Proof the MLB draft is no lottery
ESPN Insider
We often hear that the MLB Rule 4 draft is "a crapshoot" because so many high picks turn out to be busts, even some players drafted first overall. I've occasionally propagated this idea, especially when talking about high-variance prep players whose professional development depends not just on skills but on physical and emotional maturation. The truth, however, is that the draft is far from a crapshoot, because the bulk of the game's U.S.- and Canadian-born stars were drafted very high, typically in the first 50 picks.
Take a look at the top position players and pitchers from 2010 when ranked by Fangraphs' Wins Above Replacement, a metric that estimates a player's total value to his team on all sides of the ball. This isn't meant to be a conclusive study, but a quick measure of relevance using the players who, last season, were the top performers in the game. It demonstrates clearly why you should be following the draft if you aren't already doing so.
<OFFER>
Field players
1. Josh Hamilton (8.0 fWAR): Top overall pick in 1999. While it didn't return any value for Tampa Bay because of Hamilton's off-field trouble, I think the fact that he could go three-plus years without facing live pitching, come back and hit at this level speaks to the fact that the Rays took the right player in terms of talent.
2. Joey Votto (7.4): Taken in the second round in 2002 with the 44th overall pick. Votto was a catcher in high school in Toronto, but everyone figured he'd have to move off the position, probably to first base, and the offensive standard for a high school first baseman is very high. (Yes, the Blue Jays had him at our predraft workout that year, but we didn't have him this high on our board.) I think if Votto had grown up in Southern California or Florida, he would have been drafted 10-15 picks higher because scouts would have had more looks at his bat, as with Eric Hosmer, a high school first baseman who went third overall in the 2008 draft.
3. Albert Pujols (7.3): The most famous 13th-round pick ever, 402nd overall, signing for $60,000. Every team now has a story about how it "almost" drafted him -- here's one about the Red Sox -- but the truth is that everyone saw Pujols (who played at the Area Code Games in high school) and had questions about the body, his actual age and the weak competition he faced as an amateur.
4. Ryan Zimmerman (7.2): Fourth overall pick in the loaded 2005 draft, and right now a better value than the three players (Justin Upton, Alex Gordon and Jeff Clement) taken ahead of him.
(No. 5 is Adrian Beltre.)
No. 6Jose Bautista was a 20th Round pick from Chipola Junior College. Almost goes without saying, Bautista's outlier performance in 2010 is the only year he's been on a list like this.
7. Evan Longoria (6.9): Third overall pick in 2006, after Luke Hochevar and Greg Reynolds. In general, the first college position player taken combines both probability and upside, which has certainly been true of Longoria, who was in the majors inside of 22 months after he was drafted.
8. Matt Holliday (6.9): A seventh-round pick in 1998, No. 210 overall, although that reflects Holliday's tough signability rather than his pure ability. Holliday went to high school in Stillwater and was committed to play baseball and football at Oklahoma State, signing for a bonus of $840,000 that was among the 50 biggest bonuses handed out in that draft. Prior to the 1998 draft, Baseball America had Holliday potentially looking for first-round money and noted that he was "a five-tool player with excellent power and arm strength."
9. Carl Crawford (6.9): First pick of the second round in 1999, No. 52 overall. I imagine a player with Crawford's tools would go higher today, with the increased emphasis on defense and positional value; he'd be seen as a surefire center fielder because of his speed, with the thought that he could learn center in time (something that turned out to be false in Crawford's case).
10. Troy Tulowitzki (6.4): The seventh overall pick in 2005; after Zimmerman went fourth, Ryan Braun and Ricky Romero came off the board before Colorado took Tulowitzki, who really should have gone third or sixth even if we don't use the benefit of hindsight. Tulo was on Team USA in the summer of 2004 with Gordon, Clement, Romero, Gordon, Cesar Ramos, Travis Buck, Trevor Crowe and freshman relievers Daniel Bard and Andrew Miller.
(Nos. 11 and 12 are Robinson Cano and Miguel Cabrera.)
13. Rickie Weeks (6.1): The second overall pick in 2003 after Delmon Young, and the first college position player taken. Weeks went that high as an up-the-middle player who was athletic and had (still has) plus-plus bat speed; he's battled injuries and strikeouts, but when healthy he's been extremely productive over the last two seasons.
14. Andres Torres (6.0): Torres' fWAR is an artifact of an unusually high defensive rating, but he was a fourth-round pick in 1998, No. 117 overall, because he could run.
In all, that's five first-rounders, two second-rounders and one player drafted late but paid like a sandwich pick. The next 10 drafted position players in fWAR include first-round or sandwich picks Kelly Johnson, Jay Bruce, Adrian Gonzalez (No. 1 overall in 2000), Chase Utley, Stephen Drew and Joe Mauer (No. 1 overall in 2002), plus second-rounder Brian McCann, for a total of 15 of the top 20 eligible players drafted in the top two rounds.
Pitchers
1. Cliff Lee: Fourth-round pick in 2002 by Montreal out of the University of Arkansas.
2. Roy Halladay: The 17th overall pick in 1995, and the first of two picks in three years by Toronto to eventually win Cy Young Awards.
3. Justin Verlander: Second overall pick in 2004 who worked in the upper 90s as a junior at Old Dominion but didn't have great command.
4. Josh Johnson: Fourth-rounder in 2002 out of Jenks High School in Oklahoma. The 2002 draft was actually high school-heavy in the first round, with prep arms selected third, fourth and fifth overall, each of whom eventually blew their arms out. The prep arm taken sixth appears later on this list, and the first round also included high school arms Cole Hamels, Matt Cain and Scott Kazmir. Johnson wasn't as polished but had the projectability and a very sharp slider, and the Marlins have long shown a predilection for players from Oklahoma.
(Nos. 5 and 6 are Ubaldo Jimenez and Felix Hernandez.)
7. Adam Wainwright: First-rounder in 2000, 29th overall.
(8. Francisco Liriano)
9. Jered Weaver. First-round pick in 2004, 12th overall, in a year when he and Stephen Drew both fell on signability concerns (with the Padres taking Matt F. Bush first overall because they didn't want to pay up for either college player).
10. Jon Lester. A second-round pick in 2002, 57th overall, 13 picks after Votto, and the last prep pitcher the Red Sox would take in the first round until they ended up with Casey Kelly in 2008.
11. Zack Greinke. A bit controversial as the sixth overall pick in 2002, but I think his Cy Young Award and three-year run before he was dealt has more than justified the selection.
12. Tim Lincecum. Tenth overall in 2006, behind college starters Greg Reynolds and Brandon Morrow, although I'm guessing Colorado and Seattle are tired of having that pointed out to them by now.
13. CC Sabathia. Twentieth overall in 1998.
So seven of the top 10 drafted pitchers last year were first-rounders, along with a second-rounder and two fourth-round picks. The next 10 include first-rounders or sandwich picks Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Colby Lewis and David Price (No. 1 overall in 2007), plus second-rounders Yovani Gallardo and Dan Haren.
There is no question that every draft class will have its significant busts, even the loaded class we're seeing for this year's draft. There are plenty of ways a top draft prospect's career can find itself off the rails, from poor plate discipline to injuries to insoluble mechanical problems to lack of physical development. And yet with all of those risk factors, we still find that the vast majority of impact players who enter pro ball through the draft were selected in the top two rounds. (It holds true in earlier years as well; a quick look at the 2008 fWAR leaderboard, for example, has different names but also high picks like David Wright, Lance Berkman, Chipper Jones, Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran, Nick Markakis, Dustin Pedroia and Alex Rodriguez.)
If the draft was actually a "crapshoot," you wouldn't find this year-in, year-out concentration of talent at the top, but that just demonstrates that scouts are identifying the right players and that any serious fan of the game who wants to know about tomorrow's stars needs to pay attention to the draft as well.
ESPN Insider
We often hear that the MLB Rule 4 draft is "a crapshoot" because so many high picks turn out to be busts, even some players drafted first overall. I've occasionally propagated this idea, especially when talking about high-variance prep players whose professional development depends not just on skills but on physical and emotional maturation. The truth, however, is that the draft is far from a crapshoot, because the bulk of the game's U.S.- and Canadian-born stars were drafted very high, typically in the first 50 picks.
Take a look at the top position players and pitchers from 2010 when ranked by Fangraphs' Wins Above Replacement, a metric that estimates a player's total value to his team on all sides of the ball. This isn't meant to be a conclusive study, but a quick measure of relevance using the players who, last season, were the top performers in the game. It demonstrates clearly why you should be following the draft if you aren't already doing so.
<OFFER>
Field players
1. Josh Hamilton (8.0 fWAR): Top overall pick in 1999. While it didn't return any value for Tampa Bay because of Hamilton's off-field trouble, I think the fact that he could go three-plus years without facing live pitching, come back and hit at this level speaks to the fact that the Rays took the right player in terms of talent.
2. Joey Votto (7.4): Taken in the second round in 2002 with the 44th overall pick. Votto was a catcher in high school in Toronto, but everyone figured he'd have to move off the position, probably to first base, and the offensive standard for a high school first baseman is very high. (Yes, the Blue Jays had him at our predraft workout that year, but we didn't have him this high on our board.) I think if Votto had grown up in Southern California or Florida, he would have been drafted 10-15 picks higher because scouts would have had more looks at his bat, as with Eric Hosmer, a high school first baseman who went third overall in the 2008 draft.
3. Albert Pujols (7.3): The most famous 13th-round pick ever, 402nd overall, signing for $60,000. Every team now has a story about how it "almost" drafted him -- here's one about the Red Sox -- but the truth is that everyone saw Pujols (who played at the Area Code Games in high school) and had questions about the body, his actual age and the weak competition he faced as an amateur.
4. Ryan Zimmerman (7.2): Fourth overall pick in the loaded 2005 draft, and right now a better value than the three players (Justin Upton, Alex Gordon and Jeff Clement) taken ahead of him.
(No. 5 is Adrian Beltre.)
No. 6Jose Bautista was a 20th Round pick from Chipola Junior College. Almost goes without saying, Bautista's outlier performance in 2010 is the only year he's been on a list like this.
7. Evan Longoria (6.9): Third overall pick in 2006, after Luke Hochevar and Greg Reynolds. In general, the first college position player taken combines both probability and upside, which has certainly been true of Longoria, who was in the majors inside of 22 months after he was drafted.
8. Matt Holliday (6.9): A seventh-round pick in 1998, No. 210 overall, although that reflects Holliday's tough signability rather than his pure ability. Holliday went to high school in Stillwater and was committed to play baseball and football at Oklahoma State, signing for a bonus of $840,000 that was among the 50 biggest bonuses handed out in that draft. Prior to the 1998 draft, Baseball America had Holliday potentially looking for first-round money and noted that he was "a five-tool player with excellent power and arm strength."
9. Carl Crawford (6.9): First pick of the second round in 1999, No. 52 overall. I imagine a player with Crawford's tools would go higher today, with the increased emphasis on defense and positional value; he'd be seen as a surefire center fielder because of his speed, with the thought that he could learn center in time (something that turned out to be false in Crawford's case).
10. Troy Tulowitzki (6.4): The seventh overall pick in 2005; after Zimmerman went fourth, Ryan Braun and Ricky Romero came off the board before Colorado took Tulowitzki, who really should have gone third or sixth even if we don't use the benefit of hindsight. Tulo was on Team USA in the summer of 2004 with Gordon, Clement, Romero, Gordon, Cesar Ramos, Travis Buck, Trevor Crowe and freshman relievers Daniel Bard and Andrew Miller.
(Nos. 11 and 12 are Robinson Cano and Miguel Cabrera.)
13. Rickie Weeks (6.1): The second overall pick in 2003 after Delmon Young, and the first college position player taken. Weeks went that high as an up-the-middle player who was athletic and had (still has) plus-plus bat speed; he's battled injuries and strikeouts, but when healthy he's been extremely productive over the last two seasons.
14. Andres Torres (6.0): Torres' fWAR is an artifact of an unusually high defensive rating, but he was a fourth-round pick in 1998, No. 117 overall, because he could run.
In all, that's five first-rounders, two second-rounders and one player drafted late but paid like a sandwich pick. The next 10 drafted position players in fWAR include first-round or sandwich picks Kelly Johnson, Jay Bruce, Adrian Gonzalez (No. 1 overall in 2000), Chase Utley, Stephen Drew and Joe Mauer (No. 1 overall in 2002), plus second-rounder Brian McCann, for a total of 15 of the top 20 eligible players drafted in the top two rounds.
Pitchers
1. Cliff Lee: Fourth-round pick in 2002 by Montreal out of the University of Arkansas.
2. Roy Halladay: The 17th overall pick in 1995, and the first of two picks in three years by Toronto to eventually win Cy Young Awards.
3. Justin Verlander: Second overall pick in 2004 who worked in the upper 90s as a junior at Old Dominion but didn't have great command.
4. Josh Johnson: Fourth-rounder in 2002 out of Jenks High School in Oklahoma. The 2002 draft was actually high school-heavy in the first round, with prep arms selected third, fourth and fifth overall, each of whom eventually blew their arms out. The prep arm taken sixth appears later on this list, and the first round also included high school arms Cole Hamels, Matt Cain and Scott Kazmir. Johnson wasn't as polished but had the projectability and a very sharp slider, and the Marlins have long shown a predilection for players from Oklahoma.
(Nos. 5 and 6 are Ubaldo Jimenez and Felix Hernandez.)
7. Adam Wainwright: First-rounder in 2000, 29th overall.
(8. Francisco Liriano)
9. Jered Weaver. First-round pick in 2004, 12th overall, in a year when he and Stephen Drew both fell on signability concerns (with the Padres taking Matt F. Bush first overall because they didn't want to pay up for either college player).
10. Jon Lester. A second-round pick in 2002, 57th overall, 13 picks after Votto, and the last prep pitcher the Red Sox would take in the first round until they ended up with Casey Kelly in 2008.
11. Zack Greinke. A bit controversial as the sixth overall pick in 2002, but I think his Cy Young Award and three-year run before he was dealt has more than justified the selection.
12. Tim Lincecum. Tenth overall in 2006, behind college starters Greg Reynolds and Brandon Morrow, although I'm guessing Colorado and Seattle are tired of having that pointed out to them by now.
13. CC Sabathia. Twentieth overall in 1998.
So seven of the top 10 drafted pitchers last year were first-rounders, along with a second-rounder and two fourth-round picks. The next 10 include first-rounders or sandwich picks Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Colby Lewis and David Price (No. 1 overall in 2007), plus second-rounders Yovani Gallardo and Dan Haren.
There is no question that every draft class will have its significant busts, even the loaded class we're seeing for this year's draft. There are plenty of ways a top draft prospect's career can find itself off the rails, from poor plate discipline to injuries to insoluble mechanical problems to lack of physical development. And yet with all of those risk factors, we still find that the vast majority of impact players who enter pro ball through the draft were selected in the top two rounds. (It holds true in earlier years as well; a quick look at the 2008 fWAR leaderboard, for example, has different names but also high picks like David Wright, Lance Berkman, Chipper Jones, Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran, Nick Markakis, Dustin Pedroia and Alex Rodriguez.)
If the draft was actually a "crapshoot," you wouldn't find this year-in, year-out concentration of talent at the top, but that just demonstrates that scouts are identifying the right players and that any serious fan of the game who wants to know about tomorrow's stars needs to pay attention to the draft as well.
