Comments on: Grading the Pirates’ 2008 Draft

By: gashuffer

gashuffer — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 23:38:14 +0000

of the 20+ players not in the bigs —what are some of the names
that didn’t,won’t ,burned out or busted?

By: Lee Young

Lee Young — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:03:26 +0000

Tony….from that article I linked:

“Teams choosing in the top 5 had nearly a 50/50 chance of finding a successful player”

Not impact, ‘successful’.

Picking in the Top 5 helps, but it is not a sure thing. All you can do is pick the best player at the time and hope and pray.

Look at 2009. Of the top 5, only Strasberg is successful (and HE’S been injured). Ackley is a poor hitting, poor fielding 2bman. He was supposedly a ‘sure’ thing.

Then there’s Tate, Sanchez and Hobgood.

A lot of the draft experts kept saying we should’ve taken Matzek. I’d rather have Sanchez by comparison.

Foo
.

Foo

By: Kevin Creagh

Kevin Creagh — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:44:51 +0000

Great question. I went thru the data and here’s the top 5 teams by bWAR:
Giants 13.7 (12.1 from Posey)
Nats 9.6 (shown as 12.0, but Crow did not sign w/ them)
Tigers 9.2
White Sox 9.1
D-backs 7.8

Three teams have had no players arrive from the 2008 draft yet — Rays, Mariners, Twins

By: TonyPenaforHOF

TonyPenaforHOF — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 16:40:57 +0000

Good post. I totally agree – good not great. Average, especially since our draft position was excellent.

What teams were the best in 2008 i.e. had the most players, the highest WAR, etc…?

By: Lee Young

Lee Young — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:51:51 +0000

Lacrosse team’s indoor SEAL training:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z8iDLp9Mfs

Foo

By: john.alcorn@chp.edu

john.alcorn@chp.edu — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:32:27 +0000

He was also very good in 2010 in more ab’s than 2011. I think those two are the push and 2012 represents real gains. Of course striking out at 30% leaves very little room for error. Its not a great recipe for sustained success. Pedro fits the profile of a player that will age terribly, its probably a good thing that Boras balks at extensions. The Bucs can get his good prime and let him walk away in 4 years.

His peer group at 30% is Adam Dunn, Mark Reynolds, Chris Davis, Drew Stubbs, and Carlos Pena. Pena, Reynolds, and Dunn all offset the K’s with much higher BB rates.

By: Lee Young

Lee Young — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:29:21 +0000

it finally showed up.

By: Lee Young

Lee Young — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:29:02 +0000

Test….the system ate my respons?

By: Lee Young

Lee Young — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:26:05 +0000

Tim….Three impact players? Sure, it’d be nice to have, but historically, figures don’t bear that out. Many GMs have come out and said 1-2 players per draft. If we get Alvarez, a reliever and a utility guy we’ll be doing well historically.

Here are two great articles on that subject:
http://viewfromthebleachers.com/blog/2012/08/23/success-rate-of-mlb-draft-picks-by-slot/

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-772wlhxPhPNjUyY2JiMmItYzJlYi00Yjk5LThlOTUtODkwN2IzMTU5ODIx/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1

Lee Foo

By: Tim Williams

Tim Williams — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:10:08 +0000

I use BRef WAR mostly out of convenience. BRef has draft pages set up where they show all of the players in the majors from each round on one page, plus their total WAR. I don’t think FanGraphs has that.

For Alvarez, I don’t think looking at his total WAR tells the story, whether it’s BRef or FanGraphs. He was very bad in 2011 and he was good in 2012. The only thing that matters is how he performs going forward. If it’s more like the 2012 season, or improvements on that season, he’ll be in great shape. If he regresses more toward the 2011 season, that will be a problem.