MLB's Draft Kings: The Boston Red Sox

[Snodgrass'Muff]

The Hardball Times took a look at the best drafting teams throughout MLB's history and the hometown team landed in the top spot. This is a really fun read:

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/the-draft-kings/

Which team has accumulated the most “Future WAR” with its draft picks during the draft era while averaging the least advantageous spot on the board? Remarkably, the Boston Red Sox are the only ball club to amass over 2000 Future WAR while averaging the second-lowest picks in the draft. Only the New York Yankees have worked with a lower average pick, and they are 14th in total Future WAR.

Theo Epstein upheld this tradition with key picks during his reign as GM, choosing Jonathan Papelbon (24 Future WAR) at No. 17 in 2003, Dustin Pedroia (52.2 as of 2017) with the 24th pick in 2004, and Jacoby Ellsbury (30.9 and counting), Clay Bucholz (15.5) and Jed Lowrie (12.6, still active) with the 28th pick in ‘05, followed by Josh Reddick (23) during the 17th round in 2006, even grabbing Jackie Bradley Jr. (10.8) and Mookie Betts (24.1) with the 21st pick in the 2011 draft, which currently stands as the highest figure this decade for two or more players with at least double-digit WAR.

“Boston has always had the money to pay picks. Historically, the Red Sox would draft fewer players. But that doesn’t take away from their overall acumen in picking the right players. That’s their front office not wanting to clutter their farm system with players they don’t believe will make it to the big leagues. You know, sign players for $1,000 just to fill out rosters, and the Red Sox historically haven’t done that, so they’re getting the most bang for their buck.”

 

[charlieoscar]

How much of all this Future WAR was actually accumulated while playing for the Red Sox?

And actually there are some things I don't understand about this article, for example: Papelbon. Clicking on the link you included takes you to The Draft Kings article on FanGraphs, which along with some tables, also discusses individual players. It says that Papelbon has 24 Future WAR, yet when you click on his name you get FanGraph's stats for Papelbon that show 19.1 Total WAR, 13.9 of which came while he was with the Red Sox.

Maybe I'm not understanding the article correctly (or there are some problems with its underlying principle) but I would think that if you trade some prospects (who never make the majors) for a player who provides some positive value then those prospects share some Future WAR for the team. If the opposite occurs and the prospects succeed while the player traded for bombs, they lose Future WAR value for the team.

A player's Future WAR, for himself, is the total of his WAR for his career but when you talk about a player's Future WAR from the team's perspective, don't you need to balance it with any moves made involving him?

 

[AbbyNoho]

How much of all this Future WAR was actually accumulated while playing for the Red Sox?

That's not really relevant to their ability to pick players in the draft.

 

[SydneySox]

I think that the last quote you used, about how the Sox could pay their picks, is one of the most interesting points. Other teams could pay picks too but in the 'old' system it absolutely used to be the case that we would get some of those kids in later rounds or later picks in the first because we'd pay them.

 

[charlieoscar]

That's not really relevant to their ability to pick players in the draft.

Be that as it may, with all their success with Future WAR they still have had to rely on free agent signings and trades for their good seasons.

 

[shaggydog2000]

Be that as it may, with all their success with Future WAR they still have had to rely on free agent signings and trades for their good seasons.

True. But the article was assessing drafting, not every other aspect of front office performance. If a team has killer draft after killer draft, and trades everyone away for garbage vets, they still drafted well.

 

[nvalvo]

How much of all this Future WAR was actually accumulated while playing for the Red Sox?

And actually there are some things I don't understand about this article, for example: Papelbon. Clicking on the link you included takes you to The Draft Kings article on FanGraphs, which along with some tables, also discusses individual players. It says that Papelbon has 24 Future WAR, yet when you click on his name you get FanGraph's stats for Papelbon that show 19.1 Total WAR, 13.9 of which came while he was with the Red Sox.

Maybe I'm not understanding the article correctly (or there are some problems with its underlying principle) but I would think that if you trade some prospects (who never make the majors) for a player who provides some positive value then those prospects share some Future WAR for the team. If the opposite occurs and the prospects succeed while the player traded for bombs, they lose Future WAR value for the team.

A player's Future WAR, for himself, is the total of his WAR for his career but when you talk about a player's Future WAR from the team's perspective, don't you need to balance it with any moves made involving him?

Most of this was explained in the article, I think.

The WAR totals come from baseball-reference, which — especially for pitchers — is calculated differently than Fangraphs WAR: specifically, Fangraphs uses FIP x IP as the basis for their pitching WAR, while baseball-reference uses RA x IP. So what that tells us is that Papelbon, for his career, outperformed his peripherals, such as his K/9 and BB/9.

But more fundamentally, they're trying to evaluate drafting, not trading. If they were trying to assess front offices as a whole, wouldn't the wins and losses do that job pretty well, to a first approximation?

One fun thing: on that chart, Barry Bonds is worth a full 10% of Pittsburgh's total, across 50+ seasons!

 

[PapaSox]

Thank you for the link to a fun read.