Drafting Minor League Players

by prhood on Jan 4, 2006 8:22 AM EST

I'm going to be participating in a draft of players designated as "Minor League" players. The designation is based upon the the following criteria:

Hitters: have less than 54 games or 150 AB
Pitchers: have less than 10 GS or 50 IP

I'm drafting 10th (and 31st) and need to rank the top players available. For my purposes it is desirable but not essential that they be MLB ready in 2006. My rankings for the top 10 players are:

Francisco Liriano - potential #1/2 SP
Jeremy Hermida - starter in 06
Delmon Young - probable starter in 06 but where
Matt Cain - potential #1 SP
Stephen Drew - probable 07 arrival
Ian Stewart - probable 07 arrival
Alex Gordon - probable 07 arrival
Chad Billingsley potential #1 SP
Billy Butler - probable 07 arrival
Andy Marte - probable 07 arrival
Brandon Wood - probable 07 arrival

As you can see I tend to rank SPs probably a little too high - but both Liriano and Cain appear to have great potential in a thin area.

Excluded are Felix Hernandez, BJ Upton and Zach Duke who do not qualify and Justin Upton who has not yet signed with his mlb team and hence is not eligible for our draft.

Your comments on the rankings would be appreciated in terms of the relative positions I have asssigned and any players who have been ommitted that should be included.

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Advice

Brandon Wood needs to move up to atleast number 5. Other than that, your list looks fine.

I would say this to you. When I was younger I drafted pitchers high too. It's taken me about 10 years to realize that drafting pitchers is very risky. Maybe 1 in 10 actually hit their potential or hype. I think you should draft offensive guys. Just load up on offensive players. They will have a higher success rate and you can trade them for good pitching in the future, if you need to.

It's better to be top heavy with offense than pitchers. But, that's a hard lesson to learn and you might not want to accept that yet. Pitchers are more exciting I think.

by grandslam on Jan 4, 2006 8:34 AM EST reply actions

Actually

I more or less followed this strategy in 2005, my first in fantasy baseball. Finished 1st in hitting categories and quite low in pitching. I'm trying to strike a better balance this time around.

We have a 6 round draft 920 team league) of mlb players underway - I draft 11th and took Sheets contrary to plans because Santana, Peavy and Harden were all picked ahead of me.With my remaining 5 picks I plan to get hitters with the my 2nd, 3rd and 5th round picks, a top RP with the 4th rounder and either another SP or hitter with the 6th round pick. Again how others pick will dictate my timing.

The minor draft is 17 rounds - i was hoping to get about 10 hitters, 5 SP and 2 RP. Again other selections will dictate when each gets. i would prefer to use the 1st round to target someone like Hermida/Gordon/Stewart. Don't think Young will last to #10.

by prhood on Jan 4, 2006 9:53 AM EST up reply actions

Take Hitters First

I did a statistical study of baseball america top 100 prospects for the years 1990-1994 and found the following:

top hitting prospects tend to be top players, while lower hitting prospects tend to be lesser players. There is a direct correlation between ranking and performance. A top 10 prospect has about a 10% chance of having HOF credentials (as measured by the baseballreference.com HOF meter) and a 24% chance of being a full time regular or star. So you have about a 1/3 chance of getting a very good hitter out of the top ten. You then see a fairly linear trend downward to 0% HOF, 6% full time towards the bottom of the rankings.
pitching prospects tend to be much more of a crapshoot. They are more prone to injuries and more difficult to scout. There is always a lower ranked pitcher that jumps to the top the next year. A top ten pitcher has about a 5% chance at a HOF career and about a 5% chance to be a regular or star. You then see a fairly flat trend, fewer HOFers but a slight increase regulardom.

So if I were drafting I would take my 10 hitters first, or at least select hitters until all of my top hitting prospects were gone and then take my pitchers. Steve Avery, Todd Van Poppel and Brien Taylor were all top, can't miss pitching prospects, but Kevin Appier (86, 1990),Rob Nenn (86, 1991), and Billy Wagner (78, 1994) would have been better picks.

by LindInMoskva on Jan 4, 2006 10:23 AM EST up reply actions

Thanks

That's an interesting set of results and I agree with the basic conclusions. If I can sort of strategize my drafting, it would go something like: 1st: Hitter, 2nd SP, 3rd-5th Hitters, 6th SP/RP, 7th-9th hitters, 10th SP, etc.

I expect to be able to get SP in the 2nd and perhaps in the 6th rounds who have some, albeit limited, mlb experience which reduces the crapshot element to some degree. To me the risk, based on the their mlb performance, associated with selecting Liriano or Cain is only marginally higher than selecting someone like Woods or Butler and either would be excellent 2nd round picks. Having said that I don't expect either to be around when I pick in the 2nd round with #30.

by prhood on Jan 4, 2006 10:36 AM EST up reply actions

Would love to know more about this...

This is a very interesting thought. I'd be interested in seeing more of your research. The idea sounds right.

3Rivers, United League of Moderate Gamers | Writer, Minor Details | Writer, Independent Thinking

by rockies73 on Jan 4, 2006 3:28 PM EST up reply actions

920 team league?

Good lord. I thought 30 was big :-)

3Rivers, United League of Moderate Gamers | Writer, Minor Details | Writer, Independent Thinking

by rockies73 on Jan 4, 2006 3:27 PM EST up reply actions

Good God

No latitude for this of us born with over-sized fingers I see and a poor ability to hold the shift key down. :)

by prhood on Jan 4, 2006 7:55 PM EST up reply actions

Brandon Wood

Wood has yet to play much above A-Ball, and in the California League at that; if being major league ready has any significance then Wood shouldnt be much higher than the bottom of the top 10.

by sanchez101 on Jan 4, 2006 2:37 PM EST up reply actions

Great

Great. It sounds like your game is tight. I really think Brandon Wood is going to be a rock star at shortstop. I think you should move him up to 5.

by grandslam on Jan 4, 2006 10:12 AM EST reply actions

Jojima

You might consider throwing Kenji Jojima in your top 10 somewhere. He should be a bigger contributor next year than most of those guys. I'd also personally drop each of the pitching prospects a few spots - just too much of a crapshoot (as stated before), and it usually takes pitchers longer than hitters to get their fantasy 'legs'.

I wouldn't count on Young coming up in '06 until relatively late in the season, unless or until Huff gets traded. I also suspect that Drew will be up sometime this year and not in 07. Finally, You may want to seriously consider putting Carlos Quentin ahead of Butler and/or Gordon, who will be coming up a year later and will be less well-rounded statistically.

Without knowing your scoring system or your team's needs, and favoring guys who will be ready sooner, I'd say:

Hermida
Drew
Young
Liriano
Jojima
Stewart
Wood
Quentin
Marte
Cain
Gordon

by Brickhaus on Jan 4, 2006 2:04 PM EST reply actions

ballpark

I think you should consider Marte and Quentin because they are ready to play now and they will be in very hitting friendly ballparks.

by sanchez101 on Jan 4, 2006 2:38 PM EST reply actions

one opinion.

warning: i am a severe, slugger-loving anti-pitcher fascist, which you appear not to be.

i was in a very similar draft recently. i was pick #4. your top 3 were the first top 3 to go, although it went hermida-young-liriano.

i took butler. i realize this is controversial, i just think he's going to be gignautic. i know that isn't a word, but i'm still predicting it.

it was a very tough call between him and wood, and gordon might have been in the argument except he's played so little i thought i might be able to sneak him through to the second round. (didn't work.)

rankings obviously depend on your scoring system, how long you get to keep, how long you want to wait, etc. my top 12-ish ended up looking like this:

1 hermida (immediate return is very sexy)
2 delmon (delmonicious)
3 butler (as seen on tv)
4 wood
5 gordon (all based on hype, but what are prospects for)
6 stewart
7 fielder
8 drew
9 barton
10 saltalamacchia (looking longer term)
11 kendrick
12 liriano

picking butler at 4 takes a lot of conviction, but if you can get him at 10 i'd jump on it, and you may well be able to get him there. just my opinion, based purely on what i've read about his hitting approach and raw power, and the fact that he held his own in AA at 19. that's not a long list of guys doing that.

but i'm relatively new at all this and don't really know anything, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me.

by wily mo on Jan 4, 2006 2:52 PM EST reply actions

Very Interesting

I just completed a trade and now own the 10th and 13th picks so expanding the list is not a bad idea. I did forget to include Fielder and Saltalamaccia. I'm not sure that Salty will hit the majors before 08 so I'll probably try and draft him in the 3rd round if possible

Your list looks good and your suggestions and those of the other contributors are all helpfull.

by prhood on Jan 4, 2006 8:00 PM EST up reply actions