There was a lot of talk in 2013, both in our articles and in the Game Chatters, about the relative strength and weaknesses of the Mets’ drafting in the recent past, specifically the results of the drafts by Omar Minaya and Sandy Alderson. It’s too soon to pass final judgment on Alderson’s drafts and some of Minaya’s, too. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to understand what makes for a good pick.
It’s important to understand context. If you hear that the Mets had six players from their 1969 Draft make the majors – it’s impossible to know if that’s a good or bad total without knowing what the other teams in that era did. And in addition to the raw total, you would want to know other things, like what kind of impact did those players have once they did reach the majors.
Since we talked so much about Alderson’s top draft picks, I limited my study to first-round picks. Since I wanted to look at Alderson & Minaya, I decided that it was best to focus on more recent picks, so I started with the 2000 Draft. I decided to stop once a draft pick from that class made his major league debut in 2013.
In the 2000 Draft, the last first rounder to make his MLB debut was Luis Montanez, who finally reached the majors in 2008. With this as my guide, it wasn’t until the 2007 Draft that we had a player make his MLB debut in 2013. Last year Chris Withrow, the 20th overall pick, finally made the bigs. It was a good debut for anyone – 2.60 ERA, 0.952 WHIP, 3.31 K/BB ratio in 34.2 IP – but it was especially good for someone who spent parts of seven seasons in the minors.
So, there is eight years worth of data, with a sample of 240 players. While none of these players are from the time period in which Alderson is drafting, it seems reasonably close from which to make inferences.
One of the biggest differences between Alderson and Minaya is that Alderson has taken three high school players with his three first-round picks, while Minaya was much more likely to take a college product. Was there any difference in the success rate of high school versus college picks?
There’s no one way to describe a successful pick. For simplicity sake, here a successful pick is defined as reaching the majors. At the bare minimum, you want your first-round pick to make the majors. With that as our background, 176 of the 240 first-round picks in the 2000-2007 Drafts made the majors. That’s 73% of the time.
So, how did Minaya do? He oversaw the drafts for six seasons and had four first-round picks. Three of those four reached the majors, so he was right about average in this respect. While it’s beyond what we will discuss in detail today, those three picks – Mike Pelfrey, Ike Davis and Matt Harvey – have all contributed more than just a cup of coffee and have already combined for 17.6 bWAR. So, it’s likely these Minaya picks are even more valuable than three “average” first-round picks.
All four of Minaya’s first-round picks were college selections. How does his 75% success rate compare to our 240-player sample in this regard? Here’s a chart breaking down the selections by the level from which they were drafted:
| HS | JuCo | College | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Drafted | 112 | 3 | 125 |
| Made MLB | 74 | 2 | 100 |
| Percent Made | 66 | 67 | 80 |
We see that the average is for 80% of first-round picks in our sample that were picked out of college to make the majors. Minaya was right around average when we consider the level he selected. Furthermore, we would expect two out of the three first-round picks that Alderson has made to reach the majors. If given the chance to wager, back Brandon Nimmo and Dominic Smith.
Another thing we discussed was how long a top pick should spend in the minors before making it to the show. Here’s how our 176 players who made the majors traveled to the show. First let’s look at the high school draftees:
| HS | HS+1 | HS+2 | HS+3 | HS+4 | HS+5 | HS+6 | HS+7/8 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||
| 2001 | 1 | 3 | 1 | |||||
| 2002 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 2003 | 3 | 4 | ||||||
| 2004 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 1 | |||
| 2005 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 2006 | 2 | 3 | 2 | |||||
| 2007 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 1 | |||
| Total | 11 | 18 | 27 | 7 | 8 | 3 |
This chart can be a little tricky to read. Let’s start with the first row of data. In the year 2000, no high school player made the majors in the year he was drafted or the year after he was drafted. There was one player who made the majors two years after he was drafted – Joe Borchard, who made his MLB debut in 2002.
In our sample, the most common year for a high school pick to debut in the majors is four years after he’s drafted. Four years after he was drafted would put Nimmo on pace to debut in 2015. However, it’s likely that due to his lack of experience and the Mets taking things slowly with him, that if he makes the majors it will be in five or more years after he was drafted. Meanwhile, 76% of high school players in our sample who made the majors did so by four years after their draft season.
Now let’s run the same chart for the college draftees.
| C | C+1 | C+2 | C+3 | C+4 | C+5 | C+6 | C+7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | ||||
| 2001 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| 2002 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 1 | ||||
| 2003 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 2004 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 2005 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 1 | ||
| 2006 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | |||
| 2007 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | |||
| Total | 8 | 14 | 36 | 18 | 18 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
Surprisingly, at least to me, was that the most common debut for first-round college picks was two years after they were drafted. Here’s how Minaya’s college picks did in this regard:
Pelfrey – drafted in ’05, made his debut in ‘06
Davis – drafted in ’08, made his debut in ‘10
Harvey – drafted in ’10, made his debut in ‘12
It’s hard to see any reason to be upset with Minaya’s draft picks here.
While the most common debut was two years after his draft season, there were still plenty of college guys making the majors in year three and year four. However, a college first-round pick who does not make the bigs after four years faces long odds. Just looking at the pool of guys who made the majors, 94% did so by that fourth season after being drafted. Looking at all of the college first round picks, there were 31 who did not appear in the majors four years after they were drafted. Of those, only six (19.4%) went on to spend any time in the bigs.
When 2008 first-round pick Reese Havens did not get a call to the majors by the end of the 2012 season, our sample suggests there was only a 19% chance that he ever would become a major leaguer. He didn’t get the call last season and just recently he announced his retirement.
Regardless of whether they were drafted out of high school or college, most players in our sample who made the majors did so by the fourth season after they were drafted. Of the 176 players to make the majors, 151 did so by that time frame, including one of the two junior college players in our sample not detailed in either chart above. That’s just under 86%. If we expand it to five years, the numbers rise to 161 and 91.5%.
This is why it’s so frustrating to see the Alderson-era Mets have their guys spend two years in short-season leagues. It’s fine to spend the year you were drafted in rookie-ball – that’s how you get acclimated to professional baseball. But to spend any more time there is a giant drag on your chances to reach the majors.
Nimmo has already spent one year after he was drafted in a short-season league and one year in Lo-A. Two years after he was drafted and he hasn’t spent one minute in Hi-A or above ball. The best-case scenario for him is to spend 2014 splitting time between Hi-A and Double-A and 2015 making the Double-A, Triple-A, majors route. It’s not impossible but it’s extremely unlikely.
It was bad enough with Nimmo, but at least it could be excused because he came from a state with no high school baseball program. But it was very disappointing to see the same slow play with Gavin Cecchini, who was selected in no small part due to the overall polish of his game. If the Mets send Dominic Smith to Brooklyn instead of Savannah this year, it will be maddening.
Recall that 73% of our sample made the majors. Of those 240 players, 19 spent parts of their first two seasons in short-season leagues. Only six of those made the majors. So, instead of 73%, our success ratio drops all the way to 32%. But both Nimmo and Cecchini spent all of their first post-draft season in rookie ball. Only eight players in our sample did that and only one ever made the majors.
The only player to do that was Phil Dumatrait, the 22nd pick of the 2000 Draft. A lefty, Dumatrait appeared in 87 games over four seasons in the majors. He was 4-13 with a 6.20 ERA and a 1.694 WHIP. While he made the majors, he amassed a (-1.4) bWAR, hardly the stuff that inspires others to follow his career path.
Of course, past performance does not guarantee future results. There’s nothing written in stone that says Nimmo and Cecchini are doomed to failure. But at the same time it’s hard to look at the recent past and be inspired by the results. First-round picks are the best of the best and they should be treated accordingly. And first-round picks should not spend two full years in short-season ball.
I hope to look at other things from this sample. If there’s anything you’re curious about – let me know in the comments section.
This is great Brian. I really never had a problem with Omar’s drafts. It’s not an exact science in any sport, but baseball is seems to be the toughest to pinpoint talent once you get into the later rounds.
I would be curious to know how many of the high school picks that came up after 2 or 3 years were pitchers.
OK – I’ll get that in the next one.
Very interesting stuff Brian.
Some of my thoughts/nitpicking:
Like you mentioned earlier, the barometer for success you used in this discussion is probably quite low compared to most people’s expectations of a 1st round pick. It would be interesting (although probably painful to gather data) to see a study done with a higher standard.
In addition, it would be interesting to see studies done on later rounds as it seems like 99% of any draft discussion is on the 1st round (though that may be because after the top picks it’s pretty much a crapshoot).
Although this would probably only apply to a small subset of the group, how many of those players made to the major leagues on a team that didn’t draft for them, sign them in minor league FA, or trade for them? (AKA like Josh Hamilton) This would probably be more relevant if you were using WAR to judge a player’s success to the team that drafted them.
Finally, one tidbit we have to remember when comparing Minaya/Alderson are the new rules there were implemented in 2012, the second year of we have to take into considering the new set of rules that Alderson have been drafting in. It remains to be seen if there is or will be an affect on drafting strategies or signings. To my naked eye, it seems like signability seems like less of an issue and the biggest change is that draftees get signed much earlier, which means they could get that extra 1-2 months to play in the minors and get used to pro ball.
I can certainly do a higher standard. The main issue is that several of the careers are still on-going and people may not have had time to reach the standard.
It was a bunch of work just to do the first round. I can’t imagine doing later rounds.
I’m not understanding your Josh Hamilton query. It would be easy enough to look for guys who were drafted by one team and made the majors with another. Is that what you’re asking?
The interesting thing about signability is that there were far fewer 1st round picks that didn’t sign than I would have guessed. Also, it used to be common for guys to sign too late to play the year they were drafted. Those who missed that initial taste of pro ball did not really suffer. It was a much bigger deal to miss a year due to injury that happened after the year you were drafted.
One of the problems i see when using higher standards is how much of a player’s career are you going to count towards the GM that draft him. X number of years after being drafted? X number of years after making MLB debut? Only if they play for the team that drafted them?
Here are some cases to consider:
Josh Hamilton was drafted by the Rays. He never played a game for them. He became great when he was picked up by the Reds on a minor league deal. Should the Rays GM get credit for drafting Hamilton?
An example of someone traded is Andrew Miller. Drafted by the Tigers, traded to the Marlins and stunk, then traded to the Red Sox, stunk the first year and now finally blossomed as a reliever in his 7th year in the big leagues. 5.79 ERA in 359 IP to start his career, 3.04 ERA in 71 IP in last 2 years. How much of his career do we evaluate towards the GM who drafted him? Typically a team has 6 years of control on a player, so do we just count the stats from the first 6 years.
As for the signability issue, i was referring more to the fact that a player might slip from the 1st round to the 2nd round due to issues with signability.
Regarding this, I have a question about your data gathering. Did you look at picks 1-30 for each 8 drafts, or did you look at the top 30 picks who signed? If it’s the former, here is a list top 30 picks who didn’t sign.
00: #7-Matt Harrington
01: #20-Jeremy Sowers
#27-Alan Horne.
02: #38- John Mayberry Jr.
04: #8-Wade Townsend
08: #9-Aaron Crow
#26-Gerrit Cole
It’s only 7 players, an average of 1 player per draft not signing, but it doesn’t change your numbers too much.
I think when you’re grading the drafts of GMs you want to focus as much as you can on talent identification. Now, it’s frequently impossible to separate talent ID from development. The guy who gets drafted in one org and flowers in another org – especially after scuffling in his initial one – might be one of the few cases where we can.
The GM (through his scouts) correctly identified a talented player. I don’t know why we wouldn’t want to credit him for that.
Of course, you would ding him in other areas — development and trading away an asset — but I think that’s beyond what we’re trying to do here.
Now, I would make an exception for guys drafted who the org doesn’t sign and then the player goes onto success elsewhere. It seems to me drafting and signing go hand in hand in this exercise. YMMV
“I think when you’re grading the drafts of GMs you want to focus as much as you can on talent identification”
It seems to me that this statement contradicts with the sentiment of your original article. Perhaps you’ve had a change of opinion, but the original piece that you wrote seems like an analysis of the development phase rather than the ID phase.
My belief is that every 1st rounder that is chosen is “talented”, and there’s no reason to give out any extra credit to the GM for identifying a player beyond the fact that the scouting department is doing what it’s being paid to do. In other words, I think it’s pretty uncommon for a first round pick to fail because they lacked talent (or perceived talent) at the time they were picked.
I’m shocked that a guy who roots for a team that took Lee May, Chris Donnels, Dave Proctor, Alan Zinter, Al Shirley, Chris Roberts, Ryan Jaroncyk, Rob Stratton, Billy Traber, Lastings Milledge and Philip Humber on the first round thinks that talent identification doesn’t play a big role in the success of first-round picks. All of those guys had 1.0 bWAR or fewer in their MLB careers and that list doesn’t even include guys like Kirk Presley or Geoff Goetz or Reese Havens who flopped in part due to injuries
Look at the three first-round picks that Alderson took. All of those were considered first-round talents. Now, if the Mets didn’t take Nimmo or Cecchini or Smith, would they have gone with the next few picks? It’s doubtful. They probably go in the first round but my take is they go much later. And how many teams do you think you could say that for? A lot of times there’s some unanimity of opinion on the first couple of picks – but not always. The Twins were hammered for taking Joe Mauer instead of Mark Prior. The Pirates went through a spell where many of their high first-round picks were questioned. The Padres took Matt Bush.
If Gavin Cecchini fails to be a decent MLB player – that’s on Alderson for drafting a guy who enough people thought wouldn’t hit. Why take a guy like that with the 12th overall pick?
I don’t think you can just throw your hands up in the air and say they’re all talented. I’m not saying that player development does not factor into things. But my opinion is that more cases than not when a high draft pick fizzles out by not making the majors or having minimal success in the majors, the blame falls on the lack of MLB talent/motivation of the player and not the org.
The flip side of that is that GMs deserve credit when their picks pan out. Minaya should receive props for succeeding with Matt Harvey, a college RHP, when the team in front of him took Barret Loux, a college righthander. Four picks later another college RHP was selected in Deck McGuire.
I’m too young to know most of those names, and while we don’t have any of the internal scouting reports at the time of the draft, here are some tidbits I found on the players I do recognize.
Lasting Milledge-Prior to the 2003 amateur draft, he was expected to be among the top three selections (from wikipedia)
Billy Traber- “he was First-Team All-American and West Coast Conference Player of the Year…In 2002, Traber was runner-up minor league pitcher of the year” (from Wiki)
Phillip Humber- Had an impressive college resume.
These guys were high in the eyes of some scout and clearly were very talented among their peers *at the time of their draft*. This doesn’t mean that they’ll continue to be more talented than their peers throughout the rest of their career – people develop at different paces with some peaking early and others peaking later. I consider all that part of the development phase, but I can see the other viewpoint where the ability to identify whether a player will continue to develop/have motivation as identification.
I think that if someone like Cecchini fails, it won’t be because he is lacking talent (as you said he was deserving of 1st round), but rather because he didn’t develop enough while in the minor league system or because of injuries-which is the other main reason why prospects fail. While i don’t doubt his talent level, that this doesn’t mean that I think that he was the best pick for the Alderson and the Mets to make. That is a completely different question and different discussion.
So yes, i do throw my hands up in the air and do accept that all 1st rounders are talented. There’s no reason for me not to believe in this day in age that all 30 MLB teams have top-notch scouting departments, and because they even have help from hundreds of fan amatuer scouts due to the internet and info age.
Well yeah, you don’t know those names because they were terrible picks.
Between Lee May and Phil Humber, the Mets had 20 first-round picks. Eight never reached the majors, five had a bWAR beneath 1.0, three had a bWAR between 1.0 and 2.5 and the success stories were Kazmir, Long, Preston Wilson and Burnitz.
I just don’t believe that if another organization had picked and developed Lee May, Chris Donnels, Dave Proctor, Alan Zinter, Al Shirley, Chris Roberts, Ryan Jaroncyk, Rob Stratton, Billy Traber, Lastings Milledge and Philip Humber that their stories would be significantly different in any meaningful numbers.
I get that they’re all stars on Draft Day. My take is that the reasons they don’t develop into big league players are due to the failures of scouting, not development. Maybe you don’t take a football guy on the first round (Shirley), maybe you don’t take a HS shortstop with zero power (Jaroncyk), maybe you don’t take a guy who can hit the ball a mile but who can’t make contact (Stratton), maybe you don’t take pitchers from Rice (Humber), maybe you don’t take guys because their father was a star in MLB (May).
The bottom line for me is if your top draft picks aren’t panning out and you think it might be due to the fact that your player development system may not be the best – then start taking the best college player who requires the least amount of development!
Donnels, Proctor, Zinter, Burnitz, Roberts, Paul Wilson, Tyner, Traber, Heilman and Humber were all college picks and most of them bombed. They had more success with their HS guys — Kazmir, Long and Preston Wilson were all prep picks.
Humber was the last pick before Minaya took over. I don’t think it’s coincidence that under Steve Phillips the Mets had five first-round picks and only one of them delivered a bWAR over 5 (Kazmir) while the Mets had four under Minaya and three of them have cleared that hurdle and are still playing – and the fourth got injured.
I think they just made better picks.
This is what i think are main difference.
You consider the ability to see whether a player’s skills will develop and translate on a higher level of play as something that is “scoutable”.
I do not think that such an ability exists. My reasoning? Proof by contradiction. If this ability did exist, we would have scouts with an excellent track record. If this person existed, he would probably be the highest paid man in MLB. Since he doesn’t exist, this ability must not exist. Hence, why i think that the draft is mostly a crapshoot.
As for comparing GM’s, for the most part we have tiny sample sizes. Phillips has a sample size of 5, Minaya 4. If one more of Phillips guy had reached 5 WAR and 1 less for Minaya, their success rates are pretty much the same. Just like for player stats, huge variances can occur when you have small sample sizes. Too bad we don’t have a BABIP or FIP for drafting 😛
I strongly disagree that we don’t have scouts with excellent track records.
As I see it, there are two issues at stake:
1. What’s a good percentage? Nobody at this point knows, at least not those of us not employed by MLB. Is it three out of 10, like getting hits? Maybe, I don’t pretend to know the answer. What I do know is that in one four-year stretch the White Sox drafted Jack McDowell, Robin Ventura, Frank Thomas and Alex Fernandez with their first-round pick. They got 186.6 bWAR out of those four picks.
Between 2003 and 2012, the Cardinals have had 10 first-round picks make the majors despite not having a pick lower than 13.
Between 1999 and 2008, the Brewers had nine out of 10 first-round picks make the majors, including Brett Lawrie, Ryan Braun, Rickie Weeks, Prince Fielder and Ben Sheets.
Look at the Pirates. Years and years they had high draft picks and they kept missing. J.J. Davis (8), Clint Johnston (15), Bobby Bradley (8), John Van Benschoten (8), Bryan Bullington (1), Brad Lincoln (4), Daniel Moskos (4). Then a new regime comes in and gets Pedro Alvarez, Jameson Taillon, Gerrit Cole and Mark Appel. I just don’t think that’s a coincidence.
2. Who’s keeping track of scouts and who they sign? Or who’s keeping track of cross-checkers and scouting directors? If there was no ability to differentiate between high-profile amateur talent, then no one would be interested in hiring another team’s scouts or farm director or GM. But we know that’s not true. Jack Z was scouting director for Milwaukee when they had their big run and he got hired by Seattle.
Since Jack Z. took over in Seattle, they’ve drafted Nick Franklin, Dustin Ackley, Taijuan Walker, Danny Hultzen and Mike Zunino. Meanwhile, none of the Brewers top draft picks since Jack Z. left have made the majors yet.
Several (sorry, I don’t know the exact number) of the Cardinals scouts were recently hired by Houston, including Jeff Luhnow, who took over as GM. Before they raided St. Louis, the Astros had this collection of first-round picks: Robert Stiehl, Chris Burke, Derrick Grigsby, Brian Bogusevich, Maxwell Sapp, Jason Castro and Jiovanni Mier. One hit in Castro and a lot of garbage. No wonder they were looking to steal someone else’s scouting department.
Shoot, Whitey Herzog built up the Mets’ farm system in the late 60s and early 70s and he went on to success elsewhere while the Mets’ farm system went into the tank after he left. The Mets farm system didn’t recover until Frank Cashen was brought on as GM. The same guy who played a key role in Baltimore’s success. The Mets went from drafting Cliff Speck, Butch Benton and Tom Thurberg to Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden.
So, yeah – I see good scouting as crucial to a team’s success in the draft.
I feel like we’re taking 2 different approaches here. You’re looking at it through a results-based approach, which is the topic of this article, while I seem to have veered off into a more philosophical discussion regarding causation, which is probably not what you wanted o discuss so I apologize for that.
Since we are a results-based society, the method you identified is totally acceptable. Since the GM is the one in charge and making the decisions, he is the person most responsible for said player , and therefore should get credit for the player turning out well, even if my viewpoint is that they have little control over the final outcome.
No need to apologize – I’ve enjoyed our discussion.
I found this article online which you might enjoy. It’s talking to HS baseball players and it’s an overview of pro scouting.
http://www.hsbaseballweb.com/pro-scouting/scouting_ranks.htm
Just a point about signability of first round picks: Toronto, I believe purposely drafted a player they couldn’t sign so that they would obtain a compensation pick this year. What are the thoughts on that?
While I have no horse in this race, I found your article very interesting indeed. One question I have surrounds the picks that were not made, for example passing on Michael Wacha in 2012 or Jose Fernandez, Sonny Gray, or Kolton Wong in lieu of Brandon Nimmo in 2011.
Editor’s Note – Capitals Chris, really?
It’s easy to pick out mistakes in hindsight. I don’t know anyone who was claiming the Mets should pick Fernandez at the time. However, I do know one guy who suggested Wacha
Capitals?
Original post typed on an ipad2 with iOS, not in capitals. When it first came up in the thread, I didn’t see any caps.
Brian, an excellent article and research.
The results indicate that it is safer to draft a college player over a high school player. It is more cost effective to draft a college player becauses on average a team only pays for two years development before reaping rewards. The “theory” is that even though high school players are a greater risk, they will have more impact. The Minaya draft picks indicate that this theory is more a myth but more research is necessary to disprove it.
Alderson is lauded for keeping costs down but he appears to be taking the more expensive and riskier route in his draft picking. He compounds this by his conservative approach concerning minor league promotions. In similar fashion, the imposed innings limit also impedes pitching development. (This also is an unproven theory with Harvey debunking it with his injury). Alderson’s drafts indicate to me that his conservatism and initial approach is not cost effective and should be reevaluated by the front office.
The baseball draft is so difficult to predict. I never had an issue with Minaya or Aldersons picks. It’s not like basketball or football where there is a certain level of predictability. Interesting article.