Which come first? The draft signings or the culling of the herd?

[MurphDogg]

15 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

What in my statement was wrong? Do you believe any of the guys you mentioned are going to become everyday major league players? 

I stand by my statement. Outside of Ortiz, Elias/Ciolek have struggled to find good college hitters after the 2nd round. I didn't say they lack the ability to find them or they are terrible at that, I just provided an actual fact. Now you can say the book has not been written on the that guys you mentioned and you are right, but my statement as written is correct as of this date. 

My main point is prefer they go with pitchers or high school hitters with some upside but a greater risk of flaming out vs guys with limited upside to begin with like most of the guys you mentioned.

I didn't say it was wrong, only that it was a fairly limited sample size and getting one top 100 prospect in 4 years (with one of those years being a 5-round draft) is probably still better than average, given that they have targeted other cohorts besides college bats in rounds 3-10 (unlike in rounds 1-2 prior to this year).

I definitely agree that there would seem to be more upside in pursuing non-college bats in rounds 3 and later, but the previous regimes had some success there in getting Hays, Mullins and Mancini in the 3rd round and later.

It is amazing to me that anybody makes it in the later rounds. I sometimes marvel at how empty the stat grid is on Baseball reference when looking at random mid-draft rounds in random years. A very inexact science, to be sure.

[CHIP]

2 hours ago, MurphDogg said:

I didn't say it was wrong, only that it was a fairly limited sample size and getting one top 100 prospect in 4 years (with one of those years being a 5-round draft) is probably still better than average, given that they have targeted other cohorts besides college bats in rounds 3-10 (unlike in rounds 1-2 prior to this year).

For the first couple years they were able to get a lot of early picks in the early rounds.  The O's gave these picks a lot of money.  Money plays.  All of our top picks and top prospects get into games 5-6 games per week and are in the top 3-5 spots in the line-up.  The OF/IF guys can play and hit every day and they use the DH spot when not in the field.  The lower slot guys (draft and rankings) get the 5-9 spots and and are 2-4 games per week resulting in 1/2 of the PA's the $$$ players get. 

If you look at the teams without the high picks in the early rounds, they have more of a mixed bag.  So the guys in rounds 3-6 for example may get an opportunity to get more PA's throughout a season.  

Teams give PAs to those they want to move.  Those lower need to make themselves get PAs but even then it has to be on a less frequent basis.

There is an actual study I remember reading about the probability of making it to MLB based on Round drafted.  Gotta go look for that now. 

[CHIP]

Here is an article for those that like to deep dive.

CONCLUSION

The overall takeaway from this study is that, in the top five rounds, generally college players are much more valuable picks than high school players and college position players are more valuable than college pitchers. In the top five rounds, college players not only have a greater chance than high school players of making the major leagues and playing in the major leagues more than three years, but also more college players sign in proportion to high school players.

https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-chances-of-a-drafted-baseball-player-making-the-major-leagues-a-quantitative-study/

 

[OriolesMagic83]

Elias drafted an awful lot of OF.  Maybe he thinks his projection system works best with OF.  Playing SS involves a lot more specialized skills than OF.  Not saying either is easy to draft and develop ML talent for.  Could be Elias thinks his hit rate is higher with less than premium talented OF vs IF.

[Tony-OH]

On 7/11/2023 at 1:10 PM, MurphDogg said:

I didn't say it was wrong, only that it was a fairly limited sample size and getting one top 100 prospect in 4 years (with one of those years being a 5-round draft) is probably still better than average, given that they have targeted other cohorts besides college bats in rounds 3-10 (unlike in rounds 1-2 prior to this year).

I definitely agree that there would seem to be more upside in pursuing non-college bats in rounds 3 and later, but the previous regimes had some success there in getting Hays, Mullins and Mancini in the 3rd round and later.

It is amazing to me that anybody makes it in the later rounds. I sometimes marvel at how empty the stat grid is on Baseball reference when looking at random mid-draft rounds in random years. A very inexact science, to be sure.

I think have the technology does help some, especially in the earlier rounds with college players, but even the high school kids now go to these show cases where everything is measured from their torso turn to their wrist speeds. 

But with all of that, it is still an in exact science. My biggest point is I personally prefer to go with the more upside player from the 3rd round on even if they have a higher chance of being a complete miss. 

I mean, even though Watson never got out of AA, it's not like he was an awful player that couldn't do anything. He hit for some power and played decent defense in the outfield. He just couldn't hit upper level offspeed pitches. 

Every draft is going to have way more misses than hits and we all agree that in the 1sr and 2nd rounds, Elias/Ciolek have hit way more than they've missed and I'll take that any day of the week over lucking into a Mullins or Mancini outperforming their draft positions significantly.