Part 1: Shape of Draft
Y0 Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 HS 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 C 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 WARP 0 2 8 51 97 135 151 160 160 153 144 130 130 %pk 0 1 5 32 61 85 94 100 100 96 90 82 81 #Pl 2 5 15 50 70 83 96 86 78 72 62 51 46 3 0 0 0 2 10 16 13 17 11 14 5 12 12 6+ 0 0 0 1 2 3 7 6 8 7 11 4 7 Tot 0 0 0 3 12 19 20 23 19 21 16 16 19
This is another relatively weak draft. It’s a little deeper than the 1992 draft and it’s got Alex Rodriguez on top, but it’s very similar in shape to the 1992 draft. The peak season WARP3 total is closer to 150 than to 200. This is a HS oriented draft so there’s a relatively gentle decline in Y11. Interestingly Y4 is also high which is unusual for a HS draft, but I think a decent sized chunk of that is Rodriguez who was just so good to fast.
The pattern for “#Pl” is typical.
The pattern for “3” players is pretty typical. Again, the number of players per season is low during peak production in comparison to the very good drafts of the late 1980s.
There’s an odd Y10 spike in 6+ WARP3 seasons, but that largely comes from cannibalizing the “3” group of players. There generally aren’t too many of these seasons per year and very few before Y6.
Strong drafts peaked with 25-30 player seasons above 3 WARP3. This one peaked at 16-23 player seasons.
Part 2: Types of Players
WARP3 # players total players % of players 100+ 1 1 1 90 0 0 1 80 0 0 1 70 1 2 1 60 0 2 1 50 2 4 3 40 3 7 5 30 8 15 10 20 8 23 15 10 15 38 25 0 89 127 82 <0 28 155 100
Rodriguez is so ridiculously great that he cleared 100 WARP3 within just 12 years of his draft. The 70 WARP# player is Rolen and he should clear that mark as well, but I don’t expect too many other player to even clear 70 WARP3. The very top of the draft is good, but the second tier players are thin and with just 15% of players over 20 WARP3 it’s pretty thin at the bottom end as well.
Part 3: Top 40 Players
Rank Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3 1 1 1 Sea Alex Rodriguez* SS HS 114.3 2 2 46 Phl Scott Rolen* 3B HS 73.7 3 1 12 Hou Billy Wagner* LHP C 50.4 4 1 14 SD Derrek Lee* 1B HS 50.3 5 7 207 Mil Mark Loretta* SS C 44.7 6 24 671 Cle Rich Sexson* 1B HS 43.8 7 15 414 SF Bill Mueller* SS C 42.3 8 11 320 Atl Kevin Millwood* RHP HS 39.1 9 17 488 Atl Jermaine Dye* OF CC 37.7 10 2 49 Bos Jeff Suppan* RHP HS 37.7
Rolen is an excellent player on a HoF track if his back and shoulder hold up. He has a sizable gap over the rest of the field. It’s a testament to how great Rodriguez is that he’s got an even bigger gap over Rolen. In fact, the gap between Rodriguez and Rolen (40.6 WARP3) would rank as the 8th best player in the draft class by itself. Yet another way to look at how great Rodriguez has been – his career production to date is within 10 WARP3 of the #2 and #3 players combined.
Wagner is an excellent player in his own right, but in a limited role. Lee had a breakout year last year and looked to be establishing himself as a great player as well. We’ll see how he comes back form his injury this year.
After that elite quartet the rest of this group are just good players. Maybe Sexson and Millwood should be categorized as very good players, but this draft seems to be missing a bridge group of very good players between the elite players and the good ones.
The four top players were clustered at the top of the draft and predominately come from HS. The second tier group includes a lot of late picks with a HS/C mix.
Rank Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3 11 1 7 Bos Trot Nixon* OF HS 33.2 12 25 690 LA Paul LoDuca* C C 32.5 13 1 3 Ana Brian Anderson* LHP C 31.7 14 1 15 Tor Chris Carpenter* RHP HS 31.4 15 1 20 Min Torii Hunter* OF HS 30.4 16 3 86 SD Matt Clement* RHP HS 27.3 17 6 165 Det Brian Moehler* RHP C 27.0 18 6 181 Oak Scott Spiezio* 1B C 26.4 19 7 212 Col John Thomson* RHP JC 26.1 20 8 223 Cle Steve Kline* LHP C 24.3
The decision on who is and isn’t a “good” player becomes increasingly subjective as the players have less time to separate themselves by their on field productivity. I think Nixon, LoDuca, Carpenter, Hunter, Clement, and Thomson are all “good” players. That would be roughly 15 good players from this draft.
Rank Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3 21 17 469 KC Glendon Rusch* LHP HS 23.3 22 2 62 Cin Scott Sullivan RHP C 20.6 23 1 28 Col Jamey Wright* RHP HS 20.3 24 1 2 LA Darren Dreifort RHP C 19.3 25 2 48 SF Chris Singleton* OF C 19.1 26 15 425 CWS Mike Sirotka LHP C 18.6 27 2 60 Mon Brad Fullmer 3B HS 16.1 28 13 366 SD Gary Matthews* OF C 16.0 29 1 19 Bal Jay Powell* RHP C 15.8 30 1 25 Oak John Wasdin* RHP C 15.8
This is the usual assortment of back of the staff pitchers. Dreifort made a ton of money. Sirotka had a good little run before he blew out his shoulder. Rusch and Wright are plugging away swingmen for the Cub and Giants, respectively.
Rank Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3 31 1 23 Mil Jeff D’Amico RHP HS 15.6 32 3 88 Stl Eli Marrero* C HS 15.2 33 18 516 Atl John Rocker LHP HS 14.7 34 2 58 Stl John Witasick* RHP C 14.1 35 45 1261 CWS F Menechino* 2B C 12.6 36 1 4 Phl Wayne Gomes RHP C 12.1 37 2 70 Col Bryan Rekar RHP C 10.8 38 5 148 Cin Paul Bako* C C 10.3 39 37 1029 KC Sal Fasano* C C 9.9 40 44 1226 NYM Vance Wilson* OF CC 9.4
These are just some more generic pitchers and backup catchers. Rocker was famous for a little while there.
Part 4: Top Players Prior to Free Agency
Rank Car Rank Player Pre-FA Post-FA 1 1 Alex Rodriguez* 55.1 47.1 2 2 Scott Rolen* 51.7 22.0 3 6 Rich Sexson* 36.1 7.7 4 12 Paul LoDuca* 32.5 0.0 5 4 Derrek Lee* 30.9 19.4 6 8 Kevin Millwood* 30.4 8.7 7 15 Torii Hunter* 30.4 0.0 8 10 Jeff Suppan* 30.2 7.5 9 11 Trot Nixon* 28.1 5.1 10 9 Jermaine Dye* 27.8 9.9 11 3 Billy Wagner* 26.2 24.2 12 17 Brian Moehler* 23.8 3.2 13 7 Bill Mueller* 23.0 19.3 14 16 Matt Clement* 22.7 4.6 15 5 Mark Loretta* 21.8 22.9 16 13 Brian Anderson 21.1 10.6 17 18 Scott Spiezio* 20.4 6.0 18 20 Steve Kline* 20.1 4.2 19 19 John Thomson* 19.6 6.5 20 14 Chris Carpenter* 19.4 12.0 21 22 Scott Sullivan 16.5 4.1 22 23 Jamey Wright* 16.5 3.8 23 21 Glendon Rusch* 16.1 7.2
In this ranking we can see the huge gap between Rodriguez and Rolen and the rest of the draft. The gap between those two great players is much smaller than their overall career production. Rodriguez started his free agency clock at such a young age that it took him a little bit longer to get up to speed. Rolen debuted at age XX much closer to his physical prime.
The most interesting thing about the next group of players is that LoDuca and Hunter hadn’t entered their post-FA service time years last year which was twelve full seasons after the draft. There’s a natural desire when doing these types of studies to include as many recent drafts as possible, but once we get closer than 10-12 years we’re really starting to cut pre-FA years off of most players. That makes any kind of quantification of drafts very sketchy.
Wagner is the last player above my little artificial 25 WARP3 breakpoint. His total is low for a player of his stature (career, not height) because of his innings limited role and because he missed one full season due to injury.
If you think that’s a meaningful breakpoint, then that makes this just an eleven “good” player draft. The key players below that threshold are Mueller, Clement, Loretta, Carpenter and maybe John Thomson. Carpenter is obviously a case of injuries burning up service time. Clement struggled quite a bit his first three years. Those kinds of slow transitions to MLB really diminish pre-FA value. Loretta didn’t really become a good player until his early 30s. Mueller suffered some injuries and not quite full time status for a few years. From a career standpoint these are certainly “good” players and successful, valuable draft picks, but taking a very strict service time point of view they lose some of their luster.
Part 5: Players by Round
Round WARP3 WARP/pk WARP/pk (87-94) Players 20 40 60 80 100 1 460.2 16.4 17.9 20 5 2 1 1s 17.2 1.2 6.6 7 2 198.7 7.1 4.1 18 2 1 3 53.6 1.9 4.6 8 1 4 11.1 0.4 2.8 4 5 10.0 0.4 3.1 3 6 65.1 2.3 3.0 6 2 7 78.2 2.8 2.5 8 1 1 8 26.4 0.9 2.3 4 1 9 3.0 0.1 1.1 4 10 9.7 0.9 1.1 5 11 42.5 1.5 1.8 4 1 12 8.6 0.3 0.8 3 13 25.6 0.9 2.0 8 14 10.5 0.4 0.7 4 15 61.3 2.2 0.8 4 1 16 0.3 0.0 0.3 2 17 61.1 2.2 1.5 3 2 18 17.5 0.6 1.1 3 19 5.7 0.2 0.4 2 20 3.1 0.1 1.3 3 21 3.8 0.1 0.4 3 22 -0.3 0.0 0.5 1 24 44.2 1.6 1.0 3 1 25 34.0 1.2 0.6 2 1 26 -0.5 0.0 0.2 2 27 1.3 0.0 0.1 1 30 8.7 0.3 0.7 3 33 4.0 0.1 0.1 2 36 1.6 0.1 0.3 1 37 17.2 0.6 0.1 2 38 7.2 0.3 0.1 1 40 2.3 0.1 0.0 2 41 2.9 0.1 0.0 1 44 9.5 0.3 0.3 2 45 12.6 0.5 0.3 1 48 0.5 0.0 0.3 1 54 0.5 0.0 0.1 1 60 -0.1 0.0 0.0 1 74 0.8 0.0 0.0 1 1319.6
It’s getting harder to judge the clustering because there should be more players in the lower lower WARP3 groups that move up. The four best players were taken in the first two rounds, but the next tier of players was generally taken in the 7th rd or later.
Part 6: Players by School
totWARP3 20+WARP totPlayers 20+Players totPercent 20+Percent HS 633.6 524.8 46 12 48 (52) 59 (64) JC 91.9 63.8 25 2 7 7 C 594.1 299.9 84 9 45 (48) 34 (36)
This draft is similar to the 1990 and 1991 drafts in that the HS players have small edges in the “tot” columns, but the edge increases dramatically in the “20+” columns.
As I’ve mentioned, it’s always true that the C ranks have a sizable advantage in the number of players that make the majors and have less than 20 WARP3 for their careers. In this draft you can really see how that army of marginal players can pad the WARP3 totals for the C group. Nearly half of the C “totWARP3” total was produced by players with less than 20 WARP3 for their careers (that’s 75 players with an average of 3.9 WARP3 per player career). In contrast, only 17% of the HS “totWARP3” total was produced by players with less than 20 WARP3.
All HS players over 20 WARP3
Rank Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3 1 1 1 Sea Alex Rodriguez* SS HS 114.3 2 2 46 Phl Scott Rolen* 3B HS 73.7 3 1 14 SD Derrek Lee* 1B HS 50.3 4 24 671 Cle Rich Sexson* 1B HS 43.8 5 11 320 Atl Kevin Millwood* RHP HS 39.1 6 2 49 Bos Jeff Suppan* RHP HS 37.7 7 1 7 Bos Trot Nixon* OF HS 33.2 8 1 15 Tor Chris Carpenter* RHP HS 31.4 9 1 20 Min Torii Hunter* OF HS 30.4 10 3 86 SD Matt Clement* RHP HS 27.3 11 17 469 KC Glendon Rusch* LHP HS 23.3 12 1 28 Col Jamey Wright* RHP HS 20.3
Rodriguez will make the high end of any group look good, but Rolen, Lee and to a lesser extent Sexson and Millwood makes this a very strong group in terms of high end talent. The next group of five players is also very solid. This is a very strong group of HS players.
In general they are clustered at the top of the draft. Eight were picked in the first three rounds. Interestingly, the two big exceptions (Sexson and Millwood) were both taken by teams that produced a lot of value out of later round picks in this time period. Every successful pick is a combination of skill (both in terms of scouting and player development) and luck. As you go deeper into the draft it makes sense to assume that luck becomes more and more of a factor. If a team has more success than expected from these rounds, at some point can you dial back down the luck and give the team more skill (scouting or development or both) credit for those picks? I would think so, but it’s difficult to draw that line.
All JC/CC players over 20 WARP3
Rank Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3 1 17 488 Atl Jermaine Dye* OF CC 37.7 2 7 212 Col John Thomson* RHP JC 26.1
At one point it looked like Dye would be better than just a solid, good player, but this is decent production from the late round JC/CC ranks.
All C players over 20 WARP3
Rank Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3 1 1 12 Hou Billy Wagner* LHP C 50.4 2 7 207 Mil Mark Loretta* SS C 44.7 3 15 414 SF Bill Mueller* SS C 42.3 4 25 690 LA Paul LoDuca* C C 32.5 5 1 3 Ana Brian Anderson* LHP C 31.7 6 6 165 Det Brian Moehler* RHP C 27.0 7 6 181 Oak Scott Spiezio* 1B C 26.4 8 8 223 Cle Steve Kline* LHP C 24.3 9 2 62 Cin Scott Sullivan RHP C 20.6
This group is hurt by the fact that the best player is in a role that limits how much WARP3 he can accumulate. Loretta, Mueller and LoDuca are all solid, dare I say Professional, players. The rest are role players.
These HS and C groups really fit the old “HS = high ceiling, C = low ceiling” stereotypes to a T.
This would definitely not have been a good draft to be a young stathead asst GM clutching a decade old Bill James study trying to convince the old school scouting director that college players are undervalued assets.












