My prediction: I know many will take issue with this, and even more so because it is based on nothing but my gut reaction - i think we will look back on his draft and it will be very underwhelming. Again, just a prediction based on nothing, but every team has a stinker of a draft every now and then and i think it will be this one.
That being said i know a few outlets think the Jays had one of the better drafts considering they had the second lowest draft pool this year. One writer says they were a winner just by getting Hoglund alone.
Given that our three highest picks were a pitcher recovering from TJ surgery and two other really raw pitchers that are almost purely projection, and we had one of the lowest bonus pools in the league to work with, your prediction isn't out of the realm of possibility at all. At least you made sure to emphasize that you were just guessing.
I think that as expected under this new regime, their draft once again shows very good execution. They have shown very meticulous budgeting of the slot allotment and even with a super-low total this year, you're seeing another example of clearly well thought out planning and sequencing of picks. There is good variety here as well, with a solid mix of player-types and some legitimate upside guys.
At a quick glance within the first 10 rounds, they got a major-conference performer who wouldn't have been available to them if not for injury (ie: definite upside at #19 overall), two highly-projectable young pitchers who will need a lot of development (Tiedemann is actually less than 2 months older than Irv Carter - they're both essentially HS aged), a "high floor" SEC performer in Chad Dallas, a cluster of college pitchers who are supposedly data/analytics picks with some intriguing qualities, and they even managed to squeak in a HS position player - albeit he is obviously more off-the-radar in order to even be signable in the range he went.
From 10-20 they landed several legitimately interesting players, notably Tirotta and Palmegiani. Tirotta has loud tools with above-average to plus power, plus or better speed, and plus or better arm strength. He didn't hit much at all in his first few collegiate seasons, started this season poorly, but then went on a tear to end the season. He'll probably flop due to his bat, but perhaps he's figured something out, in which case his tools are actually legitimate - that's about as exciting as you can get for a 12th rounder. Palmegiani is kind of similar in that he has big power and even performed extremely well in JUCO this season, but he hasn't faced much good competition - he also "looks" the part. Again, for a 14th round pick, you're not likely to find anything much more exciting than that (save for taking a signability HS kid who fell and paying them much more than slot). They managed to land another HS pitcher with the Canadian kid - he's a super long-term project with minimal experience, but supposedly already flashing 90-94. The very last pick - Luke Holman - looks like a semantics pick on behalf of the kid or a backup option in case something happens with signability elsewhere, but if they somehow landed that signing on top of the rest of the class then it would actually be pretty incredible.
All in all, the main thing to remember is that Austin Martin actually signed for more money than our ENTIRE Top 10 bonus allotment for this class. To land as many obviously interesting/upside players as we did with the mix that we put together, is an easy success IMO. Whether or not any of these guys develop or not is another story entirely, but I can't find serious fault with anything they did or their execution.
