With the draft quickly approaching, I thought it was appropriate to start off with a draft note that Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser dropped on Twitter yesterday. It’s sometimes a popular sentiment to characterize the baseball draft as something of a crapshoot, but as the graphs below amply demonstrate, the returns from the draft are directly and dramatically correlated with draft position, with typical returns dropping steeply and sharply almost immediately at the very top.
The Y-axis got cut off in that second tweet, so if you don’t want to jump over in twitter to read it, the average bWAR in a career for a 1st overall drafted player is nearly 20 — making them on average well above average major league starters for a prolonged period, while the average careers for picks drafted in the 2-5 range are all solidly above 10 WAR. Things begin to fall at that point, with much of the rest of the 1st round (but not all!) falling in the 5-10 WAR range, and generally a shallowing curve from there on out.
I know when I retweeted this on twitter yesterday, there were some who took it as a commentary on Joey Bart’s situation. It was not intended that way (for the record, 2018 is currently looking like the rare draft where the entire top three is having difficulty getting established), but certainly one of the implications of the above graph is that missing on a top three pick can lead to some long-term negative implications for any organization. One of the most impactful things any club can do to help continue long term success is to hit on top draft choices — especially crucial when they’re at the top of the draft — as the Giants well know, after their run of fantastic top 10 picks in the first decade of the century set up the greatest winning era in franchise history.
And, while I’m doing a little Twitter roundup, I should probably drop this note as well. Fangraphs had an omnibus prospect post out this week, explaining a few changes in grades in their top 100 and a couple of them involved Giants’ prospects. They (and really, it’s just Eric Longenhagen at this point, since Kevin Goldstein left to join the Twins’ front office) noted that Heliot Ramos has been taken out of the 50 FV tier and moved down to 45, as they now envision him as more of a role player or platoon bat rather than an everyday guy going forward. The bigger stir was created by a comment on Patrick Bailey, captured by good friend GPT below: “scouts in to see him are crushing his effort level and athleticism.” You always need to be leery of “effort level” comments from scouts, as some of this is based on nebulous body language that can be misinterpreted, but to be somewhat transparent, I’ll admit I’ve heard some of this talk over the last couple of years as well. Take it for what you will.
HITTER of the Night: Hunter Bishop (Eug) 2 for 2 HR (7), 3 R, RBI, 2 BB, HBP, SB (15)
PITCHER of the Night: Joey Marciano (Sac), 1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K
Not the greatest night for pitching in the system, so I’ll take the opportunity to highlight a There R Giants’ fave for yet another excellent night. Joey Marciano is doing what he needs to do to put himself in position for a big league call up at some point. Hitter of the night was a tougher choice, as there was a little bopping going on, but Hunter Bishop’s perfect night is worth celebrating!
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