Joe Jordan on Hobgood's selection: "I am due scrutiny on that."

[Ruzious]

Where did I say that?

Really? Your #4 - which I highlighted. Highlit?

It was enough of an issue enough so that someone like me - who pays relatively little attention to the draft - knew about it.

[weams]

Matt is an interesting dude. He knows about the Jordan article and says his arm will be fine and he will be fine. He says he wants to be a great Oriole. I hope this is the case.

[KurtCDavidson]

Honest question: At what point do we at least have to consider switching Hobgood to 1B? If I remember correctly there was some question when he was drafted if he would be a better pitcher or hitter. If he does not show a significant improvement this year, we have our answer regarding the pitching. At this point, don't you at least have to see if he can cut it as a hitter? He's still young enough to be successful.

[weams]

Honest question: At what point do we at least have to consider switching Hobgood to 1B? If I remember correctly there was some question when he was drafted if he would be a better pitcher or hitter. If he does not show a significant improvement this year, we have our answer regarding the pitching. At this point, don't you at least have to see if he can cut it as a hitter? He's still young enough to be successful.

A top of the first round draft choice. Really, I think it is pitching or Billy Rowell-Land for Matt.

[Art Wing]

Which is what I have always thought.

I think PA allowed him to spend a certain amount of money and he just tried to work within that budget.

"No. I had no one telling me to do this because of the money," Jordan said. "This was my decision and my decision only. I had the reports on file to justify taking the guy. That's the kind of evaluation we had on him.

"The fact that I did sign him for what I signed him for, gave me the ability to do some things later in the draft. So yeah, that's what I did.

"But there wasn't anyone anywhere telling me I had to this because we could sign him for X."

Yes, of course he had a budget but it seems to me he's still saying money wasn't a driving factor in choosing Hobgood.

[KurtCDavidson]

A top of the first round draft choice. Really, I think it is pitching or Billy Rowell-Land for Matt.

I hear what you're saying. At the same time, if Matt Hobgood the pitcher is a sunk cost, don't we at least have to explore Matt Hobgood the hitter? If it turns out he's another Rowell, at least we tried to get some value out of him.

[webbrick2010]

Why can't he pitch and play 1B. Maybe it would help his conditioning to keep him on the field for every game.

[Nigel Tufnel]

Yes, of course he had a budget but it seems to me he's still saying money wasn't a driving factor in choosing Hobgood.

I hear you, but it sounds like the budget was limited and inflexible enough that if he wanted to draft overslot guys in later rounds, then he needed to save money in the first round. So that's what he did. But it also does sound like he could have drafted whoever he wanted in round 1 and paid him more money, at the expense of the later rounds.

[Art Wing]

I hear you, but it sounds like the budget was limited and inflexible enough that if he wanted to draft overslot guys in later rounds, then he needed to save money in the first round. So that's what he did. But it also does sound like he could have drafted whoever he wanted in round 1 and paid him more money, at the expense of the later rounds.

Yes, hence the idea of working within a budget. He still seems to state that wasn't a factor with the Hobgood choice (bolded above).

[Sports Guy]

There is no logic there. If Hobgood performs how Jordan ultimately thought he would, and then gets hurt, you would still penalize Jordan for going against the consensus.

I think the Hobgood pick was poor for many reasons, one of them being the injury factor for young pitchers. So yes, he took that risk on a player that was rated much lower by every other team and because of that, if Hobgood doesn't pan out, for any reason, JJ deserves the blame.

[Sports Guy]

The Rays have drafted better. They've also had the #1 or #2 overall pick many more times than the O's have.

Also.

2005 Wade Townsend

2008 Tim Beckham

2009 Levon Washington (unsigned)

The Rays have missed at times as well. Beckham was #1 overall. That looks like a big miss right now.

Yes it does...and I wouldn't expect any team to hit on every single pick. But they have clearly drafted better, have clearly drafted better talent and have obviously sunk more resources into it than the Orioles have.

My point was that they have continued to put out good farm systems despite graduating a lot of players and the excuse that they draft high isn't always valid...because the Orioles have as well and haven't been nearly as good with their picks.

[Stotle]

I'm not sure how anyone can judge Jordan's ability based on the OUTCOME of the Hobgood pick. The only real info that matters is the reasoning used to select Hobgood. If the reasoning is sound, I think you accept the pick for what it is.

If there are two cards in the entire deck that give me a winning hand in poker, and I go all in, having one of those cards come up doesn't make my decision a good one. Likewise, if I have a 80% chance of winning a hand and I push all in, losing that hand doesn't make my decision a bad one.

The real concern for fans shouldn't be whether Hobgood pans out or not. It should be whether the process Jordan and Co. are using to make their selections and build their draft classes is a sound process. That requires a lot more effort and analysis than "let's see how Hobgood turns out". And Jordan certainly deserves a high level of analysis from anyone deeming him to be making poor decisions.

It isn't enough to point at Hobgood and say "Jordan is bad" -- if you want to tear the guy down you should be willing to show that there are overarching issues with his draft philosophy. Independent of how a particular player pans out, it's the process that matters.

[McNulty]

I'm not sure how anyone can judge Jordan's ability based on the OUTCOME of the Hobgood pick. The only real info that matters is the reasoning used to select Hobgood. If the reasoning is sound, I think you accept the pick for what it is.

If there are two cards in the entire deck that give me a winning hand in poker, and I go all in, having one of those cards come up doesn't make my decision a good one. Likewise, if I have a 80% chance of winning a hand and I push all in, losing that hand doesn't make my decision a bad one.

The real concern for fans shouldn't be whether Hobgood pans out or not. It should be whether the process Jordan and Co. are using to make their selections and build their draft classes is a sound process. That requires a lot more effort and analysis than "let's see how Hobgood turns out". And Jordan certainly deserves a high level of analysis from anyone deeming him to be making poor decisions.

It isn't enough to point at Hobgood and say "Jordan is bad" -- if you want to tear the guy down you should be willing to show that there are overarching issues with his draft philosophy. Independent of how a particular player pans out, it's the process that matters.

This might be the most spot on post of all time.

[Stotle]

You've certainly been critical of his reasoning behind making the pick. Have you used a high level of analysis to determine that?

Yes.

Certainly higher level than "If the player does good the pick was good."

I've also pointed to characteristics of his last couple draft classes that I did not like. I've also not done anything reactionary like call for his head or call him a bad evaluator. I've only pointed out where I disagree with certain moves and why.

[Agent0]

I'm not sure how anyone can judge Jordan's ability based on the OUTCOME of the Hobgood pick. The only real info that matters is the reasoning used to select Hobgood. If the reasoning is sound, I think you accept the pick for what it is.

If there are two cards in the entire deck that give me a winning hand in poker, and I go all in, having one of those cards come up doesn't make my decision a good one. Likewise, if I have a 80% chance of winning a hand and I push all in, losing that hand doesn't make my decision a bad one.

The real concern for fans shouldn't be whether Hobgood pans out or not. It should be whether the process Jordan and Co. are using to make their selections and build their draft classes is a sound process. That requires a lot more effort and analysis than "let's see how Hobgood turns out". And Jordan certainly deserves a high level of analysis from anyone deeming him to be making poor decisions.

It isn't enough to point at Hobgood and say "Jordan is bad" -- if you want to tear the guy down you should be willing to show that there are overarching issues with his draft philosophy. Independent of how a particular player pans out, it's the process that matters.

I deal with process tuning all the time. The results of the process are indeed inputs in both assessing and modifying the process. They are not independent. Of course (and maybe you are saying this) one result is not a good sample size to label the process as a whole.

This is a results oriented business however. People have been called on the carpet for less. For example, some people supposedly lost their jobs with LAA for the Kazmir trade.

I think this is what happened: Jordan did not think MH was the best player available in terms of his combination of "ceiling" and "probability of reaching his ceiling". I DO think he consciously tried a trick shot of getting a high ceiling project who would a) stagger the talent so he wasn't so close to all our ~23 year old pitchers and b) allow us to spend the money we saved later in the draft. I think some would have preferred that he just go for the best player, but I think he intentionally went in a non-conventional route.