Chance of Draft Picks Making the Bigs and Having an Impact

[cmb0252]

***WARNING! There will be statistics in this post! I am not and do not claim to be an expert with statistics! My math skills are usually correct 100% of the time....75% of the time! You have been warned!***

 

Yesterday BaseballAmerica released an article that states 1 in 6 players , precisely 17.2%, that are drafted make it to the bigs for at least one game. They got this number by studying the 22 drafts from 1987-2008 to see who has made it for at least one cup of coffee. Why stop at 2008? Stopping at 2008 gives the high school players at least 5 years to get to the bigs. Our own 2008 first round draft pick Aaron Hicks is getting his first chance this year. Their results were very interesting. Especially when you combined them with draft statistics they released before this years draft(which we will explore later).

 

Out of the 900+ players drafted last year 17.2% will make it to the bigs but as you can figure the chance of making it to the bigs is different depending on where you were drafted. A 11-20th rounder has only a 6.8% chance to make it to the show while a 1st rounder has a 73% chance. Out of the 6.8% of 11-20th rounders that make it to the show only 1.6 of those make an impact (impact as defined by BA for this study is 450 games for position players and for pitchers either 75 decisions (starters) or 150 games (relievers)). Compare that to the 39.1% chance that the first rounders have to being an impact player and value difference becomes apparent. Even in the first round the chance of making it to the show varies. Players drafted in the first 5 picks have an 88% chance to make the majors while the rest of the first round has about a 70% chance.

 

Instead of focusing on all 900+ players drafted let's focus on the top 100. Specifically our players drafted by Ryan the pass two drafts by experience (college vs HS) and position. Let's focus on the 1st round supplemental picks (make Bigs%:52.3 impact%:15.8), 2nd rounders (make bigs%:49.4 impact%:16.1), and 3-5 (make bigs%:34.6 impact%:10.1). Using drafted round success/impact success and position success/impact success I will try to show the statistical chance our prospects will make it to the bigs and make an impact.

 

RHP College- 37% chance to play 50 games but only a 15% chance to contribute 5 WAR+.

Eades: 2nd round -Bigs% 43.2% Impact% 15.7%

Bard: 1st supplemental- Bigs% 44.7% Impact 15.4%

Chargois: 2nd round- Bigs% 43.2% Impact% 15.7

 

LHP College- 48% chance to play 50 games but only a 14% chance to contribute 5 WAR+.

Melotakis: 2nd Round- Bigs% 48.7% Impact% 15%

 

RHP Highschool- 33% chance to play 50 games but only 11% chance to contribute 5 WAR+.

Stewart: 1st round- Bigs% 60.5% Impact% 39%

Berrios: 1st supplemental- Bigs% 42.7% Impact% 13.4%

 

Catcher College- 52% chance to play 100 games but only 12% chance to contribute 10 WAR+.

Turner: 3rd rounder- Bigs% 43.3% Impact% 11%

 

RF college- 28% chance to play 100 games and 12% chance to contribute 10 WAR+.

Walker II- 3rd rounder- Bigs% 31.3 Impact: 11%

 

CF Highschool- 33% chance to play 100 games and 11% chance to contribute 10 WAR+.

Buxton- 1st rounder- Bigs% 60.5% Impact: 39%

 

Let's compare success and impact rate of our two top 5 picks, Buxton (2nd) and Stewart (4th), versus our 2011 1st round pick Michaels (30th).

Buxton and Stewart both have a 60.5% chance to spend significant time in the bigs compared to Michael's 52% chance. That's an 8% difference because of a ~25 pick difference. The difference would be significantly larger if we weren't comparing a college player vs high school. When looking at impact% we see the importance of a high first round pick vs a low first round pick.

 

Buxton/Stewart chance for 10 WAR+-39%, 20 WAR+- 15.5%, 30 WAR+ 12%

Michael's chance for 10 WAR+-17%, 20 WAR+-7%, 30 WAR+ 6%

 

Rebuilding is hard but losing brings future value. While it is commonsense that the higher you pick, be it 1st round vs 3rd round or top 5 pick vs 30th pick, the more value it brings. Here are the stats that prove it. Sort of...

 

Quoting Ron DeLegge, "99 percent of statistics only tell 49 percent of the story."

 

Sources:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/one-in-six-draft-picks-will-click/

 

http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/top-100-draft-flashback/

 

Top 100 Draft Flashback: Impact Players, Notable Flops - BaseballAmerica.com

http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/which-positions-part-ii/

 

[Jim H]

This is an interesting article. I have seen similar articles in the past but I like the way you laid it out. What it generally shows, is that franchises like the Twins that rely heavily on the draft are almost ineviatably going to have dry periods like they did in the late part of the last decade. The odds are basically against you always drafting well, even during the first couple of rounds. There are no good things about being bad, but it does increase the odds of getting an impact player.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Yeah, I do think that scouting in general has drastically improved over the years. It's easier to spot the "cannot miss" kind of guys. It still isn't a perfect system, but having a few years picking in the top 5 essentially means having a few cornerstone players for the team's next run...

 

I'm really hoping in a 2014 deep draft that an elite college player at SS/SP falls to them.

[cmb0252]

This is an interesting article. I have seen similar articles in the past but I like the way you laid it out. What it generally shows, is that franchises like the Twins that rely heavily on the draft are almost ineviatably going to have dry periods like they did in the late part of the last decade. The odds are basically against you always drafting well, even during the first couple of rounds. There are no good things about being bad, but it does increase the odds of getting an impact player.

 

First round picks:

2006-Parmelee 20th pick- 1.6 War

2007- Revere 28th pick- 4 WAR

2008- Hicks 14th pick- 1.1 WAR, Gutierrez 27th pick- 0 WAR

2009- Gibson 22nd pick- -.4 WAR

2010- Wimmers 21st pick- 0 WAR

 

This list IMO is the major reason we are as bad as we are. 6 players who all have had enough time to make the bigs have put up a combined 6.3 WAR. Hicks and Gibson are finally getting a shot this year while we still don't know what we have in Parmelee. Our "safe" quick to the bigs arm Wimmers won't be up for at least another year. If you aren't going to sign big time free agents or retain your own your 1st rounders, other early round picks, better amount to something.

 

Lucky for us having a top 5 pick the last two years, 88% chance to make it to the bigs, and possibly one next year should help. I knew the higher pick you had the better chance to make it to the bigs/be an impact player but I was surprised by the overall difference in value.

[Mike Sixel]

This is an interesting article. I have seen similar articles in the past but I like the way you laid it out. What it generally shows, is that franchises like the Twins that rely heavily on the draft are almost ineviatably going to have dry periods like they did in the late part of the last decade. The odds are basically against you always drafting well, even during the first couple of rounds. There are no good things about being bad, but it does increase the odds of getting an impact player.

 

 

What it tells me is that teams should be more willing to trade prospects for proven players than they are. Similar situation in the NFL where teams love draft picks.

[biggentleben]

The problem with this is that all drafts prior to 2012 are basically null and void for providing viable comparative evidence for the current draft. Guys who would have been 39th round picks in the old system are now 3rd and 4th rounders on teams who are looking to save bonus pool money, so that will drastically skew the success rate by round of players because we don't know the motive for drafting those players where they were drafted. A team with 3 picks in the first 35 may start making money-saving picks as soon as the second round whereas the next team may make round-appropriate picks for 4-5 rounds before going cheap, and finally, the next team may make all round-appropriate picks. The draft has fundamentally changed as we once knew it.

[cmb0252]

The problem with this is that all drafts prior to 2012 are basically null and void for providing viable comparative evidence for the current draft. Guys who would have been 39th round picks in the old system are now 3rd and 4th rounders on teams who are looking to save bonus pool money, so that will drastically skew the success rate by round of players because we don't know the motive for drafting those players where they were drafted. A team with 3 picks in the first 35 may start making money-saving picks as soon as the second round whereas the next team may make round-appropriate picks for 4-5 rounds before going cheap, and finally, the next team may make all round-appropriate picks. The draft has fundamentally changed as we once knew it.

 

Null and void? While the draft has been changed by the slotting system we are talking about 20+ years of data. It is far from null and void. Even if you feel later rounds are skewed the first round has proven for the most part still to be BPA.

[cmb0252]

What it tells me is that teams should be more willing to trade prospects for proven players than they are. Similar situation in the NFL where teams love draft picks.

 

We had this conversation on a different forum, while I have no problem trading prospects for players, it has to be at the right time. Also, just how fans don't want to trade Morny or Perkins I'm sure some of the front office people over value the players they drafted too.

[biggentleben]

Null and void? While the draft has been changed by the slotting system we are talking about 20+ years of data. It is far from null and void. Even if you feel later rounds are skewed the first round has proven for the most part still to be BPA.

 

First round, perhaps, though the Royals showed how BPA's not even true anymore in the first round. After there, it's simply not the same draft, no matter how many years worth of data you can pull up from the way the draft was run for the first 45 years of its existence.