The 2024 MLB First-Year Player Draft takes place in Arlington, Texas, from July 14-16 during the league’s All-Star festivities. A month before the Reds are on the clock with the second overall pick, Reds Director of Amateur Scouting Joe Katuska sat down to discuss the organization holding the No. 2 spot, the scouting process, what the “war room” is like on draft day, and more.
Last year’s lottery went your way for this year’s draft. What was the reaction of you and your staff when you learned you had secured the No. 2 pick for 2024?
That was really exciting. That was a fun time at the winter meetings. Especially with the previous year where we were slotted in fourth and we go backward to seventh. Having the flipside happen this year was great. Going from 14 to two was always significant, not just in terms of the player you can get with that first pick, but also the pool money. It’s a huge jump in our pool that we get to spend this year and that’s significant for the draft class as a whole, not just that first player.
Are there any unique challenges that come with drafting second? Does picking that high change anything about the planning and processes leading up to the draft?
All good things. Every part of that was good. It makes scheduling a lot easier during the spring. We still have to scout the whole class, but we have a better idea of who's going to be available at our pick and which players we really need to focus on. The further you go into that first round, you know the cone of players that you're looking at just widens out almost exponentially. You don’t know what the teams in front of you are going to do or who you might end up with. You might be picking 15th and getting the fifth best player on your own internal board. But at two, it's a lot tighter group that we're able to scout all spring.
What has stood out to your group while scouting that No. 2 pick?
We really started with a target list of about 10 players that we thought were possibilities at the number two pick and over the course of the year, we really kept it wide open. We wanted to keep scouting all of them and figure out what the possibilities were, not walk away from anyone too early knowing that it's a long season and you need to put all the looks together. There are a bunch of exciting guys in this year's class. And you've seen some pretty historic offensive performances. The run scoring environment in college baseball has been a little bit jacked up this year, we've seen guys break the home run record and school home run records all over the place. Without talking about any specific players, there are a number of guys that did some pretty special stuff this year that that we're talking about with our pick.
How does it affect your preparation when you have such a large gap between your first two picks with drafting second and not again until No. 51?
Everything’s just happening on the fly, it’s pretty frantic and hectic in the draft room on the night of it. Like you said, there's a long gap in between our picks there. Which is a good thing. We’ll take that, because the gap would have been shorter if we were picking at 14, so we’ll make that trade off every day. We knew pretty early on the pool of players that we were targeting at two, but that didn't mean we stopped scouting players that we thought were automatically going to be taken in between those picks. We’ll line them all up and go try to get the best player at each one of those picks.
When do the formal strategy sessions and meetings start each year to prepare for the following draft?
It used to be that we would start the process for the next year the day after the draft. But with the draft in July now as opposed to in early or mid-June, we have to cover two classes right now which makes it difficult. But we manage. It's the environment that we're put into, obviously we can't just opt out of that. We've already started working on the ‘25 class. The group of people that are going to be in the war room, I try to keep them focused on this year's class, and we have all the scouting supervisors running around watching high school and college kids for next year already. But once we get out of this year's draft, immediately we turn the page. We get these players signed, we get them out to Goodyear, get their pro careers started, and we’re already fully into next year's process. The first formal meetings regarding this year's class always happen in January every year. We have one week of the scouting supervisors talking about the players in their area and then we follow that up with the cross checkers coming in. And really, it's not about formally lining up the players. It's about figuring out priorities of who we're going to scout early and take them all the way to the finish line from there.
What type of skills does your group prioritize when scouting players each year?
Consistently, we're looking for starting pitching profiles. We think it's a lot easier to turn guys into productive bullpen pieces than it is to find starting pitchers. And then we're looking for up-the-middle players. That's always where we start the process for the position players is catchers, shortstops and center fielders. And what's interesting about the very top of the class this year, is there aren't as many guys that fit that up-the-middle profile as there have in the past. There isn't a catcher that we're talking about at the number two pick. There are a couple guys that play in the middle of the field in the infield, but there are questions about if they're shortstops or second basemen moving forward. And center field isn't a spot, it’s mostly corner guys. So when it comes to them, you better be right about the bat, because that’s what’s going to matter is how well they hit.
You touched on it a little bit there, but especially considering how baseball differs from say, football and basketball in terms of the immediate impact following the draft, is there ever any debate between going best available versus addressing a specific need?
We're always looking for best available. If we think someone's the most talented, even if we have someone at the big league level that plays that position and might be under control for a long time, we're still going to take the best available player, and we'll figure it out later on. That person could be a valuable piece of a trade that gets us something else we need at the big league level. Things can happen at any point in these careers where you project them one way, and it doesn't work out. But we're always going for the best available player.
How much does a player’s character and personality play into your decision on whether or not to draft him?
It's a significant part of what we do. A lot of my offseason is actually spent traveling around meeting with these players at home or at their school trying to figure out what makes them tick, what type of person they are. We have the authentic, connected, relentless (ACR) motto that we go by throughout the entire organization, and the players need to fit into that too. There aren't many players that get entirely ruled out, but there are guys that definitely win tiebreakers because their makeup pushes them up. We've seen more players fail because of their makeup than their tools. We tend to get the tools right pretty much and can project those, but it's the makeup that's the bigger question and harder to figure. I ask a lot of the scouting supervisors who know the players best to really dig in on that stuff in terms of player meetings, talking to the coaches and school administrators, or wherever they can get information about the players. We want to try to figure out exactly what makes these guys tick and how they’re going to fit into our culture here.
Take the fans inside the war room on draft day. What is the environment like and how does that day play out?
It goes from being the longest, slowest day of the year for us before the draft. The work is done, we’ve already lined up the board. we've talked to the advisors, and we understand the financial expectations for each of the players up there. There really isn't much to do until the draft starts. And then the draft starts, and everyone wants to know who the other teams are taking and all that stuff. It’s a little slow when it's the five minutes between picks, especially because we don't pick again until 51. But once it gets into the one minute per pick, then there's the player we're targeting, there are backup plans and contingencies if that player gets selected immediately, and Jeff Graupe (Reds vice president/assistant general manager, player acquisition & strategy) is talking to all the advisors making sure we can actually get the players signed and expectations line up with the money that we have available. There's a lot going on at that time. The regional supervisors, while they're in the room, they’re really in charge of managing all the information from their region. They're fielding phone calls from their scouting supervisors, and there's just a lot going on. There are a lot of people in there, usually about 20 in the room. We'll see this year since we’ve got a new expanded war room. The bigger room always means that more people try to get in there. We’ll try to keep it tight and make sure the group of people in there are those that need to be there and are additive to the process.
While it’s a job first and foremost, what’s the most fun or exciting part about your position and getting to be a part of the draft?
There are a lot of fun parts about it. Obviously, like you said, it's a job. There are a lot of a lot of difficulties with it, especially with the travel and the hectic nature of it. In the spring, you might be taking five flights a week that are at 6 a.m. and seeing a game that finishes up at 10:30 at night. So you have to just keep going. At the end of the day though, it's about the players. It’s seeing where you are as a part of their whole career. Getting the opportunity to draft a player and watch their progression through the minor leagues. And if that player makes it to the big leagues, knowing that you were a little part of that. The player is the one who ultimately does it, but you had a role in there at some point, advocating for them and making it happen to turn them into a professional and put them into a position where they can reach their dreams.
