I'm not one to just use WAR for an analytical tool, but I thought, hey, just for fun, let's look at cumulative WAR for post-WS drafts by the Red Sox. This will include all WAR accumulated by the draftee if they were signed by the Red Sox (so, for instance, Brandon Belt and Pedro Alvarez don't count in their respective years) but does not count cup of coffee types. Not a scientific thing.
2005: 48.9 (Ellsbury, Buchholz, Lowrie)
2006: 28.6 (Bard, Masterson, Reddick) A lot of that value was accumulated with not Red Sox.
2007: 12.7 (WMB, Rizzo) WMB is negative. All the positive comes from Rizzo, who of course accumulated it elsewhere
2008: -0.2 (Lavarnway, Vazquez) Bunch of guys got cups of coffee. But this draft produced nearly nothing. Vaz still to be written I guess, let's hope he has a big bounce back from the injury.
2009: 1.7 (Alex Wilson). Only 4 players in this draft made the majors. Wilson has been better than Porcello this year, but that's just salt in wound.
2010: -1.6 (Workman). Book is not closed on Ranaudo, Cecchini. Most everyone else is essentially done.
2011: 5.1 (Betts, JBJ, Swihart, Barnes). Lot to come from this draft, including Owens future.
2012: 0. Marrero and Brian Johnson should bring some value. Rest of class is basically washed out. I guess Pat Light is young enough that we can hope his Portland blip (only time he's shown anything) can be sustained.
2013: 0. Too soon obviously, but with Ball looking not great, Stank looking less than that, Jon Denney punking himself out of baseball...really not a lot to look forward to.
2014: 0. Way too soon. Won't even speculate.
I guess the takeaway from this is that despite the $100 MM development machine, the Sox domestic scouting has only produced in fits and starts (2005, 2006, 2011) and a ton of value was traded away. Obviously there are a bunch of careers yet to take place here, the average guy from the 2010 draft is only 25. But, from 2007-2009 the Sox basically created zero value for themselves on the field with the draft, though they did get a season and a half of Adrian Gonzalez for Rizzo (and the useless Casey Kelly and more useless Raymond Fuentes). On the whole, that trade worked out for them but largely because the centerpiece (Kelly) was exceptionally overrated. And of course San Diego in their wisdom had no patience with Rizzo and gave him back to Theo.
At the end of the day I guess the relevance of this is that it leads into the question of just how good a job Ben C. has been doing, since this was his job before he was GM. It's unfair of course to exclude amateur signings but not many of those worked out until Iglesias and Bogaerts. So that would need to be included as well as a comparison to other teams to really assess. And of course Ben isn't the one who made the AG trade. He did however trade Reddick.
Anyway, a big problem with the Red Sox right now is that they had to go out and pay for guys in their primes, and this is clearly why. They essentially punted 4 drafts in a row outside of Rizzo. And those are the drafts that would give them guys in the 25-30 range.
2005: 48.9 (Ellsbury, Buchholz, Lowrie)
2006: 28.6 (Bard, Masterson, Reddick) A lot of that value was accumulated with not Red Sox.
2007: 12.7 (WMB, Rizzo) WMB is negative. All the positive comes from Rizzo, who of course accumulated it elsewhere
2008: -0.2 (Lavarnway, Vazquez) Bunch of guys got cups of coffee. But this draft produced nearly nothing. Vaz still to be written I guess, let's hope he has a big bounce back from the injury.
2009: 1.7 (Alex Wilson). Only 4 players in this draft made the majors. Wilson has been better than Porcello this year, but that's just salt in wound.
2010: -1.6 (Workman). Book is not closed on Ranaudo, Cecchini. Most everyone else is essentially done.
2011: 5.1 (Betts, JBJ, Swihart, Barnes). Lot to come from this draft, including Owens future.
2012: 0. Marrero and Brian Johnson should bring some value. Rest of class is basically washed out. I guess Pat Light is young enough that we can hope his Portland blip (only time he's shown anything) can be sustained.
2013: 0. Too soon obviously, but with Ball looking not great, Stank looking less than that, Jon Denney punking himself out of baseball...really not a lot to look forward to.
2014: 0. Way too soon. Won't even speculate.
I guess the takeaway from this is that despite the $100 MM development machine, the Sox domestic scouting has only produced in fits and starts (2005, 2006, 2011) and a ton of value was traded away. Obviously there are a bunch of careers yet to take place here, the average guy from the 2010 draft is only 25. But, from 2007-2009 the Sox basically created zero value for themselves on the field with the draft, though they did get a season and a half of Adrian Gonzalez for Rizzo (and the useless Casey Kelly and more useless Raymond Fuentes). On the whole, that trade worked out for them but largely because the centerpiece (Kelly) was exceptionally overrated. And of course San Diego in their wisdom had no patience with Rizzo and gave him back to Theo.
At the end of the day I guess the relevance of this is that it leads into the question of just how good a job Ben C. has been doing, since this was his job before he was GM. It's unfair of course to exclude amateur signings but not many of those worked out until Iglesias and Bogaerts. So that would need to be included as well as a comparison to other teams to really assess. And of course Ben isn't the one who made the AG trade. He did however trade Reddick.
Anyway, a big problem with the Red Sox right now is that they had to go out and pay for guys in their primes, and this is clearly why. They essentially punted 4 drafts in a row outside of Rizzo. And those are the drafts that would give them guys in the 25-30 range.