Only if you think organizational philosophy and organizational need are synonymous. They're not.
Last high pick for a while hopefully
- Thread starter gryoung
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How freely do you expect a team to admit publically they chose a player who they didn't think was the clear BPA? Sometimes with small-market teams you hear rumblings about signability, but that's about it.
Draft boards remain trade secret of each organization, so the only way evidence like you're asking for could be obtained only by employees violating NDAs, pulling a Cardinals on a team's database, or a team allowing direct investigation. The best "inside" source might still be Moneyball, which was researched with inside information on the A's and the draft day decision-making process. My recollection is that Beane prioritized college kids as BPA's because high school kids' failure rates were too high for the A's tight budget; also, that organizational needs were often considered because the A's were run on a severely limited budget and they needed to get talent into the upper minors. Still, the long-term success of Kazmir (22.4 WAR and still active) makes Beane's celebration over getting to pick Nick Swisher (21.7 WAR) seem a bit over-the-top with another decade's retrospect.
Anyway, the 2002 draft was when GM Dave Littlefield fairly openly told the press that the Pirate selected Bryan Bullington #1 while considering "other factors" in addition to pure ability, at a time when the Pirates were desperate for immediate pitching help and all the BPAs were considered to be in high-school. Here's the BA draft write-up. The Pittsburgh Gazette tried to connect the dots between the Pirates drafting for team needs and Mark Prior's rocket ascent with the Cubs in 2001. Of course, no one's going to say publically that they screwed up, even when everyone knows it. And there error bars are still high, because you're trying to make projections about individuals. So that's also the draft high school RHP Clint Everts got taken one pick ahead of Zach Greinke. And where Jon Lester was a 2nd round selection that Theo Epstein felt the team "was fortunate to get" when he fell to #57 because his BPA ranking appears to have be higher, at least according to the Sox draft board.
I assume things have changed somewhat since 2002 -- and not just in the technology teams use -- because of the new slotting rules in place limiting bonuses. But who can say how much change has occurred, without inside information?
I haven't read The Extra 2% but maybe that gives an inside look on the Rays and how their draft priorities?
Just some draft data ha-ha's.
Using drafts from 1995-2004. This includes some players that still have careers left to accumulate numbers, but for the most part, we are through their primes. The 2004 draft class included Verlander, Neil Walker, Stephen Drew, for instance. I didn't want to go more recent because you start getting into guys still in their primes like Justin Upton. I didn't want to go too far back in time because I think the pre/post strike era had some real differences in the way teams got built.
Just using bWAR for simplicity, a couple of graphs.
First, average career WAR for each draft position.
Then, for each draft position, number of players (out of 10) that did not achieve a 10 career WAR. For comparison's sake a 10 career bWAR player is someone like David Murphy
I don't know that there is a lot to learn other than even in the first round, you have a high chance of drafting a washout. Of course with only 10 year's data there is a lot of noise which if I were going to get into any kind of real analysis would probably mean smoothing data by clumping pick groups or something like that. For instance, just looking at this data you could say you'd rather have the 9th pick than the 3rd or 4th, but that's just noise in the data. I suppose if we saw a larger trend we might think that it's the difference between ceiling picks and floor picks but who knows.
Using drafts from 1995-2004. This includes some players that still have careers left to accumulate numbers, but for the most part, we are through their primes. The 2004 draft class included Verlander, Neil Walker, Stephen Drew, for instance. I didn't want to go more recent because you start getting into guys still in their primes like Justin Upton. I didn't want to go too far back in time because I think the pre/post strike era had some real differences in the way teams got built.
Just using bWAR for simplicity, a couple of graphs.
First, average career WAR for each draft position.
Then, for each draft position, number of players (out of 10) that did not achieve a 10 career WAR. For comparison's sake a 10 career bWAR player is someone like David Murphy
I don't know that there is a lot to learn other than even in the first round, you have a high chance of drafting a washout. Of course with only 10 year's data there is a lot of noise which if I were going to get into any kind of real analysis would probably mean smoothing data by clumping pick groups or something like that. For instance, just looking at this data you could say you'd rather have the 9th pick than the 3rd or 4th, but that's just noise in the data. I suppose if we saw a larger trend we might think that it's the difference between ceiling picks and floor picks but who knows.
It seems like the BPA argument is "pick the best player available regardless of organizational need." If you're incorporating organizational need into your idea of who the best player available is, then you're not doing a pure BPA selection. With the new draft bonus pools, signability is an issue for pretty much all teams. The Red Sox can only spend about $3.2M on their 12th overall pick and about $7M total, whereas the Phillies can spend up to $9M on the 1st overall and $13.4M total. It probably doesn't effect taking the BPA, though, since there's probably a case for several players being the BPA at nearly any given slot depending on your floor/ceiling balance.
I always kinda wondered how a team would do if they just fired all their draft scouts and used the Baseball America rankings instead. They probably wouldn't have the best draft compared to other teams, but I bet they wouldn't have the worst. Someone must have done a version of this exercise at some point, right?
I always kinda wondered how a team would do if they just fired all their draft scouts and used the Baseball America rankings instead. They probably wouldn't have the best draft compared to other teams, but I bet they wouldn't have the worst. Someone must have done a version of this exercise at some point, right?
I'll put it together if I get some time, but I'll bet median WAR or 75%ile WAR looks a lot smoother. There's definitely a trend though, where higher pick = better. But yes, even the high first round has a very good chance of a washout. So Trey Ball, if he never develops, is a lot more "shit happens" than organizational failure.
You've done it too.
This isn't difficult. I mean, apparently it is.
Why does everything have to be a false dilemma?
I'm just clarifying the concepts we're talking about. There's no dilemma at all. I'm sure whatever your point is is very clear in your head, but you're doing nothing to communicate what it is by making lame metacomments.
Back on topic, over at minorleagueball, their mock draft has Collins going several picks earlier, with Boston taking a HS pitcher.
12. Boston Red Sox: Braxton Garrett, LHP, Foley HS, AL
The Red Sox don't have many tendencies, they tend to go with the best player available. At this point, on my board that would be Garrett, the projectable lefty from Alabama. The next two on my rankings are Matt Manning, a big righty from California, or Josh Lowe, the sweet swinging third baseman from Georgia
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You seem to be conflating "might choose a rangey center fielder over a slugging first baseman" with "might choose a rangey center fielder over a slugging first baseman because the organization is thin at center field"
The former speaks to organizational philosophy until modified into the latter, when it then becomes organizational need. Any organization's BPA assessment will implicitly reflect the former. Most organizations will not draft based on the latter.
edit: premature post. That's never happened to me before, I swear.
I totally agree with you! That was the exact distinction I was trying to make before, but I guess it didn't come through.
The Red Sox didn't seem to have a super obvious organizational philosophy to their picks under Cherington, in that they picked all kinds of players at different levels and different positions. Detroit apparently tended towards big RHP under Dombrowski, but Dombrowski seemed pretty happy with the Red Sox scouting department, so he'll be getting some different perspectives.
Man, I guess it was still Theo's team at the time, but that 2011 draft class looks pretty great right now: Barnes, Swihart, Owens, Bradley, Betts, and Shaw. Having 4 first round picks and nailing some lower round picks helps.
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People often use 10 career WAR as a metric for a successful pick. Five of these guys have at least a shot at that threshold (likely not Barnes, unless he can hang on for a long time).