Draft: 95% of pitchers in top5 are a bust

Sultan,
Minor correction. Your 95% figure is misleading.

Right after the paragraph you quoted, the article lists all the pitchers who were top 5 picks in these years. It's the guys you mention plus 18 others.

So the success rate of pitchers taken with top-5 picks is 5 out of 23, not 5 out of 105.

This doesn't undermine your point, but it makes the case less overwhelming.

Seems like the GM's are already following the advice since they're already using top-5 picks for hitters almost 80% of the time.

Thanks swampboy. I blame it on lack of coffee. So 78% of top 5 pitchers drafted are "busts".

What is the success rate for the alternative...the other side of the coin?

Lies, da m n lies, and statistics...

Considering 93% of all players drafted never make it to the show this means that the top 5 rounds makes the them 2% better than the average....

This stuff makes for a great discussion. Not being a SABR-metrician (or fluent in English), I love this sort of stuff. It seems to me, that in order to come closer to a definitive trend, we would need:

Top 10 picks for the last 10 (maybe 15) years.

Sort them out by Pitchers v. Position guys.

Time from Draft date to time when they "stuck" in the big leagues (maybe defined as at least 1/2 a season of continuous service).

Min. number of game appearance in the show to be eligible to be called a Big League player (25? 50? 75? 100? more?)

Then you can look at what % of Pitchers "make it"; what % of Position guys "make it"; average development time before Pitchers make it; average development time before Position guys make it; and are there statistically significant differences between the numbers?

If you look further back in time, you could also measure length of productive career of Top 10 picks versus lower picks. Do the guys taken earl in the draft produce more over time than the guys taken lower? Pitchers? Position guys?

Gosh ... if somebody is willing to dig this up and crunch the numbers, I hope you will post them. It's beyond me for sure

Great stuff

It is interesting to look at past drafts and check the results. Here is the first round from 2000. That's far enough back to go by the results.

1 Marlins Adrian Gonzalez 1B
2 Twins Adam Johnson RHP
3 Cubs Luis Montanez SS
4 Royals Mike Stodolka LHP
5 Expos Justin Wayne RHP
6 Devil Rays Rocco Baldelli OF
7 Rockies Matt Harrington RHP
8 Tigers Matt Wheatland RHP
9 Padres Mark Phillips LHP
10 Angels Joe Torres LHP
11 Brewers Dave Krynzel OF
12 White Sox Joe Borchard OF
13 Cardinals Shaun Boyd 2B
14 Orioles Beau Hale RHP
15 Phillies Chase Utley 2B
16 Mets Billy Traber LHP
17 Dodgers Ben Diggins RHP
18 Blue Jays Miguel Negron OF
19 Pirates Sean Burnett LHP
20 Angels Chris Bootcheck RHP
21 Giants John Bonser RHP
22 Red Sox Phil Dumatrait LHP
23 Reds David Espinosa SS
24 Cardinals Blake Williams RHP
25 Rangers Scott Heard C
26 Indians Corey Smith SS
27 Astros Robert Stiehl C
28 Yankees David Parrish C
29 Braves Adam Wainwright RHP
30 Braves Scott Thorman 3B

Once you get past the #1 pick Gonzalez, #15 pick Utley, #29 Wainwright and maybe Baldelli. the results aren't so good for pitchers or position players.

I haven't checked the other years, but 2000 is nothing to brag about. Be interesting to see who all the best players are today from that draft.

There are a few journeyman types on the list, but there have been a bunch of players drafted past the 5th round that have done as well as Boof Bonser, Espinosa, Burnett and Billy Traber, et al.

quote:

Swampboy said....Seems like the GM's are already following the advice since they're already using top-5 picks for hitters almost 80% of the time.

This may be even more so this year given that MLB hitting numbers are way, way down in the post Steroid era. Premium value for premium hitters.

Actually I think lots of pitching will be picked in the first round of the draft this year. It seems to be a great year for pitching.

Putting signability aside (I'm not aware of contract demands/negotiations enough to comment) my top 5 would be:

1) Cole
2) Hultzen
3) Bauer
4) Rendon
5) Bundy

Lindor, Bradley, Starling could be in the mix also. I'd also not rule out Purke...as PGStaff mentioned in another post, if he's healthy, he's as good as anyone.

Not that they mean much, but 2 mock drafts that I've seen both have Purke going to the Yankees with the 51st pick....health must still be an issue.

This really seems to be a banner year for top notch pitchers from both college and high school. It's probably very difficult for GMs to pass on such promising arms, regardless of failure rate.

Here's an interesting article wonder how it will affect the draft.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6621842

What's interesting is that the same teams repeat getting first top 5 picks, yet they continue to not be able to compete. Why?
FWIW, my son's teammate was the first pick of the Pirates in 2007, above the other two others they passed over I do beleive that his bonus demands were not as high. He is now playing on the ML level, he was drafted as a starter, then a releiver back to starter and now a reliever, so I think that is what pushed back his arrival.

Without doing the study suggest by southpawD, why do the top 5 pitchers go bust? Injury perhaps the biggest reason why not?
Why not do the same study with position players?


Regardless of where one is drafted, statistics say that most will not reach the ML level and when they do and stick it will be approx 4 years or less(averaged out) that he remains. Think about it, usually takes most players 3-5 years in mminor league, after that most pitchers are burned. My opinion is one reason why many teams are letting their your players up earlier these days (especially pitchers).