What the world needs now is a giant DUMP.
by kaweahkaweah on Jan 8, 2008 9:37 AM PST
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PrintDue to the fact I desparately want to avoid work I am starting today's meager DLD.
Christina Karhl reviewed the Swisher trade. She did not like what she saw. The bottom line for her is that she is uncomfortable with the inherent riskiness of pitching prospects:
"I may be coming at this the wrong way, but I hate this deal for the A's. Not because of what it represents—hey, they're rebuilding, we get it—but because of what they got. I know Gonzalez and De Los Santos were the best the Sox had left to offer. I guess I just start off with the assumption that any group of pitchers involves casualties and risk, and that makes me squeamish. Gonzalez or De Los Santos? Both have promise, both are very young, but as a matter of odds alone, it's as if you have to start with the assumption that one of them's going to bust something before the A's ever get a good look at him."
http://baseballprospectus.com/articl...
Hall of Fame inductees will be announced today at 11 our time.
Dump on!!!
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A fair arguement by Karhl
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7650072
That is such a Bavasi trade
Not clear that it would even improve them in the short run, and it beheads the farm system for the long run.
I'll be sack-dancing if that goes down.
Think Shawne Merriman
without the steroids.
If the A's
could get a similar (even lesser) return for Blanton (say Jones and Clement or Jones and Triunfel) they would be crazy not to take it
Bavasi seems to prefer Bedard over Blanton
Bedrad, if healthy, can dominate.
Blanton for Jones
Wouldn't we take that straight up?
by methodrampage on Jan 8, 2008 10:32 AM PST up reply actions
Abso-bally-lutely, old chap
Broadcaster inductees are announced later, right?
That's my recollection, but couldn't find the info from a brief glance at the HOF site. Go, Bill, go!
Long time, no blog
Didn't know you had a little one. How old?
One man's Hall ballot
Amusing faux ballot with arguments from Art Garfamudis, whose credentials are described thusly:
Art Garfamudis once wrote about baseball when the regular guy at his newspaper had appendicitis. He did it again several years later during a blizzard that kept the front-line staff stranded in their homes and, finally, a third time, in 1984, when the team beat writer was abruptly fired for stealing quarters from the honor box in the break room. This qualified him for membership in the BBWAA, which he has enjoyed ever since.
by FreeSeatUpgrade on Jan 8, 2008 10:01 AM PST reply actions
Wayne and Garfamudis.
Schwing!
genius
My cousin used to be a math whiz until he fell out of a pickup truck when he was 12 and hit his head on the curb. He couldn't count his fingers after that. Did they let him into MIT anyway? No, they did not. End of parable.
i'm guessing neyer
ESPN Page 2?
I'd think Jonah Keri, meself.
Makes sense
Since he was the one (plus Law) who was recently blackballed from the BBWAA.
by FreeSeatUpgrade on Jan 8, 2008 2:24 PM PST up reply actions
Well, its clearly an anagram...
for "it guards a farm." So... were either of them involved in farm security before becoming a writer?
Roger Clemens
J.R. Rider looks good in stripes
Alameda’s own Isaiah "J.R." Rider was arrested in Berkeley again the other night, this time for a couple of bench warrants, for having a gun while being on probation, and for grand theft. His rap sheet is mighty long at this point, and real hard time is probably not too far away. Locals may remember Rider from Encinal High, UNLV, several NBA stops, or points in between...his greatest claim to fame is probably missing more practices, games, and plane flights for spurious reasons than perhaps any other player in NBA history.
I once played softball with Rider. He was on our squad opening night, played a decent left field, didn’t hit all that well, and then...surprise, surprise...didn’t show up for the next game. Or the one after that, or the one after that. My brush with athletic greatness. Well that, and the time Hollywood Henderson refused my autograph request at Waimea Bay, telling me "I’m on vacation, baby!"
by FreeSeatUpgrade on Jan 8, 2008 10:13 AM PST reply actions
I once served ice cream to Ralph Nader
Then I hectored him about how the government should monitor his cholesterol levels, and took it back from him.
I'd vote that QOTM...
..but if I do, Al Gore might lose.
Somehow, I voted Pat B. for QOTM
my mom's
assistant's daughter once dated Rider. Or, given the reputation of NBA players, "dated" Rider. My mom's assistant was understandably not thrilled with the arrangement, and she was only slightly mollified when her daughter took up with Chris Gatling instead.
by rubin sierra on Jan 8, 2008 12:04 PM PST up reply actions
a "giant" dump?
No, what the world needs now is an athletic dump.
I meant what the world needs now
is to dump on the Giants.
by kaweahkaweah on Jan 8, 2008 10:24 AM PST up reply actions
I didnt think so either
so in hindsight, Beane and co appeared to do the right thing by letting him go on waivers
Some traffic camera photos?
14 hours of remedial driver's ed?
MRH, OCE
(you don't make such optimistic predictions for your favorite "team" when it comes to baseball...)
tru, dat
I think the trendlines do favor my guess, though.
trendlines
but they're voting today, there's just no way E is making up that much ground on C, it will not even be close imo.
Catfish Stew
Ken Arneson has a new post up looking at what the A's current situation says about their drafting and development system. He has some nice insights about both strengths and weaknesses.
Thanks for the link
isn't this the strategy you were criticizing?
...the A's seem to have opted to stick with what they know. They got nine players back: five pitchers, three corner outfielders, and one first baseman. No shortstops, no second basemen, and no pure centerfielders.
Haren and Swisher were their two most valuable trading chips, and they used them to get players we can be fairly confident given the A's history that the A's have evaluated accurately.
Makes a rather good point
which is that the running down of the A's farm system as a result of the team being continually competitive for 8 years (and getting crummy draft picks as a consequence) is, in fact, precisely what the system is supposed to accomplish. To paraphrase Fight Club, the A's are not a beautiful and unique snowflake, they're a team playing by the same rules as everyone else-- and those rules are, however haphazardly, designed to wear down the ability of teams to compete year after year to allow different teams to reach the top.
I've felt teams should draft with comparative advantage in mind, although you can't take notions like that so far that you neglect to take the best player available. The clearest example of this is the Giants, who are great at developing pitchers and totally hapless at developing hitters.
On your second paragraph
That's kind of the dilemma at this point - to what extent should a team just play to its known strengths as opposed to trying to correct its weaknesses. Ultimately, of course, you'd want to do both, but the latter is easier said than done.
There's another possibility, too. The talent in the draft is not distributed the same for different positions to begin with, and it's possible that the market is more efficient in the early picks for some types of players than for others.
For instance, I know that in football there is a pretty high correlation between the left tackles drafted in the first 10 picks and the ones that eventually end up as stars, while drafting running backs has been more of a crapshoot. That doesn't necessarily mean that you should avoid drafting a RB toward the top of the draft or a LT farther down, but it does mean that where you draft affects your relative chances of ending up with a star at those positions.
Something like that could be happening in baseball - if there are fewer potential great CF's and SS's to begin with and the few who are available are all snatched up early in the draft (either because the scouts overrate the type of toolsy players who end up at those positions, or because they are simply better at rating those types of players than they are at the corner positions), then a team drafting lower in the round might never have more than a slim shot at finding a great player at those positions.
In the end, as you say, the team has to take the best player available. But that calculation of "best" needs to include not only what the scouts (and stats) say, but also (a la Moneyball) some historical information about how reliable the scouts and stats have been on that type of player.
we'll see what they do with this pick
but they have already used early picks on guys like pennington and horton...
Horton not really an 'early' pick
in the sense that he was the 5th guy the A's grabbed last draft and the 90th player picked overall. He's done well since being drafted, but they did pick four other guys before they decided that Horton was worth that draft slot.
DLD worthy humor
http://www.gaslampball.com/story/2008/1/3/16727/56239
Look at the bright side
by kaweahkaweah on Jan 8, 2008 11:17 AM PST up reply actions
24% for Raines?
Great googley moogley.
Sadly, Rice is gonna get in next year.
At least Blyleven increased by about 15%.
For anybody else taking the day off work, Steve Phillips is currently making an ass out of himself on ESPNEWS, with Sheehan and Law crushing his pithy arguments.
On the bright side ...
he needs less of an increase in support than Goose saw over his nine years on the ballot.
My goodness.
I can't believe Dawson and Rice are getting in. And that Don Mattingly and Alan Trammell got the same number of votes is almost absurd.
Via Primer
In response to McGwire not gaining any ground in his second year of eligibility:
I don't find it very surprising. There are two types of people who didn't vote for him last year: those that don't vote for anybody on the first ballot, and those punishing him for steroids. Since those are both retarded positions, I figure that the former is a subset of the latter.
steroids = retarded position?
maybe they are just following the hof voting instructions?
Yes ...
if you're in favor of them, you're retarded ...
Steroids, or the voting instructions?
Good for the Goose ...
it's about frickin' time.
hof
full results:
Rich "Goose" Gossage 466 (85.8%)
Jim Rice 392 (72.2%)
Andre Dawson 358 (65.9%)
Bert Blyleven 336 (61.9%)
Lee Smith 235 (43.3%)
Jack Morris 233 (42.9%)
Tommy John 158 (29.1%)
Tim Raines 132 (24.3%)
Mark McGwire 128 (23.6%)
Alan Trammell 99 (18.2%)
Dave Concepcion 88 (16.2%)
Don Mattingly 86 (15.8%)
Dave Parker 82 (15.1%)
Dale Murphy 75 (13.8%)
Harold Baines 28 (5.2%)
Rod Beck 2 (0.4%)
Travis Fryman 2 (0.4%)
Robb Nen 2 (0.4%)
Shawon Dunston 1 (0.2%)
Chuck Finley 1 (0.2%)
David Justice 1 (0.2%)
Chuck Knoblauch 1 (0.2%)
Todd Stottlemyre 1 (0.2%)
Brady Anderson 0
Jose Rijo 0
baseball crank:
I’m disappointed in Blyleven’s and Raines’ showings, and alarmed by Dawson’s rise. All the new candidates but Raines dropped off the ballot, but all the returning ones remained, although Harold Baines at 5.2% is dropping close to the line, and Dave Concepcion now goes to the Veterans Commitee. Rice and Tommy John will be on the ballot one last time next year, and Rice probably goes in then.
On further reflection, Blyleven’s jump to over 60% probably does mean he’s finally on track to make it.
Let me also point out something that should be screamingly obvious: Tim Raines was born in 1959 and played in the majors from 1979 to 2002. Lee Smith was born in 1957 and played in the majors from 1980-97. With the possible exception of the 1991-92 offseason, at no point during those years would anyone in their right minds have considered trading Tim Raines to get Lee Smith.
I love looking at the bottom of the results...
...and see who actually got consideration. Robb Nen? And he actually got TWO votes?
by FormerHuntsvilleStar on Jan 8, 2008 7:13 PM PST up reply actions
I'm surprised Justice didn't get a few more votes
you know, 10-20 ...
Question for you
Re: my diary on 1st round draft picks...
What should I call someone like Powell? He'll be 26 when 2008 starts, he's had success but injuries hold him back? Is he a prospect or should I just tag him (and others like him) something else?
Maybe create a TBD category?
Interesting question ...
of the common categories, oddly enough, I'd say his value is most similar to a toolsy, raw recent HS draftee -- ton of upside, but a high probability it will never happen. The difference, of course, is the timetable.
He's definitely still a prospect.
So, really, it's hard to say exactly, without knowing a bit more specifically how you're planning on breaking down players other than those like Powell.
At this point
I'm keeping it simple.
Big league starters or better.
Busts.
Fringe (AAAAers).
Prospects.
Then I'm thinking TBD for guys like Powell and Carlos Quentin.
If those are the categories, he's a prospect ...
no question.
Thinking about it a bit more, I don't really see the value in creating a separate category for guys like him. Since, for the most part, a propensity to injuries for specific players (especially position players) aren't that predictable, it's not really fair to say the team (train issues aside) didn't draft well because a player's development was slowed by injury. If anything, it almost speaks better of the organization that they were able to keep the player valuable.
I assume you're including ML backups as Fringe ... makes sense to me, as, often, the difference is more about opportunity than talent.
It might make the thing unwieldy, but it would make sense to have a "star" category.
You convinced me, no TBD
But I'm not going to mess with "star". Too many arguements over who's a "star" vs. just really good.
Not that it would really make it any easier ...
but I'd make the start category pretty broad -- something like the top third of starters ... which would leave you with ~150 players at any given time ...
I'd say there is a big difference in
Checking the link dump every hour and taking a dump every hour. but that's just me.
Can't anybody stop these big cats?
"And he was a spittin' and a growlin'," said Smith. "All I saw was flashing eyes and teeth. And I knew I was gonna have to kill him if I could."
Jim Callis - Baseball America
Billy Beane has proven himself to be one of the game's best general managers, but how he escapes blame for the collapse of his farm system is beyond me. Yes, big league promotions have thinned out Oakland's store of minor league talent, but with 19 first-round or supplemental first-round picks in the last six drafts, there's no excuse. Funny, I seem to remember reading a book a few years ago about how the A's were revolutionizing the draft.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today...
I agree.
Me too
It was snarky, maybe even petty, as worded. However, Beane has to accept blame for the fact that he was in a position to trade Haren and Swisher.
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 2:48 PM PST up reply actions
Callis is full of shit
From 2002 - 2005 the A's had 16 1st round/Sup 1st round picks.
Swisher, Blanton, Teahen, Street, Buck have all established them selves as big league starters or better.
Brown, Quintanilla and Putnam are looking like AAAA players.
Sullivan, Snyder, Fritz, McCurdy and Obenchain were busts.
Robnett and Pennington are still struggling to prove themselves in the minors. Powell has shown ability but hasn't been able to stay healthy.
But wait, there's more!
In 2003 Callis himself called Brad Sullivan a "coup" at #25 and said that between him and Quintanilla the A's could see more success from the 2003 draft then they'd manage from the Moneyball draft.
In 2004 Callis said the A's had the 4th best draft in baseball. In 2005 he said they had the 5th best draft.
So 5 starters, 5 busts, 3 scrubs, 2 athletes still young enough to have a chance and 1 talented but injury prone catcher. None of these picks came higher then 16th overall. Exactly how high a success rate does Callis demand?
Do you think the A's revolutionized the draft?
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 3:08 PM PST up reply actions
Yes, they did
Their emphasis on statistical analysis and college players chnaged the way teams drafted.
In 2002, only 15 of 34 non-Oakland 1st round picks were spent on college players.
In 2003 (when Moneyball was released) 17 of 34 non-Oakland 1st round picks were used on college players.
By 2004, everyone (except Joe Morgan) had read the book. 21 of 37 non-A's 1st round picks were used on college players.
In 2005 it was 24 of 44.
In 2006 it was 25 of 44.
In 2007 it was 30 of 61. Of course by this time the A's were using 2nd round picks on high school pitchers themselves, proving that revolutions are an ongoing thing.
What the A's were not able to do was find a fool proof way of making draft picks. However, I'm doing some research to check their results vs. the rest of baseball.
I look forward to the facts
I am an empiricist at heart, so I will await your diary eagerly. I think in the end, though, it will take something like 10-20 years to fairly evaluate the A's approach. That way, actual WARP or some other measure could be used to measure how much value a team got out of its picks.
My prediction is that in the end (the Monyeball draft revolution) we will conclude that it was all much ado about nothing; the A's will be somewhere near average. If the A's had truly found the secret sauce, the A's would not have had to trade their best two players to revive one of the worst farm systems in baseball.
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 3:44 PM PST up reply actions
That's just silly ...
considering their position in the draft, the A's haul was much better than average every year except 2003.
Fourteen of nineteen picks either worked out or are still decent or better prospects -- none came higher than #16. Picking in that range, fewer than 1/3 of all picks even make the bigs. From 2002-2006 the A's had 16 picks -- 8 have made the bigs and three more still have a chance with four of them established as or looking like above average MLB players.
That's excellent.
I don't disagree
But it is worth pointing out that the Yankees and Red Sox have both had perenially low draft picks, and still built 2 of the top farm systems in baseball.
by BWH on Jan 8, 2008 4:22 PM PST up reply actions
That's true ...
The Yankees had a silly good 2006 draft -- Chamberlain, Kennedy, Betances. Most of the rest came from Latin America.
The Red Sox had an even better 2005 -- Bucholz, Ellsbury, Lowrie, Bowden, Hansen. Came up big in the later rounds in 2006, as well.
Neither team has much of a track record -- so while their systems are currently very impressive, right now there's not enough data to suggest much more than each having a single good draft.
Right.
I too am willing to chalk this up largely to coincidence, as well as the fact that they haven't had to promote many guys yet.
Plus all of their inherent financial advantages (as much as Billy loved Jeremy Brown, he wouldn't have drafted The Beaver 35th overall if the A's had a substantial budget with which to sign draft picks).
by BWH on Jan 8, 2008 4:54 PM PST up reply actions
That's not entirely true
Here's how BA has ranked the 2 farm systems from 2007-2001:
Boston: 9th, 8th, 21st, 23rd, 27th, 28th, 24th
NY Yankees: 7th, 17th, 24th, 27th, 17th, 5th, 7th
The Yankees' resurgence was built around 2004 1st rounder Philip Hughes and paying above slot bonuses to Kennedy, Chamberlain, Melancon, Betances and Curtis. Heading into 2007 Betances, Chamberlain and Kennedy ranked as NY's 4th, 5th and 6th best prospects. Betances, an 8th round draft pick got a $1 million signing bonus. Kennedy, the 21st overall pick in 2006, signed for a $2.25 million bonus. That was $750,000 more then the 20th overall pick made. Chamberlain signed for $1.1 million, that was $250,000 more then the guy before him signed for.
Boston hit a HR in the 2005 draft, landing 4 guys who'd make up their Top 10 heading into 2007. Of course last year they also committed $103 million on their #1 prospect, Daisuke Matsuzaka.
Not silly
By only concentrating on labeling "good" versus "bad" pick you only focus on whether players stuck in the majors, and not how much actual value those players produced while there. I want to see actual value those players produced, because drafting players with lower ceiling increases the odds of developing major leaguers but decreases the number of stars produced. WARP is a better measure. Also, a point of clarification: I think that the A's have drafted overall about average, but their 1st round results are likely to be above average. There is more than 1 round in the draft, and I think the A's will prove to be below average in finding talent after the 1st round.
Overall, I believe that objective analysis will prove my point: the A's didn't "revolutionize" the draft.
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 4:51 PM PST up reply actions
It would be premature at this point anyway
It would work for 2002 or even 2003 maybe, but it's certainly too early to use WARP prospects that may not have even reached the majors yet, or are early in their careers.
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 5:04 PM PST up reply actions
I believe I broke it down into several categories
why, yes, I did ... what do you know?
4 Quality MLers
Swisher, Blanton, Street, Buck
1 Decent MLer
Teahen
3 AAAAers that have made their MLB debut
Brown, Putnam, Quintanilla
3 who are still prospects
Pennington, Powell, Robnett
5 who have amounted to nothing
Sullivan, Snyder, McCurdy, Fritz, Oberchain
If you'd like to provide any data beyond the first round, I'd love to see it. If you're just offering your opinion, I think it makes more sense to assume that the data from the first round is fairly representative of their drafts overall.
I have no idea what represents an average or good return outside of the first/suppl round, but from 2002 to 2004, the later rounds brought:
Suzuki, Windsor, Melillo, Blasi, Braden, Robertson, Ethier, Pruitt (why not?), Murphy, Burton, Komine
Pruitt was a 2007 pick
No?
Yeah ... my bad ...
we drafted a different Pruitt in 2003 ...
Well, don't hold your breath on the diary
29 teams drafting over 4 years....
Even sticking to the 1st round, this is going to be a chore. My gut instinct says the A's will be one of the best teams in terms of converting low 1st round draft picks into big league players. What I need to do is track down some of the better articles that show the percentage of success at each draft slot.
I think the real weakness lies in the later rounds. The A's rarely spend money on projectionable athletes in the later rounds, they just won't drop $1 million on a 16th rounder like Smoak. Other teams are willing to do this for top talent which gives them an extra chance to develope players.
Plus, the lack of talent from Latin America has cost the A's. Yet another source of talent that the A's have denied themselves.
In my post on this article in Zonis' diary ...
I compare the team's success in each draft to the overall success of the latter portion of the 1st/Suppl round.
http://athleticsnation.com/comments/...
That's something to work with
Although the more I dig, the more I think I've got a better topic elsewhere.
If you look at Boston's Top 10 for 2008 the only non-1st/2nd round picks in the group were either paid well beyond slot or as FA out of the D.R.
#3 Lars Anderson: 18th rnd pick signed for $825K
#6 Ryan Kalish: 9th round pick signed for $600K
#9 Oscar Tejada: FA from the D.R. signed for $525K
#10 Josh Reddick: 17th round pick signed for $140K
The A's would almost have to hit with every 1st and 2nd round pick thet have to just match what teams like Boston is doing.
Check out
the link to the article at Sons of Sam Horn, in the Catfish Stew article I linked earlier.
Thanks, I saw that one
I vaguely recall THT having some stuff as well.
Looks even better
if you account for Schott et al's ridiculous parsimony in 2002. Lowballing draft picks is-- as Pirates fans have learned-- a great way to end up with busts.
Agree
It's not really fair to criticize the A's drafting prowess because Brown was a bust, and to a certain extent that applies to other lowballed "first rounders" in 2002. I don't think anyone besides Michael Lewis was stupid enough to actually think those guys were better than players who would have been picked if the A's were not making picks based on budget rather than talent.
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 4:10 PM PST up reply actions
Brown wasn't a bust.
He was the #35 pick in the draft. Only three of the guys taken in the 1st/Suppl rounds after #25 have made the bigs. Two of them, including Brown, were taken by the A's.
Of the sixteen picks in the group, Brown has had the second most successful career, nestled nicely between Mark Teahen and Dan Meyer. Only three of the others have even made AAA -- and one of them did so as a Rivercat.
He's a bust
He has produced 0 WARP for the major league team. That's kind of the point of the draft, isn't it?
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 4:53 PM PST up reply actions
Addendum
I would agree that guys taken in the low rounds can be considered successes as organizational guys who fill minor league rosters. A guy taken at #35 who doesn't produce major league value is a bust.
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 4:57 PM PST up reply actions
Au contraire
He produced 0.1 WARP for the major league team.
Seriously, though-- Adam Melhuse didn't play a day in the bigs until he was 29. Brown just turned 28. I'm confident he'll have a big-league career with someone.
We'll see.
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 5:23 PM PST up reply actions
That's a silly standard ...
By that standard, everybody fails. You cannot draft players that don't exist.
The two most successful picks in the back end of the 1st/suppl round were both A's picks. They did better than anyone else who competed. That's very impressive.
right
I believe that the most accurate way of evaluating a team's draft success in any given year is to compare the player(s) taken in a particular draft slot to the next 10 or so players taken subsequently.
2002 is so interesting in retrospect because so many of the best players from the first few rounds were taken in the middle of the first round.
The A's got Swisher at #16, then Blanton at #24, then the Giants picked Cain at #25, then the A's picked bust John McCurdy at #26... and then the next players of note drafted were #31 Greg Miller (who hasn't pitched in MLB yet), #34 Dan Meyer, #39 Mark Teahan, #44 Joey Votto (5 years later looks good), #50 Micah Owings (who didn't sign), #55 David Bush, #57 John Lester, #60 Johnathon Broxton, #61 Jesse Crain, #64 Brian McCann, #68 Chris Snyder, #74 Elijah Dukes, #80 Curtis Granderson, #97 Dan Ortmeier
So of the next 75 players chosen after Matt Cain, you get two studs in McCann and Granderson, a couple of guys who still have some luster in Votto and Lester, two other position player starters in Teahen and Chris Snyder, two very good relievers in Broxton and Crain, one back of the rotation guy in David Bush, and 5 other guys who have a bit of upside still...
That's what, 13/75 success rate overall? and that's being charitable to some of those guys?
The way I look at the 2002 draft, they were 2/2 in the loaded part of the draft, and then were 1/7 (Teahen) through round three after that, not including using Bill Murphy to trade for a MLB starter, or having cheap control of Jeremey Brown as the emergency catcher. And they didn't spend much money on several of these guys.
So based on that standard ...
which I'd say is a very reasonable one.
Based on this standard, in a perfect world, the A's would have taken Joey Votto instead of Steve Oberchain and Chris Snyder instead of Steve Stanley.
Do you know if either of those guys would have had signability issues?
Only that
they wouldn't agree to well-below slot signing bonuses ahead of time.
How much ...
did they receive, relative to Stanley and Oberchain?
I'm starting to think that maybe I should pony up for Baseball America ... it's just so damn expensive ... I wish they had a $_/mo option so that I could see if I would actually use it.
we should talk to Blez ...
... about getting an "institutional" deal.
That'd be sweet ...
{cough}you know my e-mail address{cough}
I was kidding
You know my ethical standards are above such an act.
Interesting enough
It seems the Reds were doing some bargain shopping of their own in 2002.
Here's the basic breakdown.
#34 Dan Meyer; $1 million (Braves)
#35 Jeremy Brown; $350K
#36 Chadd Blasko; $1,050,000 (Cubs)
#37 Steve Obenchain; $750K
#38 Matt Clanton; $850K (Cubs)
#39 Mark Teahen; $725K
#40 Mark Schramek; $200K (Reds)
#41 Micah Schilling; $915K (Indians)
#42 Blair Johnson; $885K (Pirates)
#43 Jason Pridie; $892,500 (D'Rays)
#44 Joey Votto; $600K (Reds)
Skipping ahead...
#66 Fred Lewis; $595K (Giants)
#67 Steve Stanley; 200K
#68 Chris Snyder; $567K (D'backs)
Neither Stanley, Votto or Brown had reps when they signed.
Give me some luster, Lester.
Give me a motto, Votto.
That's only a partially valid excuse though
The A's paid slot money to Swisher, Blanton, McCurdy and Fritz. They low-balled on Brown, Obenchain and Teahen plus all their picks from the 2nd round on down.
Teahen's worked out OK and Brown could end up a back-up. Fritz and McCurdy washed-out fairly early.
Fair enough
I think a reasonable angle would be to see guys as "nth rounders" based on the bonuses they got, not necessarily where they were picked. Brown and Teahen didn't get bupkus-- their bonuses were, what, 3rd round money or so? So you'd expect them, at some level, to work out more or less like 3rd round picks, which, if you aren't completely jerking around during the draft, should work out with decent frequency.
I guess my take on the Moneyball draft is that the A's took a whole bunch of guys they were going to take anyway earlier than they could have gotten away with, to make sure they got them before anyone else did-- because in the absence of enough money to sign first-round picks at the going rate, that was the most efficient use of the higher draft position.
I am interested, if Lewis ever comes out with that follow-up book, in finding out what happened to the "Moneyball busts."
That's how I do it in my mind
Interestingly enough, PECOTA is going to include draft status as an element of its projections this year; PECOTA is using signing bonus rather than draft position to compensate for the realities of the current draft system.
by BlameChannel53 on Jan 8, 2008 5:06 PM PST up reply actions
Here's a question that just popped in my mind
and I have done no deep research into it. But it's worth posing to the Beane-bashers.
Has any team really sustained a quality farm system for a 7-8 year period of time (it was 7-8 years ago that Zito, Mulder, Hudson, Chavez, etc. came up. That was probably the last time they had a top-10 system.)?
And has any team with the kind of MLB success that the A's have had over the past 8 years been able to maintain an at least average farm system the whole time?
I remember the Angels used to be stacked, but not so much today. And the Red Sox and Yankees are now loaded, but after years of fielding poor minor league talent.
In other words, what kind of standards should we have?
by BWH on Jan 8, 2008 6:33 PM PST up reply actions
Wouldn't be hard ...
for someone who had BA access ...
sadly, I don't.
Most of the other major sources haven't been doing it long enough to show a trend.
I should say more
A large part of that #8 ranking was the addition of Daric Barton and Dan Meyer as the 2nd and 4th best prospects in the A's system.
Also having done no deep research
I might suggest that the Twins and Braves would be such teams.
Twins have been ranked in the Top 10
since 2001. But I've got a theory about them that I'll try to run down after I take care of some other stuff.
Figures
Part of it was definetly Joe Mauer
He was on their prospect list through 2005 and BA has always given extra credit to teams with "star" prospects.
Can Dan Johnson be blamed for this as well?
Ghostriding Grandparents
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:17...
And since this is a baseball link dump
Behind the back curveball
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:17...
funny but no way that was a strike in the majors, maybe in a softball game
warning the vids I posted are fine but some of the links might be NSFW.
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