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2021 MLB Draft
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Post by soxin8 on Oct 3, 2020 15:58:49 GMT -5
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Post by azblue on Oct 3, 2020 19:45:44 GMT -5
Bucket of ice water...but needed.
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Post by unitspin on Oct 3, 2020 20:40:36 GMT -5
Yes, this is a good source of info. The one thing that was interesting to me was hs hitters panning out better then college bats. I wonder if that plays up more in the later rounds then the earlier rounds. Still I feel hs arms that last are a rare thing.
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Post by tyler3 on Oct 3, 2020 21:20:19 GMT -5
Excited to see James Wood tomorrow, also Harry Ford. Excited about both guys.
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Post by Ryanod1 on Oct 3, 2020 21:51:21 GMT -5
Yes, this is a good source of info. The one thing that was interesting to me was hs hitters panning out better then college bats. I wonder if that plays up more in the later rounds then the earlier rounds. Still I feel hs arms that last are a rare thing. I may have read it wrong, but doesn't it say that college bats fare best? I'm too lazy to re read it lol. Thought I saw that college players overall especially in top 5 rd, college bats over college pitchers, but I may have missed something. I wish this broke down the WAR of all highschool players drafted vs college. Showing this would make me feel better about our college heavy drafts vs the higher risk guys haha. It is more fun to make the crazy ceiling picks.
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Post by jl1947 on Oct 4, 2020 1:10:27 GMT -5
Yes, this is a good source of info. The one thing that was interesting to me was hs hitters panning out better then college bats. I wonder if that plays up more in the later rounds then the earlier rounds. Still I feel hs arms that last are a rare thing. I may have read it wrong, but doesn't it say that college bats fare best? I'm too lazy to re read it lol. Thought I saw that college players overall especially in top 5 rd, college bats over college pitchers, but I may have missed something. I wish this broke down the WAR of all highschool players drafted vs college. Showing this would make me feel better about our college heavy drafts vs the higher risk guys haha. It is more fun to make the crazy ceiling picks. You read it right. Overall, college players picked in the first five rounds have a better chance of playing 3-plus years in the majors. Within that demographic, college position players succeed at a higher rate than college pitchers, even though college pitchers were the group most drafted within that cohort. It comes as no surprise that high school pitchers carry the greatest risk, followed by high school position players. Even so, you go with your conviction on who the BPA is. I remember well smacking the table when the Red Sox passed on Austin Meadows who fell to the Pirates two picks later. Meadows and Frazier were both considered elite and Meadows was the better all-around player with the only blemish being a less than sterling senior year in HS. The Sox apparently were enamoured with that prospective right-handed power bat Frazier projected, and his Showcase homer contest performances. Meadows had come into the year regarded by many as the best player in the draft. The Sox were bamboozled by a shorter sample size that spring rather than the body of evaluations that preceded that period. I don't think the Red Sox believed Meadows would become the power hitter he has become, even though left-handed batters, especially the athletic types, tend to grow into their power later. When Frazier went off the board, I believe they threw out the BPA concept. They took a chance on an a tall, athletic two-way player thinking that his 89 - 94 mph fastball would hold higher sitting velocity with the normal development of his projectable frame and that he would hone that curve that he only began throwing the year before. Although this is just one anecdotal reference, we know how that played out. Perhaps the moral of this story is that you don't just go projection if you are picking that high, especially when it comes to HS pitchers who haven't yet shown an ability to manipulate spin. You don't do this, especially when you are going against empirical data. I think the Red Sox have a much more thorough evaluation capacity than most clubs today. I trust whomever they draft in the first two rounds (picks 5 and, I believe, 41) will be the result of their belief in their scouts, cross-checkers and analytics people while mitigating the risk factors historically demonstrated in their own and industry studies.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,931
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 4, 2020 1:50:18 GMT -5
Yes, this is a good source of info. The one thing that was interesting to me was hs hitters panning out better then college bats. I wonder if that plays up more in the later rounds then the earlier rounds. Still I feel hs arms that last are a rare thing. I may have read it wrong, but doesn't it say that college bats fare best? I'm too lazy to re read it lol. Thought I saw that college players overall especially in top 5 rd, college bats over college pitchers, but I may have missed something. I wish this broke down the WAR of all highschool players drafted vs college. Showing this would make me feel better about our college heavy drafts vs the higher risk guys haha. It is more fun to make the crazy ceiling picks. I just did an analysis of players drafted 3 to 30 from 1995 to 2014 who have 30 career bWAR or who seem pretty certain to get it. After all, we're really wishing on stars, not solid pieces. The results are really interesting.
There are 35 guys, 1.75 per year. If all teams drafted equally well ... good luck to you.
But all teams are not as good as one another. 10 teams account for 23 of the 35 players. The Angels, A's, and Phillies have 3 each, and the Braves, Orioles, Indians, Rockies, Astros, Giants, and Nationals have 2 each.
There are 12 clubs that have landed just one star, and 8 that have been shut out. The Mariners, who were gifted with A-Rod and Griffey Jr. as obvious #1 picks, have never done it in their franchise history. The Yankees haven't done it since Jeter in 1992.
So we'll call the 10 clubs that between them account for 2/3 of the players the "repeaters" and the other 12 the "singletons." We're going to find a pattern that suggests that they are employing different draft strategies.
Breakdown:
16 college hitters 7 high school hitters 6 college pitchers 6 high school pitchers
Of the 16 college hitters, 11 were drafted by repeater teams and just 5 by singletons.
But 4 of the 7 highest WAR totals belong to singleton clubs: Longoria / Rays, Teixiera / Rangers, Braun / Brewers, Drew / Cardinals.
In contrast, the only singleton draftee currently among the 9 lower WAR totals is Jacoby Ellsbury. Rendon needs 14.6 WAR to move into the first group, Springer 17.3, and Chapman 23.8, but if they do, that just makes the top of the group a more mixed bag. It doesn't change the fact that the repeater clubs grab many more of the borderline stars. It looks from this that the singleton clubs, for the most part, have hit just once because they favor upside and the risk that comes with it.
Of the 7 HS hitters, only 2 were drafted by singleton teams, McCutchen / Piratres and Yelich / Marlins. By the time Machado, Yelich, and Lindor finish their careers, the only pattern is likely to be that the bottom 2 guys, Eric Chavez and Jayson Heyward, will be from repeater clubs.
The 6 college pitchers are split 4-2 between the repeaters and singletons. And again we see the same trend in WAR: the singleton clubs have #2 Scherzer and #3 Sale (Sabathia is #1). Aaron Nola has to gain 23.7 WAR to catch Sale, but even if he does, that still leaves a tendency for the singleton clubs to land somewhat better players.
The 6 HS pitchers are evenly split. And here it's a permanent clean sweep : Greinke / KC, Kershaw / LAD, Hallady / Tor from singletons, Hamels, Wainwright, and Bumgarner from the repeaters.
When you sort everyone by WAR, you see a marked break between 42 and 44 career WAR. I'm projecting Machado, Yelich, Rendon, and Lindor to end up in the top group, Springer to end up in the second, while Nola and Chapman are unknown. That leaves us with:
21 to 23 guys in the true star group. 11 are from singleton clubs and 10 to 12 from repeaters.
12 to 14 guys in the borderline star group. And Jacoby Ellsbury is the only one from a singleton team. He's a fluke.
Since true stars do not outnumber borderline stars, it seems likely that when everyone's career is over, I'll be adding a bunch of 30-43 WAR players to this list. IOW, I was conservative when I picked which recent draftees had a shot at 30 WAR, and/or there will be some late bloomers.
But the overall pattern is clear. The successful clubs have been as good as one another at finding top-tier talent, but a distinct subset, nearly half of them, have been much better at also finding guys who will end up with very good but not great careers. Yes, this group is missing guys that I failed to (or could't possibly) identify, but if they are from the repeater clubs, that strengthens the pattern, and if if they are from singleton clubs, that makes them repeaters that I failed to spot (because they've become one more recently), which shifts the balance of the top half, but also strengthens the dominance of the repeaters for the borderline stars. To really disrupt the pattern, a bunch of the 8 clubs that were shutout would need to be sitting on a 30-43 WAR guy I didn't include. And the Mets do have Conforto and the Padres Trea Turner. But it would take most of these clubs to score to alter things.
This is the pattern you'd expect if roughly:
1/3 of the clubs always go for high upside and are as good at identifying it as could be expected
1/3+ of the clubs split their picks between high upside and solid upside / high ceiling, and are just as good 1/3- of the clubs have just not been good.
The first two strategies basically have different ideas of what BPA means, how much they think a high ceiling contributes to the notion of "best." The second strategy seems to be better, with one possible exception: if you want to grab an epic pitcher, the next Kershaw or Greinke, you can increase your odds by emphasizing upside and accepting the greater risk that comes with it.
Finally, what's the type breakdown of the true stars, including my projections? (I'm promoting Posey into the upper tier here.) This should stay reasonably accurate as guys complete their careers.
10-11 college hitters 5 HS hitters 4 HS pitchers 3-4 college pitchers
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 4, 2020 3:40:43 GMT -5
I may have read it wrong, but doesn't it say that college bats fare best? I'm too lazy to re read it lol. Thought I saw that college players overall especially in top 5 rd, college bats over college pitchers, but I may have missed something. I wish this broke down the WAR of all highschool players drafted vs college. Showing this would make me feel better about our college heavy drafts vs the higher risk guys haha. It is more fun to make the crazy ceiling picks. I just did an analysis of players drafted 3 to 30 from 1995 to 2014 who have 30 career bWAR or who seem pretty certain to get it. After all, we're really wishing on stars, not solid pieces. The results are really interesting. There are 35 guys, 1.75 per year. If all teams drafted equally well ... good luck to you. But all teams are not as good as one another. 10 teams account for 23 of the 35 players. The Angels, A's, and Phillies have 3 each, and the Braves, Orioles, Indians, Rockies, Astros, Giants, and Nationals have 2 each. There are 12 clubs that have landed just one star, and 8 that have been shut out. The Mariners, who were gifted with A-Rod and Griffey Jr. as obvious #1 picks, have never done it in their franchise history. The Yankees haven't done it since Jeter in 1992. So we'll call the 10 clubs that between them account for 2/3 of the players the "repeaters" and the other 12 the "singletons." We're going to find a pattern that suggests that they are employing different draft strategies.
Breakdown: 16 college hitters 7 high school hitters 6 college pitchers 6 high school pitchers Of the 16 college hitters, 11 were drafted by repeater teams and just 5 by singletons.
But 4 of the 7 highest WAR totals belong to singleton clubs: Longoria / Rays, Teixiera / Rangers, Braun / Brewers, Drew / Cardinals.
In contrast, the only singleton draftee currently among the 9 lower WAR totals is Jacoby Ellsbury. Rendon needs 14.6 WAR to move into the first group, Springer 17.3, and Chapman 23.8, but if they do, that just makes the top of the group a more mixed bag. It doesn't change the fact that the repeater clubs grab many more of the borderline stars. It looks from this that the singleton clubs, for the most part, have hit just once because they favor upside and the risk that comes with it.
Of the 7 HS hitters, only 2 were drafted by singleton teams, McCutchen / Piratres and Yelich / Marlins. By the time Machado, Yelich, and Lindor finish their careers, the only pattern is likely to be that the bottom 2 guys, Eric Chavez and Jayson Heyward, will be from repeater clubs. The 6 college pitchers are split 4-2 between the repeaters and singletons. And again we see the same trend in WAR: the singleton clubs have #2 Scherzer and #3 Sale (Sabathia is #1). Aaron Nola has to gain 23.7 WAR to catch Sale, but even if he does, that still leaves a tendency for the singleton clubs to land somewhat better players. The 6 HS pitchers are evenly split. And here it's a permanent clean sweep : Greinke / KC, Kershaw / LAD, Hallady / Tor from singletons, Hamels, Wainwright, and Bumgarner from the repeaters. When you sort everyone by WAR, you see a marked break between 42 and 44 career WAR. I'm projecting Machado, Yelich, Rendon, and Lindor to end up in the top group, Springer to end up in the second, while Nola and Chapman are unknown. That leaves us with: 21 to 23 guys in the true star group. 11 are from singleton clubs and 10 to 12 from repeaters. 12 to 14 guys in the borderline star group. And Jacoby Ellsbury is the only one from a singleton team. He's a fluke. Since true stars do not outnumber borderline stars, it seems likely that when everyone's career is over, I'll be adding a bunch of 30-43 WAR players to this list. IOW, I was conservative when I picked which recent draftees had a shot at 30 WAR, and/or there will be some late bloomers.
But the overall pattern is clear. The successful clubs have been as good as one another at finding top-tier talent, but a distinct subset, nearly half of them, have been much better at also finding guys who will end up with very good but not great careers. Yes, this group is missing guys that I failed to (or could't possibly) identify, but if they are from the repeater clubs, that strengthens the pattern, and if if they are from singleton clubs, that makes them repeaters that I failed to spot (because they've become one more recently), which shifts the balance of the top half, but also strengthens the dominance of the repeaters for the borderline stars. To really disrupt the pattern, a bunch of the 8 clubs that were shutout would need to be sitting on a 30-43 WAR guy I didn't include. And the Mets do have Conforto and the Padres Trea Turner. But it would take most of these clubs to score to alter things.
This is the pattern you'd expect if roughly: 1/3 of the clubs always go for high upside and are as good at identifying it as could be expected
1/3+ of the clubs split their picks between high upside and solid upside / high ceiling, and are just as good 1/3- of the clubs have just not been good. The first two strategies basically have different ideas of what BPA means, how much they think a high ceiling contributes to the notion of "best." The second strategy seems to be better, with one possible exception: if you want to grab an epic pitcher, the next Kershaw or Greinke, you can increase your odds by emphasizing upside and accepting the greater risk that comes with it. Finally, what's the type breakdown of the true stars, including my projections? (I'm promoting Posey into the upper tier here.) This should stay reasonably accurate as guys complete their careers.
10-11 college hitters 5 HS hitters 4 HS pitchers 3-4 college pitchers How does the success rate correlate to a breakdown of draft positions for each team ? That has to factor into it. The Nationals, for example, had back to back 1st picks with Harper and Strasburg. Two years that were pretty much consensus 1-1's. How does that make them good at it ? ADD: If you adjusted for draft position, lowered your bWAR threshold and eliminated all the consensus top 5 picks you would have a better case for teams that are good at finding talent.
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Post by unitspin on Oct 4, 2020 6:16:28 GMT -5
Yes, this is a good source of info. The one thing that was interesting to me was hs hitters panning out better then college bats. I wonder if that plays up more in the later rounds then the earlier rounds. Still I feel hs arms that last are a rare thing. I may have read it wrong, but doesn't it say that college bats fare best? I'm too lazy to re read it lol. Thought I saw that college players overall especially in top 5 rd, college bats over college pitchers, but I may have missed something. I wish this broke down the WAR of all highschool players drafted vs college. Showing this would make me feel better about our college heavy drafts vs the higher risk guys haha. It is more fun to make the crazy ceiling picks. Ya think I read it wrong. Anyways let's go college arm lol.
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Oct 4, 2020 9:16:03 GMT -5
Assuming Rocker is gone, I’d be happy with any of Fabian, Hill, Lawlar, Leiter or Mayer based on what I’ve read.
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Post by azblue on Oct 4, 2020 10:04:52 GMT -5
Eric wrote: "But all teams are not as good as one another. 10 teams account for 23 of the 35 players. The Angels, A's, and Phillies have 3 each, and the Braves, Orioles, Indians, Rockies, Astros, Giants, and Nationals have 2 each."
Don't we need to know how high each of those teams drafted to have the full picture? If they were consistently selecting players when they had draft picks in the top 10, it would be more of an indication that they had high draft choices (thereby increasing their odds of selecting a successful major league player) than any particular talent for choosing the right players relative to where they selected in each draft.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 4, 2020 10:04:58 GMT -5
I just did an analysis of players drafted 3 to 30 from 1995 to 2014 who have 30 career bWAR or who seem pretty certain to get it. After all, we're really wishing on stars, not solid pieces. The results are really interesting. There are 35 guys, 1.75 per year. If all teams drafted equally well ... good luck to you. But all teams are not as good as one another. 10 teams account for 23 of the 35 players. The Angels, A's, and Phillies have 3 each, and the Braves, Orioles, Indians, Rockies, Astros, Giants, and Nationals have 2 each. There are 12 clubs that have landed just one star, and 8 that have been shut out. The Mariners, who were gifted with A-Rod and Griffey Jr. as obvious #1 picks, have never done it in their franchise history. The Yankees haven't done it since Jeter in 1992. So we'll call the 10 clubs that between them account for 2/3 of the players the "repeaters" and the other 12 the "singletons." We're going to find a pattern that suggests that they are employing different draft strategies.
Breakdown: 16 college hitters 7 high school hitters 6 college pitchers 6 high school pitchers Of the 16 college hitters, 11 were drafted by repeater teams and just 5 by singletons.
But 4 of the 7 highest WAR totals belong to singleton clubs: Longoria / Rays, Teixiera / Rangers, Braun / Brewers, Drew / Cardinals.
In contrast, the only singleton draftee currently among the 9 lower WAR totals is Jacoby Ellsbury. Rendon needs 14.6 WAR to move into the first group, Springer 17.3, and Chapman 23.8, but if they do, that just makes the top of the group a more mixed bag. It doesn't change the fact that the repeater clubs grab many more of the borderline stars. It looks from this that the singleton clubs, for the most part, have hit just once because they favor upside and the risk that comes with it.
Of the 7 HS hitters, only 2 were drafted by singleton teams, McCutchen / Piratres and Yelich / Marlins. By the time Machado, Yelich, and Lindor finish their careers, the only pattern is likely to be that the bottom 2 guys, Eric Chavez and Jayson Heyward, will be from repeater clubs. The 6 college pitchers are split 4-2 between the repeaters and singletons. And again we see the same trend in WAR: the singleton clubs have #2 Scherzer and #3 Sale (Sabathia is #1). Aaron Nola has to gain 23.7 WAR to catch Sale, but even if he does, that still leaves a tendency for the singleton clubs to land somewhat better players. The 6 HS pitchers are evenly split. And here it's a permanent clean sweep : Greinke / KC, Kershaw / LAD, Hallady / Tor from singletons, Hamels, Wainwright, and Bumgarner from the repeaters. When you sort everyone by WAR, you see a marked break between 42 and 44 career WAR. I'm projecting Machado, Yelich, Rendon, and Lindor to end up in the top group, Springer to end up in the second, while Nola and Chapman are unknown. That leaves us with: 21 to 23 guys in the true star group. 11 are from singleton clubs and 10 to 12 from repeaters. 12 to 14 guys in the borderline star group. And Jacoby Ellsbury is the only one from a singleton team. He's a fluke. Since true stars do not outnumber borderline stars, it seems likely that when everyone's career is over, I'll be adding a bunch of 30-43 WAR players to this list. IOW, I was conservative when I picked which recent draftees had a shot at 30 WAR, and/or there will be some late bloomers.
But the overall pattern is clear. The successful clubs have been as good as one another at finding top-tier talent, but a distinct subset, nearly half of them, have been much better at also finding guys who will end up with very good but not great careers. Yes, this group is missing guys that I failed to (or could't possibly) identify, but if they are from the repeater clubs, that strengthens the pattern, and if if they are from singleton clubs, that makes them repeaters that I failed to spot (because they've become one more recently), which shifts the balance of the top half, but also strengthens the dominance of the repeaters for the borderline stars. To really disrupt the pattern, a bunch of the 8 clubs that were shutout would need to be sitting on a 30-43 WAR guy I didn't include. And the Mets do have Conforto and the Padres Trea Turner. But it would take most of these clubs to score to alter things.
This is the pattern you'd expect if roughly: 1/3 of the clubs always go for high upside and are as good at identifying it as could be expected
1/3+ of the clubs split their picks between high upside and solid upside / high ceiling, and are just as good 1/3- of the clubs have just not been good. The first two strategies basically have different ideas of what BPA means, how much they think a high ceiling contributes to the notion of "best." The second strategy seems to be better, with one possible exception: if you want to grab an epic pitcher, the next Kershaw or Greinke, you can increase your odds by emphasizing upside and accepting the greater risk that comes with it. Finally, what's the type breakdown of the true stars, including my projections? (I'm promoting Posey into the upper tier here.) This should stay reasonably accurate as guys complete their careers.
10-11 college hitters 5 HS hitters 4 HS pitchers 3-4 college pitchers How does the success rate correlate to a breakdown of draft positions for each team ? That has to factor into it. The Nationals, for example, had back to back 1st picks with Harper and Strasburg. Two years that were pretty much consensus 1-1's. How does that make them good at it ? ADD: If you adjusted for draft position, lowered your bWAR threshold and eliminated all the consensus top 5 picks you would have a better case for teams that are good at finding talent. I think he said he used picks 3 to 30 (for some reason?) but I had the same thought. This isn't useful to me without controlling for where teams are picking. I'm going to guess there's a pretty strong (but not perfect) correlation between picking higher and drafting more stars.
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Post by unitspin on Oct 4, 2020 10:26:45 GMT -5
Assuming Rocker is gone, I’d be happy with any of Fabian, Hill, Lawlar, Leiter or Mayer based on what I’ve read. my five would have to be Leiter, Hill, Fabian, McLain, House.
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Post by ramireja on Oct 4, 2020 11:52:11 GMT -5
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,931
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 4, 2020 12:26:01 GMT -5
How does the success rate correlate to a breakdown of draft positions for each team ? That has to factor into it. The Nationals, for example, had back to back 1st picks with Harper and Strasburg. Two years that were pretty much consensus 1-1's. How does that make them good at it ? ADD: If you adjusted for draft position, lowered your bWAR threshold and eliminated all the consensus top 5 picks you would have a better case for teams that are good at finding talent. I think he said he used picks 3 to 30 (for some reason?) but I had the same thought. This isn't useful to me without controlling for where teams are picking. I'm going to guess there's a pretty strong (but not perfect) correlation between picking higher and drafting more stars. I used 3 to 30 because the 1 and 2 picks are well established as much better bets, and because the "first round" varies artificially in size.
It's absolutely true that I need to add unsuccessful draft pick position (and total number of picks) to the study. But let's start by asking, if the repeater clubs were simply those who got better picks, then their successes would be clustered near the top of the draft, right? And since they had 23 of the 35 successes, we can calculate how many successes they would be expected to have in each quartile of the draft (each set of 7 picks of the 28 under consideration) if there were no such effect.
11 -7 - 3 - 2 Expected breakdown 11 -7 - 2 - 3 Actual breakdown.
The average pick by a repeater club was 11.8. The singleton clubs averaged 10.8. There's a 69% chance of that being random.
We have already seen that that the singleton picks tend to have more WAR than the repeater picks (it's 51.7 to 41.7, p = .06). If the phenomenon were caused just by opportunity, the failed picks would have to be very weirdly distributed to offset the fact that the successful picks did not differ by group. The repeater clubs would have to be relatively bad at hitting on the top picks but offset that by killing it further down the draft, which is not hard to believe ... but if they could do that when picking lower, how did they end up with so many good picks?
And how about the 8 clubs that got shut out? As a quick proxy for average draft position I counted the number of times they finished below .500 in the 20 years.
14 Padres 13 Tigers 12 Cubs 12 Reds 11 Mariners 11 Twins 9 Mets 2 Yankees
If there was no such thing as bad drafting over a long period of time, you'd never see this.
It turns out that it's pretty easy to grab bRef's draft pages into a spreadsheet. There are all sorts of interesting things you can do by trying to identify good and bad picks objectively and put a number on the quality. But as I said earlier, a proper study would include BA's draft rankings, which I can get, so I'm going to try to resist that for now.
But here's an example. In 1995, three HS pitchers were taken in a row in the middle of the round:
15. Red Sox, Andy Yount 16. Giants, Joe Fontenot (8 G, 6.33 ERA, -0.8 WAR)
17. Blue Jays, Roy Halladay
The Red Sox and Giants drafted less well than the Jays.
Obviously, there's a lot of luck involved, but just as obviously, there has to be some skill.
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Post by tyler3 on Oct 4, 2020 12:52:12 GMT -5
Lawlar just had a great at bat. Two high fast ball strikes. A slider he lays off of then drives a high fast ball to the wall in right center with the wind blowing in. Turns on the jets and turns a stand up double into a clean triple. Approach, hit tool, power, speed all there.
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Post by tyler3 on Oct 4, 2020 12:52:50 GMT -5
Baseball factory all star classic so plus arms
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Post by Ryanod1 on Oct 4, 2020 15:41:15 GMT -5
I may have read it wrong, but doesn't it say that college bats fare best? I'm too lazy to re read it lol. Thought I saw that college players overall especially in top 5 rd, college bats over college pitchers, but I may have missed something. I wish this broke down the WAR of all highschool players drafted vs college. Showing this would make me feel better about our college heavy drafts vs the higher risk guys haha. It is more fun to make the crazy ceiling picks. I just did an analysis of players drafted 3 to 30 from 1995 to 2014 who have 30 career bWAR or who seem pretty certain to get it. After all, we're really wishing on stars, not solid pieces. The results are really interesting.
There are 35 guys, 1.75 per year. If all teams drafted equally well ... good luck to you.
But all teams are not as good as one another. 10 teams account for 23 of the 35 players. The Angels, A's, and Phillies have 3 each, and the Braves, Orioles, Indians, Rockies, Astros, Giants, and Nationals have 2 each.
There are 12 clubs that have landed just one star, and 8 that have been shut out. The Mariners, who were gifted with A-Rod and Griffey Jr. as obvious #1 picks, have never done it in their franchise history. The Yankees haven't done it since Jeter in 1992.
So we'll call the 10 clubs that between them account for 2/3 of the players the "repeaters" and the other 12 the "singletons." We're going to find a pattern that suggests that they are employing different draft strategies.
Breakdown:
16 college hitters 7 high school hitters 6 college pitchers 6 high school pitchers
Of the 16 college hitters, 11 were drafted by repeater teams and just 5 by singletons.
But 4 of the 7 highest WAR totals belong to singleton clubs: Longoria / Rays, Teixiera / Rangers, Braun / Brewers, Drew / Cardinals.
In contrast, the only singleton draftee currently among the 9 lower WAR totals is Jacoby Ellsbury. Rendon needs 14.6 WAR to move into the first group, Springer 17.3, and Chapman 23.8, but if they do, that just makes the top of the group a more mixed bag. It doesn't change the fact that the repeater clubs grab many more of the borderline stars. It looks from this that the singleton clubs, for the most part, have hit just once because they favor upside and the risk that comes with it.
Of the 7 HS hitters, only 2 were drafted by singleton teams, McCutchen / Piratres and Yelich / Marlins. By the time Machado, Yelich, and Lindor finish their careers, the only pattern is likely to be that the bottom 2 guys, Eric Chavez and Jayson Heyward, will be from repeater clubs.
The 6 college pitchers are split 4-2 between the repeaters and singletons. And again we see the same trend in WAR: the singleton clubs have #2 Scherzer and #3 Sale (Sabathia is #1). Aaron Nola has to gain 23.7 WAR to catch Sale, but even if he does, that still leaves a tendency for the singleton clubs to land somewhat better players.
The 6 HS pitchers are evenly split. And here it's a permanent clean sweep : Greinke / KC, Kershaw / LAD, Hallady / Tor from singletons, Hamels, Wainwright, and Bumgarner from the repeaters.
When you sort everyone by WAR, you see a marked break between 42 and 44 career WAR. I'm projecting Machado, Yelich, Rendon, and Lindor to end up in the top group, Springer to end up in the second, while Nola and Chapman are unknown. That leaves us with:
21 to 23 guys in the true star group. 11 are from singleton clubs and 10 to 12 from repeaters.
12 to 14 guys in the borderline star group. And Jacoby Ellsbury is the only one from a singleton team. He's a fluke.
Since true stars do not outnumber borderline stars, it seems likely that when everyone's career is over, I'll be adding a bunch of 30-43 WAR players to this list. IOW, I was conservative when I picked which recent draftees had a shot at 30 WAR, and/or there will be some late bloomers.
But the overall pattern is clear. The successful clubs have been as good as one another at finding top-tier talent, but a distinct subset, nearly half of them, have been much better at also finding guys who will end up with very good but not great careers. Yes, this group is missing guys that I failed to (or could't possibly) identify, but if they are from the repeater clubs, that strengthens the pattern, and if if they are from singleton clubs, that makes them repeaters that I failed to spot (because they've become one more recently), which shifts the balance of the top half, but also strengthens the dominance of the repeaters for the borderline stars. To really disrupt the pattern, a bunch of the 8 clubs that were shutout would need to be sitting on a 30-43 WAR guy I didn't include. And the Mets do have Conforto and the Padres Trea Turner. But it would take most of these clubs to score to alter things.
This is the pattern you'd expect if roughly:
1/3 of the clubs always go for high upside and are as good at identifying it as could be expected
1/3+ of the clubs split their picks between high upside and solid upside / high ceiling, and are just as good 1/3- of the clubs have just not been good.
The first two strategies basically have different ideas of what BPA means, how much they think a high ceiling contributes to the notion of "best." The second strategy seems to be better, with one possible exception: if you want to grab an epic pitcher, the next Kershaw or Greinke, you can increase your odds by emphasizing upside and accepting the greater risk that comes with it.
Finally, what's the type breakdown of the true stars, including my projections? (I'm promoting Posey into the upper tier here.) This should stay reasonably accurate as guys complete their careers.
10-11 college hitters 5 HS hitters 4 HS pitchers 3-4 college pitchers
Great breakdown and thank you for taking all the time to do it. Its really interesting to see how all of this pans out. Its obviously a difficult comparison due to so much data, but this is good as it will be. Its obvious that teams taking very high will end up with a skewed number due to the talent at the top of drafts. I always like the college picks less due to them not being as exciting (generally), but theres something to be said where those guys are more likely hits with good careers. I tend to like the high risk guys with top picks and fill in with quality, but that may be the wrong way to look at a draft based on probability.
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Post by tyler3 on Oct 4, 2020 16:06:07 GMT -5
I like HS bats and here’s why. Scouts always lament the shortage of impact college bats every draft because most of the goods ones were poached while in HS. It seems to me that teams are able to project power and hit tool a bit better than “developing that third pitch” and the injury slot machine. The Red Sox seemed to have nailed it with Casas. Yorke looked excellent for his brief run. I know you take best player available but I think the Red Sox organization has been excellent scouting teenage hitters. It seems to be their strength.
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Post by Ryanod1 on Oct 4, 2020 16:14:35 GMT -5
I like HS bats and here’s why. Scouts always lament the shortage of impact college bats every draft because most of the goods ones were poached while in HS. It seems to me that teams are able to project power and hit tool a bit better than “developing that third pitch” and the injury slot machine. The Red Sox seemed to have nailed it with Casas. Yorke looked excellent for his brief run. I know you take best player available but I think the Red Sox organization has been excellent scouting teenage hitters. It seems to be their strength. That is usually the case. Especially with pitching like you saw. The problem with a lot of HS pitchers is that 3rd pitch, but also they tend to be more "throwers" due to hs being easier to get away with stuff. Ive seen it too much with pitchers to not really value them as high in a draft. Unless its like a Groome or something. I threw about 86 or so and know that I was a thrower lol. Once college rolled around it was a different world where you learn to actually pitch
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Post by jclmontana on Oct 4, 2020 18:50:46 GMT -5
I really appreciate Eric’s analysis above. I think the idea of “best player available “ is accepted as truth, but the range of how clubs vary on what “best” means has been surprisingly unexamined. I think the other unacknowledged idea is that teams (Red Sox 2020 draft) will approach the draft with the intent of getting the best PLAYERS available, in the plural, which might mean passing up a better ranked, but more expensive player, in any particular round in order to afford a player later on. Here are some of what I think is involved in choosing how to draft “best player available”: 1.) Likelihood of player signing 2.) How much player X will sign for and how that affects later rounds 3.) Ceiling versus floor 4.) Likelihood of player reaching their ceiling 5.) Scarcity of talent (eg., elite pitching versus elite hitting) 6.) Overall state of farm (whether the team should role the dice on elite upside or simply fill the farm up with less upside players that are more likely to hit their ceilings)
And I am sure there are other things I missed. I guess what I am saying is that teams regularly do not draft “the best” player available and that is okay, that it is best to look at a draft in it’s entirety, and that legitimate differences of opinion on what defines best is where the conversation gets interesting.
I would like the Sox to swing for the fences a little bit next year, but hey, that approach is what got us Trey Ball! I fall back on my usual approach of grabbing value where you find it, whether it be a high upside pick or more of a sure bet. That is, if a team was planning on reaching for upside at pick 45, but a better valued player with a lower upside is unexpectedly available, then you take the lower upside guy. And vice-versa.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Oct 4, 2020 20:22:47 GMT -5
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 4, 2020 20:59:09 GMT -5
I really appreciate Eric’s analysis above. I think the idea of “best player available “ is accepted as truth, but the range of how clubs vary on what “best” means has been surprisingly unexamined. I think the other unacknowledged idea is that teams (Red Sox 2020 draft) will approach the draft with the intent of getting the best PLAYERS available, in the plural, which might mean passing up a better ranked, but more expensive player, in any particular round in order to afford a player later on. Here are some of what I think is involved in choosing how to draft “best player available”: 1.) Likelihood of player signing 2.) How much player X will sign for and how that affects later rounds 3.) Ceiling versus floor 4.) Likelihood of player reaching their ceiling 5.) Scarcity of talent (eg., elite pitching versus elite hitting) 6.) Overall state of farm (whether the team should role the dice on elite upside or simply fill the farm up with less upside players that are more likely to hit their ceilings)And I am sure there are other things I missed. I guess what I am saying is that teams regularly do not draft “the best” player available and that is okay, that it is best to look at a draft in it’s entirety, and that legitimate differences of opinion on what defines best is where the conversation gets interesting. I would like the Sox to swing for the fences a little bit next year, but hey, that approach is what got us Trey Ball! I fall back on my usual approach of grabbing value where you find it, whether it be a high upside pick or more of a sure bet. That is, if a team was planning on reaching for upside at pick 45, but a better valued player with a lower upside is unexpectedly available, then you take the lower upside guy. And vice-versa. It's not just the farm, but the entire organization. A world of difference between a team with a host of young MLB talent and one with a veteran roster they can't afford to re-sign, for instance.
And the question of whether this actually should change your sense of BPA and hence your draft strategy is such a tricky one that I'm not even going to guess!
The teams that were perennially below .500 because they drafted poorly -- were they drafting poorly because they were going too much for high-floor guys to fill out an MLB roster that had replacement-level players, year after year? Or because they were rolling the dice on high-ceiling guys in an annual attempt to find the superstar to build a successful team around?
To answer that, you'd need BA's prospect ratings and reports. But I can't resist looking quickly at how the Padres fared starting in 1998 ...
And I note two things.
-- Draft classes vary hugely in the talent that's available, and you've got to control for that, too. Sometimes a team will bust on a fairly high pick, and almost everyone after them busts as well.
-- You really cannot do this well without the scouting reports.
I'm looking at the crazy 2002 draft, where the only 10 WAR players taken in the top 14 picks were #2 B.J. Upton* (16.8), #7 Prince Fielder (23.8), and #6 Greinke (72.3 and counting).
But 8 of the 11 picks from 15 to 25 top 10 WAR (including Cole Hamels, Denard Span, Scott Kazmir, and Nick Swisher), and one of the guys who didn't was Jeff Francoeur, who at age 23 has 6.9 WAR, at a 2.8 per 650 PA rate, and actually got 4005 more PA over 9 seasons as teams tried to re-animate the dead flesh of his upside, to the tune of -0.1 WAR.
Matt Cain was the #25 pick and had 29.1 WAR, but that was 31.3 at age 28 and then four years of failure coming back from an injury (he should be added to the study, where he adds clout to the smart-repeaters hypothesis).
And in the next 31 picks, there was precisely 1 guy who topped 3.1 WAR! And he was # 44 Joey Votto, 61.8 and counting. The #57 pick was Jon Lester. From picks 26 to 60, we're going to end up with 33 busts and two guys with 50 WAR or better.
Yeah, you can't make sense of this without the contemporary scouting data.
I now have to honor my tagline and try to get myself into a position where I can hire a research assistant!
*Yeah, I know, but "B.J." acquired 82% of that WAR and "Melvin" 18%.
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Post by jl1947 on Oct 4, 2020 21:01:02 GMT -5
Kid's got helium, and if he keeps this trajectory, you're right, we're not likely to get a chance at drafting him. Looks like a player. Whether fielding or batting, he's got presence (duende).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 4, 2020 21:49:37 GMT -5
One more point ... we almost always have no way of knowing whether a team lucked into a great pick because someone beat them to the guy they were really hoping to draft, who turned out to bust. Of course they get credit for having a future star as the next guy on their board, but still.
In 2002, the 3 through 6 picks were all HS pitchers!
Reds, Chris Gruler O's, Adam Loewen Expos, Clint Evers Royals, Zack Greinke
The BA Draft book has the Gruler story: a "deserving pick" with a 94-96 FB and, according to Johnny Bench who caught him in a workout, a better curve and changeup than Tom Seaver. He needed shoulder surgery by the time he'd thrown 50 pro innings. Evers needed TJ soon after signing. I mentioned I did a study of top pitching prospects and discovered a terrifying injury rate ... these guys got hurt before they had a chance to make any prospect lists.
So it's likely that the Royals did have Gruler higher on their board.
I wore out my copy of BA's Draft Handbook. I had forgotten that the 2017 revision, the Draft Book, added one-line summaries to every first-rounder! And I will now try to forget that again, or I'll spend the rest of the night looking guys up. But it will be helpful, obviously.
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