Doesn't this team ever draft position players?

[purple@orange]

Seriously this is ridiculous! Obviously you need good pitching, but year after year our farm system is way too weak regarding position player prospects. Plus it's been proven that position players are twice as likely to make it to the majors as pitching prospects due to pitchers vulnerabilty to arm injuries. So they're basically wasting draft picks on players that are far less likely to ever set foot on a Major League field.

This grow the arms, buy the bats crap has to stop. MacFail passed on Mike Trout to draft some overweight HS pitcher.

What has drafting 90% pitching done for this organization? Have the O's produced any pitcher that's anywhere close to being an ace?

In another thread I mentioned the O's farm system hasn't developed a single impact position player since Ripken jr. I guess that's because they never draft them in the first place.

[skanar]

Seriously this is ridiculous! Obviously you need good pitching, but year after year our farm system is way too weak regarding position player prospects. Plus it's been proven that position players are twice as likely to make it to the majors as pitching prospects due to pitchers vulnerabilty to arm injuries. So they're basically wasting draft picks on players that are far less likely to ever set foot on a Major League field.

I would very much like to read the study that proved this.

This grow the arms, buy the bats crap has to stop. MacFail passed on Mike Trout to draft some overweight HS pitcher.

What has drafting 90% pitching done for this organization? Have the O's produced any pitcher that's anywhere close to being an ace?

In another thread I mentioned the O's farm system hasn't developed a single impact position player since Ripken jr. I guess that's because they never draft them in the first place.

Nick Markakis? Brian Roberts? Melvin Mora (traded to O's as a prospect, I suppose)? Jon Schoop's looking OK, so's Manny Machado, though it's far too early to tell.

Unless by "impact player" you mean "1st ballot Hall of Famer." Then, sure.

Edit: Not to mention the players developed by the O's who became good elsewhere, like Jayson Werth. If we give the Mariners drafting/development credit for Adam Jones (and we should), then the O's get credit for Werth.

[purple@orange]

I would very much like to read the study that proved this.

Nick Markakis? Brian Roberts? Melvin Mora (traded to O's as a prospect, I suppose)? Jon Schoop's looking OK, so's Manny Machado, though it's far too early to tell.

Unless by "impact player" you mean "1st ballot Hall of Famer." Then, sure.

Edit: Not to mention the players developed by the O's who became good elsewhere, like Jayson Werth. If we give the Mariners drafting/development credit for Adam Jones (and we should), then the O's get credit for Werth.

Markakis is a .285-290 hitter w/below average power. Roberts was only good for hitting doubles for a couple years. Mora was via trade and he wasn't all that. Wieters isn't nearly the offensive juggernaut everyone thought he would be. Jones is the only player you listed who's elite and we got him in a trade. Gillick did draft Werth, but another organization developed him. He even said he was glad to get out of the Orioles orgnization when he was traded.

Oh and BTW;

http://www.royalsreview.com/2011/2/14/1992424/success-and-failure-rates-of-top-mlb-prospects

It's rather lengthy and he doesn't discuss the chances for success of position player prospects vs. pitching prospects until several paragraphs into the article, but here's what I was referring to;

As with the breakdown by decile, we see huge differences between position players and pitchers. Top 20 position player prospects succeed at a rate more than 50% higher than their pitching counterparts. The differences between higher ranked position players and pitchers is of a smaller magnitude but it is still significant and it is consistent. Higher ranked position players succeed at around a 30% rate, while similar pitchers succeed only about 20% of the time.

•Position player prospects succeed much more often than pitching prospects.

•About 60% of position players ranked in Baseball America’s top 20 succeed in the majors.

•About 40% of pitchers ranked in the top 20 succeed in the majors.

•About 30% of position players ranked 21-100 succeed in the majors (with the success rate declining over that ranking range from about 36% to about 25%)

[eb45]

there are about a hundred things wrong with that study to evaluate draft picks but the most obvious one is that it only counts players ranked in BA's top 100, which is a pretty huge problem for a number of reasons that should be readily apparent.

[skanar]

Markakis is a .285-290 hitter w/below average power. Roberts was only good for hitting doubles for a couple years. Mora was via trade and he wasn't all that. Wieters isn't nearly the offensive juggernaut everyone thought he would be. Jones is the only player you listed who's elite and we got him in a trade. Gillick did draft Werth, but another organization developed him. He even said he was glad to get out of the Orioles orgnization when he was traded.

OK, so you do mean 1st ballot HoF. Just checking.

Oh and BTW;

http://www.royalsreview.com/2011/2/14/1992424/success-and-failure-rates-of-top-mlb-prospects

It's rather lengthy and he doesn't discuss the chances for success of position player prospects vs. pitching prospects until several paragraphs into the article, but here's what I was referring to;

As with the breakdown by decile, we see huge differences between position players and pitchers. Top 20 position player prospects succeed at a rate more than 50% higher than their pitching counterparts. The differences between higher ranked position players and pitchers is of a smaller magnitude but it is still significant and it is consistent. Higher ranked position players succeed at around a 30% rate, while similar pitchers succeed only about 20% of the time.

?Position player prospects succeed much more often than pitching prospects.

?About 60% of position players ranked in Baseball America?s top 20 succeed in the majors.

?About 40% of pitchers ranked in the top 20 succeed in the majors.

?About 30% of position players ranked 21-100 succeed in the majors (with the success rate declining over that ranking range from about 36% to about 25%)

I'm very familiar with the Royals Review article, and I'm a big fan. I was inspired to work on my own project by that particular story.

However, it doesn't say anything like your original post, which was "position players are twice as likely to make it to the majors as pitching prospects."

According to the article, Top 20 position players succeed 1.5x more than Top 20 pitchers. 50% more is not the same as "twice as likely" - that would be 100% more. Also, that's for Top 20 players, not all prospects, as you implied, and it's for success, not making the majors.

Those are huge differences, and extremely relevant when it comes to a consideration of a draft of players who are of necessity lower-level prospects at best. A BA Top 20 consists mostly of high draft picks, not the guys you are upset about the Orioles picking this year.