Congrats to Ryan Flaherty

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

Another way to look at it: of the 55 players chosen 41st in the draft, Flaherty ranks 13th in rWAR.   Not a bad outcome at all.

Looking at the list, I stumbled on this interesting factoid:   Lance McCullers, Jr. ranks 5th in rWAR of all no. 41 picks.    His father, Lance McCullers Sr., also was chosen 41st and ranks 6th.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?overall_pick=41&draft_type=junreg&query_type=overall_pick&from_type_jc=0&from_type_hs=0&from_type_4y=0&from_type_unk=0

According to the Wikipedia, there have been 12,343 people who've been Congresspersons in all of US history. 

3,244 people have played 500 or more games in the majors.  Flaherty played 547.  It's harder to have Ryan Flaherty's career than it is to be elected a US Congressman.

[Ohfan67]

2 hours ago, MurphDogg said:

Of the 57 second basemen, third basemen and shortstops signed in the first ten rounds of the 2008 MLB draft, only 12 players had more at-bats in their career than Flaherty and 7 of those were drafted before Flaherty.

Of the 19 players drafted directly before him who signed, only 4 had more than Flaherty's 0.6 rWAR over their career. It was a pretty terrible draft, and he wasn't exactly a draft bust.

I definitely did NOT say that he was a draft bust. I said he didn't have the career he and Chicago hoped that he would have. Not sure if you were just expanding on my comments or thought I was saying he sucked, but I certainly did not mean to rag on Flaherty. I'm actually a big proponent of keeping in mind just how infrequently minor leaguers produce positive WAR in the majors and often bring this up when people flippantly suggest that minor leaguer X will have Adam Jones' career, etc. 

[MurphDogg]

27 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

I definitely did NOT say that he was a draft bust. I said he didn't have the career he and Chicago hoped that he would have. Not sure if you were just expanding on my comments or thought I was saying he sucked, but I certainly did not mean to rag on Flaherty. I'm actually a big proponent of keeping in mind just how infrequently minor leaguers produce positive WAR in the majors and often bring this up when people flippantly suggest that minor leaguer X will have Adam Jones' career, etc. 

Oh yeah, just expanding on it. 

Many people have unrealistic expectations of draft picks, but once you get outside the first 10-20 picks or so, it really is a crapshoot and getting any MLB value is a win, although obviously you always hope for more.

[Philip]

1 hour ago, MurphDogg said:

Oh yeah, just expanding on it. 

Many people have unrealistic expectations of draft picks, but once you get outside the first 10-20 picks or so, it really is a crapshoot and getting any MLB value is a win, although obviously you always hope for more.

I hope Gunnar isn’t reading this...

[MurphDogg]

3 minutes ago, Philip said:

I hope Gunnar isn’t reading this...

Yeah, I am hoping that scouting prowess has increased substantially since 2008, but I wouldn't be surprised if the 10 players taken within 10 picks of Gunnar, will end up similar to those taken within ten picks of Flaherty with three successful MLB players (Wade Miley, Lance Lynn, and Logan Forsythe), three role players (Flaherty, Mike Montgomery, and Conor Gillaspie), four busts (Bryan Price, Jeremy Bleich, Jaff Decker and Brett Devall) and one guy who looked like a role player finally having his first good season eleven years and three teams later (Jordan Lyles).

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, MurphDogg said:

Yeah, I am hoping that scouting prowess has increased substantially since 2008, but I wouldn't be surprised if the 10 players taken within 10 picks of Gunnar, will end up similar to those taken within ten picks of Flaherty with three successful MLB players (Wade Miley, Lance Lynn, and Logan Forsythe), three role players (Flaherty, Mike Montgomery, and Conor Gillaspie), four busts (Bryan Price, Jeremy Bleich, Jaff Decker and Brett Devall) and one guy who looked like a role player finally having his first good season eleven years and three teams later (Jordan Lyles).

I think amateur scouting is always going to be as much art as science, especially when it comes to high school guys.    

[interloper]

I wonder what Brandon Fahey is doing. He's like top 10 Orioles for me, not even joking. Legend.

[Frobby]

14 minutes ago, interloper said:

I wonder what Brandon Fahey is doing. He's like top 10 Orioles for me, not even joking. Legend.

Kind of the Stevie Wilkerson of his day, a minor league infielder who somehow ended up playing 61 major league games in the outfield.   

[interloper]

31 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Kind of the Stevie Wilkerson of his day, a minor league infielder who somehow ended up playing 61 major league games in the outfield.   

He barely hit enough at Ottawa to get a promotion, but it was really that the O's system was really just that barren. And he ended up making some cool plays out there defensively, got a few timely hits. And Palmer famously said the guy looked "like he fell off the back of the turnip truck", which he absolutely did. Looked like he might tip over from the weight of his cap bill. 

 

[Bahama O's Fan]

I will always remember Flaherty turning a great double play on the first game of the 2014 playoff series with Texas. He was at third replacing injured Manny. It was the only game that I attended at Camden Yards.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Bahama O's Fan said:

I will always remember Flaherty turning a great double play on the first game of the 2014 playoff series with Texas. He was at third replacing injured Manny. It was the only game that I attended at Camden Yards.

We didn’t play Texas in the 2014 playoffs.    And the 2012 wild card game with them was in Arlington, not Camden Yards.   
 

Edit: you are probably thinking of this one, from Game 2 against the Tigers in 2014: https://www.mlb.com/cut4/video-watch-the-orioles-turn-an-absolutely-perfect-double-play/c-97454826

[theocean]

[Bahama O's Fan]

Tigers. Yes. Sorry

[Oriole1940]

Good for Ryan.  The qualities he possessed as the #1 Utility man for such a long while, namely persistence,  determination and the team player he was,  should serve him well in his new endeavor.  If some of the prima donnas I can think of in the game of baseball had a smidgen of Ryan's qualities, they would help their teams much more than they currently do.  Goes to show that a person though not blessed with HoF talent for the game of baseball, never the less can carve out for himself a relatively long career and make a good amount of money as well as gaining teammates respect.  No, he did not come through every time he was called upon, especially in the latter days of his career, but when he came to bat I always felt he was giving his best at that point in time.   

[DrungoHazewood]

16 hours ago, Frobby said:

I think amateur scouting is always going to be as much art as science, especially when it comes to high school guys.    

The reason the rate is so low is that it's impossible to predict the future with any accuracy.  It's like the weather forecast 15 days out.  There are a million unknowable inputs that are all interacting during the years of development from draft day to becoming a major league player.

There has to be some kind of PhD thesis in statistics or low probability event something-or-other here somewhere... MLB teams like the Orioles absolutely rely on developing 16- or 18- or 20-year olds signed through the draft or internationally at relatively low costs, but the hit rate on those players is miniscule.  The Orioles have dozens if not a hundred or more players who're 3rd-20th round guys (or equivalent) who they had/have some hope of being MLBers but 95% of them won't even get to Baltimore.  We keep thinking there's secrets to be had there, that one day we'll unlock it and get a much better success rate from things like the draft.  But maybe it really is like the weather (beyond a week it's basically just historical averages), and that you'd do just as well and spend no money if you just took random players from some Baseball America list from like the third round on.  Maybe that's why some teams are cutting scouting staffs, they're sending guys scurrying around the world looking at players, paying them per diem and salary, and they still only get one halfway decent player every few years from anything but the first couple rounds.