Red Sox Drafts: Give Them Credit
by windyfelix on Oct 11, 2008 8:09 AM PDT
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PrintOK-- money got them Manny, and Schilling and Dice K.
Smarts and some luck gave them Papi. A very good trade landed them Lowe and Varitek. Beckett and Lowell was a trade that helped both teams.
But the new core of this team is reminiscent of the Yankees success with Jeter-Rivera-Williams-Posada: all home-grown and shrewd draft selections.
Lester, Pedroia, Ellsbury and Lowrie were all selected either in Round 2 (Lester in 2002; Pedroia in 2004) or late in Round 1 (Ellsbury in 2005 and Lowrie in the supplemental of the same year).
In other words, the A's and a whole lot of other teams could have had any of them.
To be fair, the A's picked up Ethier and Suzuki in Round 2, and have now acquired a Round 2 pick in Sweeney and late Round 1 picks in Barton and Devine. And they have made at least one pretty solid late first round choice: Street. But the Moneyball draft in particular looks weaker the more you examine it (yes, signability was an issue) as 3 of the 7 Round 1 or supplemental picks have made the bigs but each has seemed to hit a ceiling. Swisher has been a pretty good player, but Hamels, Loney and Cain were picked after him that year. Blanton has been a dependable starter and Teahen an adequate enough everyday player, but Fritz, Obenchain, Brown and McCurdy are all history while Round 2 that year yielded the likes of the afore-mentioned Lester, Joey Votto, Micah Owings, Jonathan Braxton, Jesse Crain and Brian McCain with Curtis Granderson chosen in the 3rd round.
And the two following drafts saw the A's choosing, in addition to Street, Brad Sullivan, Ben Snyder, Landon Powell and Richie Robnett in late first round slots, and not Carlos Quentin, Hunter Pence, Yovani Gallardo, Blake DeWitt and Pedroia. And in 2005 it was Cliff Pennington and Travis Buck (jury still out on both of course) instead of Ellsbury, Garza and Devine (after Pennington) and Buchholz and Lowrie (after Buck).
The A's made a few stinker choices-- join the club-- next to the playoffs, this is the sport's biggest crapshoot. Their drafts when they did have higher picks were solid with Mulder, Chavez and Zito-- for a while, at least-- and less so with Prieto and Grieve. Crosby was a middle first round pick, I believe. I'm less critical of them-- studies have shown that they did outperform most teams relative to draft order-- and more praiseworthy of the Red Sox continuing to do the things necessary to keep them on top. That is a first-class organization-- we could do worse than to follow their lead, at least where $150+ million isn't involved.
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to be fair...
a lot of those guys “the A’s could’ve had,” fell down in the draft due to signability issues. Boston is famous for drafting players and giving them “above slot” contracts.
"just a beating heart ... plasma that we'll put into our uniform." - Billy Beane
by athleticsBB4life on Oct 11, 2008 8:33 AM PDT reply actions
+10000000
Money, money, money. You don’t always or even often get what you pay for when you draft, but if you pay for talent you get it more often than when you don’t.
The key difference between that and free agency is that every team can afford to pay for amateur talent. The Red Sox spent $1 million on Lars Anderson. Seems like a lot for a 19th round pick, but compared to Carlos Silva? It’s pocket change from the seat cushions. Even dropping a couple hundred thou on a mid-round pick can get results (Josh Reddick).
To his credit, Beane appears to have realized this and changed the way the A’s approach the draft this year. Three of the most exciting draft picks in the A’s ’08 draft signed for over slot money (Dustin Coleman, Rashun Dixon and Nino Leyja).
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
Yep
Credit to them for identifying and developing those guys, but to say money is not a key factor in acquiring these players is obviously wrong.
by thejd44 on Oct 11, 2008 10:01 AM PDT up reply actions
And Brett T. Hunter
7th round…way over slot…
Putting big money into the draft will be nice.
Now with 100% more Canuck.
You never really know how good a guy is really going to be,
if this was the case then every team would take a perennial all star with every pick in the draft. I’m sure we could do this analysis at any other point in time with any team, of course there is always someone out there that we didn’t know about how good there were going to be.
FYI on ellsbury
he was a ba hitter in 08, but speed/defense
i dont think its stretch that every A’s OF at least offensively will be better than ellsbury in the long run.
of course he’s hyped to be better than he really is due to natl media, playing for red sox, and some big hits in the postseason.
that said, id rather have taken lowrie over pennington. but you could argue at the time pennington may have been the better choice due to his speed and defense to stick at SS. lowrie has looked good defensively but more of a 2b type eventually. lowrie’s bat is much further ahead…with gap power. pennington is basically a singles hitter . plus lowrie was playing at stanford so i assume they scouted him enough since he’s basically in their back yard.
BP
Will Carroll (5:54:38 PM PT): Ellsbury may want to look into deer racing as a career. From May 9 through the end of the season: .278/.320/.388. He walked 24 times in 487 PA. That’s awful.
I think he’s better than that, but he has to be a lot better than that to play. Right now, he’s Ichiro Lite, and that’s WAY too Lite.
Depends how good he is defensively
A great defensive CF can hit like that and still be productive.
by thejd44 on Oct 11, 2008 12:58 PM PDT up reply actions
Cherrypicking to try and show the A's did not draft well
is just plain silly. Sure, the A’s would rather have Hamels, Loney or Cain then Swisher. But, you could cherrypick the other direction and say that the A’s got a great player in Swisher compared to players like Bryan Bullington, Chris Gruler, Clint Everts, Scott Moore, Drew Meyer and Russ Adams all of whom were taken before Swisher was taken at #16. The fact that the A’s got a better player then many other teams did with better picks is no better way to judge a draft then to say there were better players taken later so therefore they did not do well. You need to look at how they did compared to how the average pick at that spot in the draft usually turns out. Grover (I believe) did an analysis of this and showed that the A’s have actually done pretty well in the draft (not super, but pretty good). Maybe time to re-post that.
well, again, look at the title
i said pretty clearly in here that i was not being critical of the A’s, who overall have drafted fairly well given their position, but instead praising the other guys who it seems to be have done better than almost every other team from late round 1 on in recent years.
Yeah, everything they do lately
seems to come up Aces. (By lately, I mean the last 4-5 years) … Unfortunately, they are on quite a roll right now. They draft well, they spend well, they pitch well, they hit well.
I really don’t think Tampa Bay has much of a chance — I really hope I’m wrong — but I think Boston sweeps this series, and rolls through Philly or L.A.
It’s a great organization … too bad so many of their “fans” came on board 4 years ago and act as if everyone ought to bow at their feet. But their team is incredible, no doubt.
I needed a team so I wouldn’t turn into one of the eighty million pink hat-wearing Bud Light-drinking mulleted idiots at Fenway.
Well, so far, you're wrong on one prediction, so that's a good thing.
There is a 0.00000% chance of a Bahstin sweep.
Now with 100% more Canuck.
Yup,
definitely not upset that I was wrong on that one!! Now, let’s hope I’m wrong on the rest! Go Rays!!!!
I needed a team so I wouldn’t turn into one of the eighty million pink hat-wearing Bud Light-drinking mulleted idiots at Fenway.
i don't understand why this thread is necessary
- where are all these people who are NOT giving the red sox front office credit?
- which one of the four ALCS and NLCS teams has NOT drafted relatively well?
A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05
"necessary?"
food, shelter and clothing. Nothing related to baseball is necessary.
That said, they are clearly the gold standard these days— they have won 2 of the last 4 WS and look to contend for years to come. They have effectively replaced the Yankees in that role, so I find it mildly interesting to look at how they are doing it. And since many of us brand them the 2nd coming of the Evil Empire, it is relevant to note that, like the Yankees before them, partic. the Yankee teams that actually won playoff series and World Series, it hasn’t all been money, money, money.
Stupid argument
You really don’t understand perspective and context, do you? Seriously. I’m pretty sure that implicit in xbhaskarx’s comment was the phrase “on this blog.” As in, “I don’t understand why this thread is necessary on this blog.” Or even “I don’t understand why this thread is necessary in a baseball discussion.”
Bringing up food, shelter, and clothing is a really silly way to avoid his very excellent point.
by thejd44 on Oct 14, 2008 10:12 AM PDT up reply actions
...and "clothing" redundant?
(Kind of like my fat fingers are "redundant")
I'm here to talk about the past.
Calling an argument stupid and asserting that someone "doesn't understand" something
is a great way to destroy an interesting discussion.
A good discussion ensued last week when the Rays were called the new model. I disagreed with that assertion, as I do the idea that the Red Sox are doing anything particularly special in the draft — but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth talking about …
"It's for your own good. Big strong Devo knows whats best for Poppy" -- Mossback
thank you
I mean we’ve got— what??— four months to kill before pitchers and catchers report. why not try to have some interesting discussions? Let the Thought Police take a break for a while.
And Implicit in all of this...
is the simple fact that while in 2001 or 2003 or maybe even 2005, the A’s were either leading the train or pretty close to it, now we’re clearly behind some other folks, and not by a small distance, with fairly uncertain prospects as to catching them. So I think talking about them some— and not just us— while not necessary may be.. therapeutic/relevant/interesting/ even important.
A little unsolicited advice/commentary:
1) Lower your post-to-comment ratio. (Meaning: more comments). For some reason, too many posts, not enough comments are frowned upon. So join the next game thread and comment away (even +1’s and LOL’s count).
2) You’re new. So even if you do nail a post, it may take a while for the locals to come around.
3) Don’t argue or weakly defend yourself. Unless it a (killer) point relevant to the original argument, they will eat you alive.
4) Don’t apologize, but don’t be afraid to admit when you’re wrong (and don’t drag it out to the point where you are trying to convince yourself that you’re right).
5) Being the off-season, you are more of a target because there’s little-to-no A’s news. So people who might not normally read your stuff are reading now.
6) Opinions are riskier than facts. So be prepared to back those opinions up with some data.
7) It’s the Internet. Who gives a shit?
I'm here to talk about the past.
Those are good pieces of advice ...
1) I frown on high post to comment ratios because this medium is supposed to be about discussion — back and forth — people put their thoughts out there, discussion and debate ensue, everyone’s understanding (hopefully) is expanded. If I just wanted to read some loudmouth’s opinion, I’d read espn.go.com.
2) Yep. I try not to treat folks unfairly, but I’ll definitely give someone who has been around a while the benefit of the doubt when they’ve said something I consider less than thoughtful.
6) He’s actually done a relatively good job of backing up his opinions with facts. His problem has been more about missing the big picture and focusing on a limited set of facts.
"It's for your own good. Big strong Devo knows whats best for Poppy" -- Mossback
fair enough
I’ve really had only 3 posts:
The Red Sox drafts;
Who might our longer-term competition be— in the AL? A guy on prospectus did this yesterday and thinks KC could easily become competitive, btw, though to be fair, he thinks Texas has a better chance to advance to the playoffs;
And Tampa’s model/Ideal— which devolved— I thought unnecessarily (oops— there’s that word again) into a debate about not being bad for 10 years— when in fact I think the Rays are going to be an obstacle for the smaller market “wanna-bes”— and that’s what the A’s are now— for many years to come— which was my real point.
I’ll try not to go into other, less germane areas and not post too much.
by windyfelix on Oct 14, 2008 3:49 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Your page says that you've had 10 diaries
and 96 comments …
You can contrast that with me, who has 75 diaries and over 11k comments. You don’t need nearly as extreme of a ratio as mine — but I think a big part of being a good member is not only putting your own thoughts out there but giving others feedback and discussion and so forth …
I don’t want to discourage anyone from posting, I just think that anyone who should have that much to contribute in terms of their own diaries should have plenty to contribute as comments in others’ as well.
"It's for your own good. Big strong Devo knows whats best for Poppy" -- Mossback
Number 1
I agree with that devo. I said “for some reason” it’s frowned upon, but it’s pretty clear why.
My understanding is aleady expanding, thanks to guys like you, but it would be nice to actually take part. Or I can continue to agree with everything grover says. A guy can do worse.
I'm here to talk about the past.
I think what is irritating people, including myself, about your posts
is that you are repeatedly saying “Follow their lead!” (whoever the “they” du jour is) without saying anything about what “their lead” is. If it’s just “draft better,” I mean… ya think? No news there.
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
I read “draft better” as “draft beer” like ten times in a row. Should I be worried?
I'm here to talk about the past.
I'd say that's a good sign ...
"It's for your own good. Big strong Devo knows whats best for Poppy" -- Mossback
Who are you, Arthur Dent?
Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.
I think Moneyball led to BB being overrated for a while.
He was a very good GM back then, but he was not baseball’s version of the Messiah, as some portrayed him. That said, he’s also a very good GM now.
The difference? I’d point to two things in particular:
1.) Early in the millennium the team was only a few years removed from some very bad teams and was enjoying the fruits of those draft picks. Smart decisions plus high draft picks led to an incredibly impressive array of high end talent. Add a Mulder, a Zito and a healthy Eric Chavez level performer to this team and it’d be pretty damn good.
2.) Health — Tim Hudson and Rich Harden, for instance, didn’t have particularly different health profiles. Huddy mostly stayed healthy, though. Those teams were incredibly healthy, more recent teams haven’t been. Part of that is luck, part of it is a shift in willingness to take on risk, part of it may be a less effective medical team. It’s hard to say exactly how much is from each factor, but the end results are pretty drastically different.
"It's for your own good. Big strong Devo knows whats best for Poppy" -- Mossback
i'm here. with money as your backup, anyone on this
board… let’s see braintrust, we’ll draft this 2b. if it doesn’t work out, we’ll buy this 2b. we’ll draft this p, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll buy…
owner of a lonely tarp
Am I the first one to wonder if windyfelix is oaktoon?
"We've come a long way, and I'm not talking about Virginia Slims, either." - Art Howe
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