1998 Draft

by OldProspects on Aug 25, 2008 3:04 AM EDT

Kneejerk predictions about this year's draft might be more fun, but perspective can be interesting too. I looked at the 1998 draft and tried to get a sense of which teams gained the most, or lost the most, from their picks.

That draft was most memorable for the J.D. Drew drama, who would finally sign with the Cardinals after rejecting the Phillies in the previous year. Despite the hub-hub, what's most startling is how difficult it is for a team to get anybody who impacts their major league team from the draft. I tried to list all of the players who were signed who would either start or be a significant pitcher for at least 2 or more years at the major league level. Even with considering such players like Joe Beimel as significant (4.38 ERA over 443 major league IP over 8 major league seasons), a total of 10 teams still got absolutely no significant player over the entire draft.

Even in a draft that included such talents as J.D. Drew and Pat Burrell, it is even harder for them to get a star after the 1st round. It is nearly impossible for a team to not only find a major league player in a late round, but then to sign him. The Chicago White Sox get double credit for not only finding and securing any major leaguer in the 38th round, but Mark Buehrle. To give a sense of how difficult this is, the next future major leaguer to have any impact who was signed by the team who drafted were Mike Koplove and Tim Spooneybarger, who both provided two solid years of relief after having been drafted by the Diamondbacks and Braves respectively in the 29th round. (In Spooneybarger's defense, he might have had an even greater impact had he not needed Tommy John's surgery at a pretty young age)

The teams are listed in the order of what I think were the best drafts. The players are listed in order of what I think were the best picks. The numbers in parenthesies refer to which round they were chosen. If they were in the 1st round, they get two numbers to denote with which pick.

A's: Mark Mulder (1:2) Eric Byrnes (8), Gerald Laird (2)

Reds: Adam Dunn (2), B.J. Ryan (17) Austin Kearns (1:7)

White Sox: Mark Buehrle (38) Josh Fogg (3), Aaron Rowand (1:35), Kip Wells (1:16)

Rockies: Matt Holliday (7), Juan Pierre (13)

Cardinals: J.D. Drew (1:5) Jack Wilson (9)

Indians: C.C. Sabathia (1:20)

Phillies: Pat Burrell (1:1), Nick Punto (21) Geoff Geary (15), Jason Michaels (4)

Astros: Brad Lidge (1:17) John Buck (7)

Rangers: Carlos Pena (1:10)

Brewers: Bill Hall (6)

The Cubs got Corey Patterson (1:3), Eric Hinske (17), Ohman (8)

The Devil Rays got Aubrey Huff (5), Brandon Backe (18), Joe Kennedy (8)

Red Sox: Mike Maroth (3), Adam Everett (1:12)

Tigers: Brandon Inge (2), Jeff Weaver (1:14)

Blue Jays: Felipe Lopez (1:8), Jay Gibbons (14)

Expos: Brad Wilkerson (1:33)

Dodgers: David Ross (7), Scott Proctor (5)

Braves: Tim Spooneybarger (29)

Diamondbacks: Mike Kopolove (29)

Pirates: Joe Beimel (18).

Tweet Comment 6 comments | 1 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Response

You list the Cubs twice, but that’s okay.

A rather sobering evaluation, and one that should give pause to anybody who happens to be touting a “youth movement” for their favorite team.

One extra note. I think it might be useful to post the number of picks each team had, particularly in the early rounds. It’s much harder to look down on the fruits of a team’s drafting effort if they only had, say, 2 picks in the first 5 rounds rather than 8.

by mrkupe on Aug 25, 2008 3:31 AM EDT reply actions

Sorry about that

I fixed the Cubs mix-up and now there were ten teams for which I couldn’t find any significant player.

www.loftylantern.com

by OldProspects on Aug 25, 2008 10:07 AM EDT up reply actions

Bad draft year

1998 and 1999 were just a down years for the draft pool. Conduct the same experiment for 1997 or 2000. Late-round finds are a longshot, but in ’97 there was Scot Shields in the 38th round, Orlando Hudosn in the 43rd, and Heath Bell in the 69th.

by StickRat on Aug 25, 2008 12:56 PM EDT reply actions

I'm not certain

There are, by my count, ten or so legitimate stars who were picked in this draft, 4 of which lasted past the 5th round. That seems to be a relatively high number

www.loftylantern.com

by OldProspects on Aug 25, 2008 4:14 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm looking t 1997 now, btw

And Heath Bell wasn’t signed by the Devil Rays, so he doesn’t count by this rubric.

www.loftylantern.com

by OldProspects on Aug 25, 2008 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions

FYI on draft odds of selecting a good player

I studied the draft a few years back and came to the same conclusion that building from the draft is not that easy to do, particularly when you are not picking from the top 5 overall picks. Here is the link to the draft study I wrote an article on: http://sfgiants.scout.com/2/343576.html. This has a link to all three articles I wrote for the series, covering what the Giants did, and what the MLB did in general: http://biasedgiantsfanatic.blogspot.com/2005/02/how-sabean-uses-draft-to-build-giants.html

Basically, my study suggests that by the end of the first round (picks 21-30 overall), which most people make a big deal still about the pick, the odds of selecting a good player is approximately 10. Yes, it’s not much better odds than rolling a 5 with a pair of dice. To put that in perspective, if you had a pick in the 21-30 range for 10 years (which would happen if your team had a winning record for ten seasons and didn’t lose any due to free agent signing), your team on average would select one good player out of those ten 1st round draft picks, and the odds are still relatively high (about 35 if memory serves) that you go the ten season without drafting one good player.

By the end of the 2nd or 3rd round (depending on the size of the Supplemental 1st round) the odds have dropped to about that of rolling a 3 with a pair of dice, or 4%. Now that would take about 25 years worth of 2nd/3rd round picks to get one good player.

By the 100th pick of the draft, we are looking at 1-2% chance of finding a good player, and I would assume that the odds get exponentially worse from that point on, much like it got much worse from the start of the draft (roughly 40-45% chance for a Top 5 pick; not even as good as flipping a coin to start the draft!) to the end of the first round, to the 100th pick overall.

People focuses too much on peak value (say, selecting A-Rod) and way too much on average value (average value is useless when the odds are this great that you can end up with a dry hole drilling for baseball prospects).

Adoptive parental unit of Kevin "Most Spectacular Pitcher" Pucetas.

"I'm a Giant now... I like watching the ball get up there" - Wendell Fairley
"I'm really proud to be on this team." - Nate Schierholtz

by obsessivegiantscompulsive on Aug 25, 2008 6:00 PM EDT reply actions