Drafting Position Players for Longevity

by Toddius on Apr 28, 2008 3:07 PM EDT

My last post took a look at the draft position of pitchers among the active leaders in innings pitched. This post will look at position players based on their total plate appearances. I say "active" with the perameter being active as of last year.

To the two-three people who read the last post;), recall that just 3 of the top 25 in innings pitched were 1st round draft picks. This is a sharp contrast with the findings of this post. 12 of the top 25 players in at bats were 1st rounders, while 6 were undrafted free agents. 3 were not first round picks but were picked in the first 5 rounds, while the four remaining players went in rounds 13-20. While this backs up my perception that the draft is largely a crapshoot, I believe that this suggests (mildly) that position players tend to be safer picks than pitchers with early picks. This is, admittedly, a very small sample size and questionable use of statistics. At bats, like innings pitched, does not prove how good a player is/was. It does prove that these players were good enough to garner playing time for a number of years. I think a long career in the major leagues represents a quality pick.

I did not gather as much information for this post, but here are the players and their round drafted, based on total plate appearances in their respective order:

1. Barry Bonds, 1st round

2. Craig Biggio, 1st round

3. Omar Vizquel, undrafted FA

4. Steve Finely, 13th round

5. Ken Griffey, Jr., 1st round

6. Gary Sheffield, 1st round

7. Luis Gonzalez, 4th round

8. Sammy Sosa, Un-FA

9. Frank Thomas, 1st

10. Julio Franco, un-FA

11. Kenny Lofton, 17th round

12. Jeff Kent, 20th round

13. Ivan Rodriguez, un-FA

14. Ruben Sierra, un-FA

15. Alex Rodriguez, 1st round

16. Jim Thome, 13th round

17. Derek Jeter, 1st round

18. Manny Ramirez, 1st round

19. Johnny Damon, 1st round

20. Chipper Jones, 1st round

21. Royce Clayton, 1st round

22. Ray Durham, 5th round

23. Garrett Anderson, 4th round

24. Carlos Delgado, un-FA

25. Moises Alou, 1st round

I was personally surprised to see Royce Clayton on this list. I guess the ability to play SS at the major league level will get you to the plate quite a few times.

So there you go. Take it for what you will. Once again, it proves nothing, but I think it is relevant when deciding whether to take a risk on a high upside pitcher who is far away or a high upside position player. I did not list the HS/college ratio the way I did with the pitchers.

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On a side note

I’ve long wondered why teams, especially crap teams like the Royals, don’t scrap paying mediocrities like Gil Meche and Reggie Sanders and Gruzielanek that aren’t going to help them contend and just blow their top on the draft.

This is just a recent example but it’s actually realistic in that I was in fact saying this at the time (albeit for a different purpose, I was coming up with better uses for the money the Cubs spent on Samardzija…just for ‘06 and throwing out examples for what could happen in ‘07/’08/’09, such a dumb contract on the Shark): in the ‘06 draft, why didn’t some bad team go out and spend on Matt LaPorta and Kyle Gibson. LaPorta was coming off a disappointing injury affected junior season, but had anyone seen him in his sophomore campaign you knew he was legit. Light. Tower. Power. Gibson was a rail thin guy already hitting 90 with awesome command and a very good slider.

Neither were drafted ahead of any real prospects (14th and 35th round) and would’ve cost a combined ~2 million at the time if you gave them exactly what they wanted and didn’t even negotiate. 2 years later LaPorta is simply a monster though he’s blocked with Fielder/Braun at the big club and Gibson is an early candidate to go to the top the ‘08 draft. Obviously it isn’t going to work out that well every time, but if you do your homework that type of spending HAS to be a better investment than throwing 2 mil at John Bale. What is the risk? That you lose out on some big league scrub’s production over a replacement player? I don’t get it…

With no evidence to the contrary, Colby Rasmus is clutch

by joker24 on Apr 28, 2008 3:41 PM EDT reply actions

interesting...

This is basically exactly what the Tigers did to revive their franchise, but a lot of those players they chose ended up getting traded away for high priced talent like Sheffield, Cabrera, Magglio, etc. So, they sunk bonus money into those kids they drafted, then traded them away for proven veteran talent that they had to sign for big bucks—if you’re Kansas City, this model doesn’t work because you don’t have situation where you’re going to be able to support a top 5 payroll.

Also, there is a draft advantage, especially now, of signing a free agent like Sanders or Grudz for one year or so. If you can deal them at the deadline to team that’s making a playoff push, you can pick up a draft pick or a decent prospect for that guy, and if he signs with another team at the end of the year, you can get sandwich pick for him if he’s a type A. Like the Cards having a sandwich pick this year because of the reclamation project Percival, or the reason that Kenny Lofton seems to keep finding work at the beginning of the year and then getting traded.

Another reason this strategy doesn’t work is that there’s only so many picks you can get in any one draft that are high enough to make a difference. The problem is that they reach the big leagues at different times and by the time they start to jell as teammates, one of them is headed into free agency and about to get paid big bucks, so he gets traded at the deadline or they lose him in the next offseason because they can’t afford him. If K.C. had Damon, Beltran, Billy Butler, Alex Gordon, and David DeJesus along with Jermaine Dye (who came over in a trade with Atlanta), they’d have a pretty serviceable ballclub this season with guy’s that they drafted.

Also, look at the flameout rate for players taken by KC in the top 5 rounds of the June draft going back to 1992—it’s a fairly high flameout rate, but probably not any more than any other team. The draft has a lot more to do with luck and great scouting than it does with going after paying players large bonuses.

(I agree on Samardzija—seems like a pick that had a lot more to do with public perception than anything else.)

"I just wish that the late Harry Caray were still around so I could hear him mispronounce 'Kosuke Fukudome' every fukun' night" -- Dennis Miller

by fourstick on Apr 28, 2008 4:53 PM EDT up reply actions

Undrafted free Agents

Does this highlight that the Hispanic countries that provide talent to MLB were (are) poorly scouted and that more money spent there can yield bigger draft returns? I looked up each one of these guys and they were all born outside of US.

Or has this loophole already been closed in recent years with better scouting?

looks like a Moneyball special.

by The Duke on Apr 28, 2008 7:31 PM EDT reply actions

Scouting

I think scouting has become very competitive in Latin American countries. You don’t always know what you get, but the Cards are invested in several countries.

by Toddius on Apr 29, 2008 1:11 AM EDT up reply actions

I happen to think the best non drafted Latin American find happened to be the Cubs with

Carlos Zambrano. He’s been a pretty good pitcher for a long time; looks like he’ll continue on for a long time. I know you are talking position players, but man, they sure found themselves a diamond…...

She isn't crazy, she's just not impressed.

by jillsinmo on Apr 29, 2008 6:10 PM EDT up reply actions