Draft position and the Hall of Fame
by Brad D on Aug 19, 2010 7:37 PM EDT
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PrintIt's the second season in a row of following our draft pick position more closely than our place in the standings and that has, this being LGT, led to a large number of discussions of the best possible draft strategy and position. This snippet from Chuck got me thinking
your much more likely to get a potential HoFer than hanging on to those stiffs and losing "only" 92 games and drafting 6th and taking a "safe" pick like Jeremy Sowers.
So, is that really true? The success of Strasburg is right in front of us, but what has happened before him?
For starters, from 1965-1986, the number one pick yielded nary a one Hall Of Fame. The other picks, of course, did. So, at least for the first 22 years of the draft, that statement didn't hold true. Players selected after 1986 aren't eligible for the HOF yet, so some digging needs to be done.
From then on I'm going to go year by year with the first pick and then a listing of who else, from only the first round, should merit HOF consideration. In the cases where no one seemed to merit HOF consideration, I simply included the best player from the first round. I include only the first round because it is clear from Chuck's comment that was all that was being discussed. Besides, further rounds are a crapshoot anyway. I'll stop at 2000, as anyone after that is too far removed from the end of their career to intelligently project toward the HOF.
*HOF possibility
1987- Ken Griffey Jr* (Craig Biggio*, 22nd)
1988- Andy Benes (Tino Martinez, 14th)
1989- Ben McDonald (Frank Thomas*, 7th)
1990- Chipper Jones* (Mike Mussina*, 20th)
1991- Brien Taylor (Manny Ramirez*, 13th)
1992- Phil Nevin (Derek Jeter*, 6th)
1993- Alex Rodriguez* (Derrek Lee, 14th)
1994- Paul Wilson (Paul Konerko, 13th)
1995- Darin Erstad (Roy Halladay*, 17th)
1996- Kris Benson (Jake Westbrook, 21st)
1997- Matt Anderson (Lance Berkman, 16th)
1998- Pat Burrell (CC Sabathia*, 20th)
1999- Josh Hamilton (Josh Beckett, 2nd)
2000- Adrian Gonzalez (Chase Utley, 15th)
Conclusions:
- Number one picks have fared better after 1986, but still haven't outshone the rest of the first round. By my extremely unscientific calculations, three number one picks from that era (Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, and Chipper Jones) have a legitimate chance at being selected to the HOF. Using those same criteria, seven players taken after number one have a chance at being selected.
- The number one pick is not even a guarantee of getting the best player in that particular draft. 1991 and 1992 are particularly good examples of this. If the 2010 draft plays out the same way, Bryce Harper will flame out in A ball at the age of 28 with a $9.9 million contract while Chris Sale dominates baseball in his prime with an original cost of $1.65 million.
- Picking first does increase your chances for an HOF player marginally in recent times. Three number one picks of the 1987-2000 era are in with a chance, the number 20 pick (Mussina and Sabathia) has two candidates but lacks the strength, and no other slot has more than one player worth consideration. However, in the entire time of the draft, that still only leaves three number one picks with a chance of making the HOF in 35 years (to 2000) of drafting.
Final conclusion:
Picking first is by no means a notable advantage toward the procurement of HOF players. The numbers strongly indicate that the monetary outlay required in signing the first pick will not be worth it in the end run. The comparative savings of picking fourth or lower more than outweigh the extremely slim loss of career potential. You are not more likely to get that potential HOF at the first position, you are more likely to spend significant money.
In short, the MLB draft is not the NBA or NFL draft. Even at its highest level, it's an inexact science. Picking first in this culture of absurdly inflated costs may be more curse than blessing.
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Its obvious that the MLB draft is less exact than NBA or NFL, and I know that you probably threw this together pretty quickly, but I think there are way too many holes in this to be able to actually draw any conclusions.
The main problem that I see, is that you are comparing the 1st overall pick to the rest of the first round, instead of other individual picks. Of course 29 (or more with supplementals) other picks are going to wield better results than any 1 single pick, even if it is the 1st overall. This information is only useful if we were trying to decide between getting the 1st overall pick vs. getting all others in the first round.
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/06/draft_picks_and.php
Try that for for draft pick value analysis.
I considered that, and decided to do it this way instead. The original comment was that the first overall pick gave a much better chance of getting an HOF than drafting anywhere lower in the first round, that clearly isn’t true. The point here is that picking sixth isn’t worse than picking first in terms of your chances of getting an HOF player. This isn’t a draft pick value analysis.
The original comment was that the first overall pick gave a much better chance of getting an HOF than drafting anywhere lower in the first round, that clearly isn’t true. The point here is that picking sixth isn’t worse than picking first in terms of your chances of getting an HOF player.
I’m not so sure that’s what your work shows. Which single draft slot gives equally good chances of landing a HOFer as #1?
There are, by my count, three #1 picks on the list that could at least be reasonably placed in a HOF discussion—Griffey, Chipper, and A-Rod. (Chipper’s probably a reach, but he has enough of a career to at least talk about it.) But in your listing of best player drafted beyond #1, there isn’t a single draft slot that had even that many players. So even if we give every player on your “best that wasn’t #1” list the benefit of the doubt and call them HOFers, there still is no draft slot that gives 3 or more, other than the first pick.
In the very narrow approach to drafting as fishing for HOFers, your work shows that Chuck is right. Of course, that doesn’t mean that tanking for the #1 pick is a good idea if you want to draft good players, since HOF is such a tiny subset of all players.
And looking again, I see you already identified players worth considering with asterisks. Ok, so slot 1 gives 3 players, slot 20 gives two players, and other slots give 1 player or zero.
If you want to make the argument that the first overall pick is overrated when it comes to drafting hall of fame players, or that the expense isn’t worth the minimal gain in likelihood of drafting a hall-worthy player, then I’m absolutely with you. But if you’re saying that the first overall pick is not more likely to be HOF caliber than any other draft slot, I think you pretty clearly showed that you’re incorrect.
I agree with your overall point, but Chipper Jones is, in my eyes, a slam dunk for the hall of fame. I think he gets in pretty easily as well, even without the shiny round numbers the voters like so much.
His career OPS+ is 142, higher than Brett and Boggs (135, 142) but lower than Mathews and Schmidt (143, 147). Chipper has nearly as many plate appearances as the big 4. He’s also got about 400 PA of post-season play, his numbers were still very good, but they were a little below his career averages.
Save for two seasons in left, Chipper has manned the hot corner. It seems that the quality of his defense is up for some debate, but I always thought it was at least decent.
The voters may be hesitant to vote him in because of the lack of round numbers. Chipper has 2,490 hits and 436 home runs. However, he’s got an MVP, batting title, WS ring, and several (6) all-star appearances to help offset that.
According to B-Ref’s metrics, Larry Wayne Jones should indeed get in the Hall.
by JulioBernazard on Aug 20, 2010 1:15 PM EDT up reply actions
I agree that Chipper belongs, but some may argue it and debating Chipper’s worthiness wasn’t what I wanted to focus on.
You’re ignoring the fact that 1965-1986 was a complete blank for #1 overall HOFers. Including those years, you have 3 HOF players in 35 years taken at #1 overall, or just a little over 8% of the #1 draftees. The number six pick, in that same amount of time, has yielded Bonds, Jeter, and Sheffield. The number 22 pick has yielded Craig Biggio, Rafael Palmeiro (who has HOF numbers), and Terry Francona (who is cheating, because he’ll go as a manager, but still). Over the 35 years examined, it’s not clear that draft very first increases your chances of getting a Hall of Famer by a statistically meaningful margin over #6 or #22 or any other arbitrarily selected first-round position. I don’t think this work in any way shows Chuck to be correct.
Come on, four billion!
Exactly. There is no marked advantage in drafting first if you want a HOF player. #6, #22, #13-#15 all give pretty good shots at getting the same return. Honestly, the sample size on the draft is probably too small to make much of a study, but it is clear that being first is no significant benefit.
So the team that drafts #14 is the unluckiest team of them all.
I think/hope/think that what you’re really trying to say here is that HOFers come from all over the first round, and not that those particular slots are better than the ones you didn’t name. But to suggest that 22 is better than 21, or 6 is better than 5 would be absurd.
Can you clarify for me—are you suggesting that there is no statistically significant correlation between being drafted #1 and the HOF, or are you saying that the correlation is too weak to go out of your way to pay someone #1 money?
I’m suspicious of the first (hence my other posts), and would wholeheartedly agree with the second.
Of course. The point is that, in the history of the draft, number one picks have been no more likely to make the HOF than players chosen from other slots. Clearly, the idea here isn’t to try to get the number six slot. It’s that being number six gives you just as good a chance at getting an HOF player as being number one.
So the team that drafts #14 is the unluckiest team of them all.
by Jay on Aug 20, 2010 9:50 PM EDT up reply actions 5 recs
That’s right. I intentionally ignored years prior to 1987, because there was no data on what picks did make the hall in the fanpost. Add to that, I’ve no idea whether drafting in the 1960s or 1970s is or isn’t comparable to drafting in the modern era (rules of the draft, number of teams drafting, financial issues that led to some teams aiming for signability rather than talent). So I limited my scope to the years with more concrete numbers. How is my arbitrary SSS choice less instructive than fwembt’s arbitrary SSS, or yours?
If you want to get into “statistically meaningful margins” then you’ve got to provide evidence that you’re talking about a real lack of correlation and not noise masking a small correlation. How do you know that the SSS cited by any of us isn’t just noise interfering with the signal?
I’m pretty sure I agree with the broader concept here, but to say there is not a statistically significant correlation between draft position and HOF likelihood is either overstating what you know, or a slap in the face to statisticians everywhere.
Also, what I should’ve said above is that fwembt failed to disprove Chuck’s statement (and that one could find a very weak correlation since 1987 between being drafted first and being a hall of famer), rather than saying Chuck’s right.
Good stuff, fwembt, and thanks. But lost in the discussion that launched this—and Chuck’s harping on Santana’s age—is that the Indians don’t need a Hall of Famer. They just need a guy who plays at a Hall of Fame level for six and a half years (or five years if they’re not contending that season).
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Aug 19, 2010 9:37 PM EDT reply actions
Very true. This is just a digression to see if first overall picks really do have more HOF potential.
It’s eye-opening.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Aug 20, 2010 5:16 AM EDT up reply actions
Interesting stuff. Hoping for draft choices won’t get you much, I guess.
Good way to prove Chuck wrong. Invert, always invert, as Jacobi said. Man muss immer umkehren!
Of course, the best examples of Chuck’s theorem—the two Florida teams—are excluded here because their success has been too recent.
I’m not sure what you mean about excluding the Florida teams. This is nothing more than a very brief analysis of potential HOF players in the first round.
Sorry, I’m not criticizing your analysis, because I wholeheartedly agree with it. I was just making a comment about your methodology.
I’ll stop at 2000, as anyone after that is too far removed from the end of their career to intelligently project toward the HOF.
That’s a valid point. But Tampa Bay is the best example of what Chuck was talking about: Suck for ten years straight, stockpile Longoria, Price et al., then win. Chuck also cited the Marlins as an example. But the fact that only two franchises have succeeded using Chuck’s model also works against its validity. (See the Pittsburgh Pirates.)
The point I think is clear. It’s not where you end up drafting, it’s having the ability to draft future stars. Some people have that talent, others don’t.
"I spoil a lot of people with my play."
"But I mean, even my family gets spoiled at times watching me doing things that I do, on and off the court." -Lebron James
I read that same discussion and had a similar thought, but approached it a little differently. The discussion implied that a top draft pick was clearly a huge boon, that you couldn’t miss with such a pick, except maybe through bad luck (injury) or incompetence. If that’s true, then you should expect that the very best players from a draft class should come mostly from the very top picks. For each draft class from 1970, 1975, 1980,…1995 I looked a the top five picks, and then tried to pick the top five players drafted that year, and looked to see what the overlap was. The overlap was generally pretty small. Marginal improvements in draft position don’t help much – the errors associated with asseessing and projecting talent are much larger than the difference of a couple of slots in draft position.
by InfiniteMonkeyTypists on Aug 20, 2010 8:19 AM EDT reply actions
To back that up with some examples
1970: First 5 picks – Mike Ivie, Steve Dunning, Barry Foote, Darrell Porter, Mike Martin
Top players taken in the draft (round taken) – Rick Reuschel (3) and Fred Lynn (3) seem to be the top 2. Then some iteration of Porter, Rich Gossage (9), and Dave Parker (14).
Only 1 of the first 5 picks produced a top 5 player.
-—
1975: First 5 picks – Danny Goodwin, Mike Lentz, Lee Filkins, Biran Rosinski, Richard O’Keefe
Only Goodwin made the majors, and he wasn’t very good.
Top players taken in the draft – Lou Whitaker (5), Andre Dawson (11), and some combination of Lee Smith (2), Carney Lansford (3), John Tudor (21), and Mike Boddicker (8).
None of the best careers came from the first 5 picks.
-—
1980: First 5 picks: Darryl Strawberry, Garry Harris, Ken Dayley, Mike King, Jeff Pyburn
Dayley was the only guy other than Strawberry to make the majors.
Top players taken in the draft – Strawberry is #1. Eric Davis (8) is probably 2nd, followed by Doug Drabek (4) and Terry Stienbach (16). Fifth would be either Danny Tartabull (3), Dave Magadan (12), Darren Daulton (25) or Rick Aguilera (37).
The top 5 picks produced 1 top 5 career.
by InfiniteMonkeyTypists on Aug 20, 2010 8:27 AM EDT up reply actions
1985: First 5 picks – B.J. Surhoff, Will Clark, Bobby Witt, Barry Larkin, Kurt Brown
This was a great draft, and the early picks really paid off.
Top players taken in the draft – Barry Bonds (1), Randy Johnson (2), and then some combination of John Smoltz (22), Rafael Palmeiro (1), and Barry Larkin, with Will Clark close behind.
What an incredible draft class. Probably just 1 of the top 5 careers came from the first 5 picks, but 2 of the top 6, and several of the other major talents were taken in the first or second round.
-—
1990: First 5 picks – Chipper Jones, Tony Clark, Mike Lieberthal, Alex Fernandez, Kurt Miller
All five made the majors.
Top players taken in the draft – Jones is probably #1. Then Mike Mussina (1), Andy Pettitte (22), Jorge Posada (24), and Ray Durham (5). The damn Yankees made out in the late rounds.
Only 1 of the first 5 picks produced a top 5 player.
-—
1995: First 5 picks – Darin Erstad, Ben Davis, Jose Cruz, Kerry Wood, Ariel Prieto.
Top players taken in the draft – Todd Helton (1), Roy Halladay (1), Carlos Beltran (2), Mike Lowell (20), and Erstad or Wood or Jarrod Washburn (2), Randy Winn (3), Joe Nathan (6), or Casey Blake (45).
Maybe 1 of the first 5 picks produced a top 5 player.
by InfiniteMonkeyTypists on Aug 20, 2010 8:37 AM EDT up reply actions
With how much the “science” of player development has seemingly advanced in the past decade or so, it will be interesting to see if drafting higher is necessarily drafting more accurately. Adding in the effects of teams shying away from very talented players who are huge signing risks, it’s no wonder that the best players from any given draft are not in fact the ones drafted the soonest. Kudos on the analysis.
Come on, four billion!
When you refer to the science of player development, you are talking about a clubs ability to develop players after the draft regardless of what slot they were drafted in right? Because I would argue that the “science” of player scouting and identification has also advanced by vast amounts over the last decade or so, resulting in the best amateur players being more correctly identified and projected than ever before and therefore drafted higher.
I realize that you cannot yet accurately predict HOF’s from players that have been drafted in the last decade, but another major flaw in leaving out the the most recent draft data, is that you lose the effects of all these enormous strides the industry has taken. I believe Chuck’s ideas must be based on the draft in its current state, so the fact that FO’s couldn’t identify talent in the 60’s really doesn’t tell me much about the #1 draft pick’s value now.
…resulting in the best amateur players being more correctly identified and projected than ever before and therefore drafted higher.
I’m not sure I believe this. The “enormous strides the industry has taken” mostly are in terms of communication. It’s harder for a good prospect to fly under the radar because a lot of people can see his videos on youtube, etc. But I don’t think scouting per se is a rational science that has improved. Nor do I think the best amateur players are being more correctly identified today than they were in 1925. I don’t believe baseball has made such great progress. Although I do agree it is difficult to compare players in 1960 with those today.
If MLB were like the other major professional leagues, where you draft the best player, that would be one thing. However, even extremely high draft picks have the option not to sign, and the draft is filled with players taken below where their talent truly lies because of signability issues. Even if modern scouting techniques are spot on about identifying the best player overall, that does not guarantee that the team picking #1 can and will take said player, or, for that matter, that the best players will be taken in order of projected career track or talent.
"If Brown is the answer, then you’re asking the wrong question." - Ryan
by woodsmeister on Aug 20, 2010 4:51 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
DOLAN WAS CHEEP! HE SHOULD’VE SIGNED LINSCUM!!!
by JulioBernazard on Aug 20, 2010 5:19 PM EDT up reply actions
Clearly you’d always choose the field (best of picks 2-32) over the number 1 pick. But it is surprising to see all the crappy #1 picks. I totally agree that selling things just to move up a couple of spots is a sketchy strategy.
I know one thing, I’d much rather take a hitter with the #1 overall pick. Erstad not great, but look at all the pitchers who just washed up on the shore.
TINSTAANOP
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Aug 20, 2010 11:04 AM EDT up reply actions
Number One Pick?
Non-Offensive Prospect?
Nebraska Overactive Punter?
by dgcambridge on Aug 20, 2010 11:18 AM EDT up reply actions
Obviously, the third.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Aug 20, 2010 6:03 PM EDT up reply actions
No, no, that’s “Overrated.”
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Aug 20, 2010 8:25 PM EDT up reply actions
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