The Value of Supplemental Draft Picks

Regarding the discussion of whom to pick with the #2 choice in the upcoming draft, there is also the group of supplemental picks the Twins will get. Even if the team believes pitching is their sorest need, it's one reasonable strategy to pick a stud position player at #2 and then load up with pitching prospects a little further down in the draft, if you think pitchers are inherently riskier to develop. However, those supplemental draft picks aren't quite the slam-dunk that some people were thinking when the question was whether to re-sign free agents after last season. Here is a lightly-edited excerpt from a posting I made to alt.sports.baseball.mn-twins last December. I'd be interested in people's reactions:

...Supplemental draft picks are of varying

value. I prowled around baseball-reference.com's record

of drafts, going back far enough to evaluate full careers,

and if you look at the second round of the 1994 June draft,

i.e. picks 35-63 (about equivalent to current supplemental

rounds), the only players who made any significant major

league contribution were Troy Glaus and Matt LeCroy. That

was admittedly a weak year (1995 had several luminaries

like Carlos Beltran and Sean Casey), but LeCroy as the

second best player out of all 29 picks after the real

first round??? Pretty much the definition of a crapshoot

unless your team is awarded all the picks, not just two

or three.

BTW, I saw a suggestion, probably tongue-in-cheek, that the

Twins should sign Willingham and the A's sign Cuddyer,

at the same price. Then each team collects the draft

pick(s), and trades the two players back for each other.