this decade. There’s something more to this than just having low draft picks.

Also, just to clarify, I was only implicating the Boyd and Hutchinson picks as picks that burned the birds.

You look at the difference between the 2003 and 2004 Cardinal drafts, thats the 30th pick(Barton-975K) to the 19th pick(Lambert-1.525 mil). Nothing else really changed. Some guys in the 2004 draft weren’t signed(Buck Cody IIRC), but the extra difference between the bonuses for Pomeranz and Ferris and Dove and Haberer, etc. make up for that loss.
The difference between 2004 and 2005/2006 was obviously the extra picks. 2005 featured 4 picks in the 1st/ supplemental 1st rounds thus why it had the biggest allotment of spending money of any recent draft.

I don’t think the Cardinals have backed off large signing bonuses because they’ve been burned by them. Chad Hutchinson did burn the Birds.
But JD Drew’s 3 mil bonus was about 500K over slot(Jeff Austin-4th overall that year-recieved 2.7 million). When you look at those taken right after him(not 10-15 spots after him), Drew was the best pick so I wouldn’t say he burned the Birds.
Shaun Boyd and Braden Looper were slot signees, not over slot bonus babies. I wouldn’t say they really burned the Birds either because they had to give them that money(plus Looper paid off).
Rick Ankiel didn’t really burn the Birds either because he’s a stud. He helped the team make the playoffs in 2000 and might be doing so again in 2008.

They took some genuine risks in the late ’90s and early ’00s, going over slot to sign guys like Chad Hutchinson, Nick Stocks, and Tyler Adamczyk. And they got burned.

That’s in addition to expensive guys they signed for slot money — Shaun Boyd and Chance Caple come to mind — who didn’t pan out.

I suspect DeWitt lost faith in the people he had running the draft, and who can blame him?

Since 2005, the drafts have been much better, as we all agree, and I have to think he’s putting more faith in Luhnow and company. We’ve seen that he’s letting them give out bigger bonuses in Latin America, and I have to think he’ll let them a risk in the June draft, depending on the risk they’re considering.

Maybe I empathize too much with the owner, but I don’t really blame him for passing on Porcello. The talent was undeniable, but we’re still talking about a high school pitcher. If it had been a polished college position player, I’d be a lot less empathetic.