When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

06.11.2009
Draft Miracles on Display

In a few minutes, 27th-round draft pick Jonathan Sanchez will take the mound for the Giants. About 15 hours ago, 24th-round pick Brian Wilson had the kind of save we’ve all been waiting for, striking out the top of the D-Backs order, including Justin Upton, on 12 pitches.

This year’s 24th and 27th rounders are Alexander Burg, a catcher from Washington State, and Kyle Mach, third baseman out of the U. of Missouri. Their names are about as significant to you right now as Wilson and Sanchez were in 2003 and 2004.

Wilson went so late because he was recovering from Tommy John surgery. It’s always good to keep an eye on guys whose stock fell because of injury or mediocre performance. One of the team’s hottest prospects at the moment is shortstop Brandon Crawford, whom they took in last year’s 4th round after a disappointing senior year at UCLA. He was a preseason All-American and potential first-rounder.

What’s my point? None, really, except that there’s always too much breathlessness around the first-round pick. Late the other night Damon Bruce on KNBR asked his listeners if the Giants’ first-round pick of a pitcher was a good or bad thing. Most said “bad,” because, you know, the Giants desperately need hitters right now.

First-rounders make the majors more than anyone else (I saw this recently but can’t find it at the moment — let me know if I’m wrong), but the success or failure of the first round pick isn’t the end-all be-all of a draft.

 
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2 Comments

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50andstillfly | June 11, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply

The callers misunderstood the question: they thought it was whether Damon Bruce is a good thing or a bad thing.

obsessivegiantscompulsive | June 12, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply

Baseball America, I think, published that stat sometime during the off-season.

I've been saying since 2003 that first round picks become good players a lot more often than other rounds, but even the top 5 picks overall don't become a good ballplayer more than 50% of the time. The draft starts out worse than a coin flip then goes downhill from there quickly becoming a crapshoot by the middle of the first round (based on the results of my study).

So while you need to have the later round successes like Sanchez and Wilson (and Romo) to supplement building a team, all good teams rebuild faster when they are selecting in the Top 5 picks overall, otherwise it is all hit and miss when you can actually find the guy you can rebuild around, and the rebuild could stretch out in length (much like the Giants through the 70's and mid-80's.

The problem is that most people are not familiar with assessing situations where the odds of a success is so low. The chance of success is horribly low in the draft, even for most first round picks, that's why Sabean skipping one or two draft picks to pick up useful major leaguers was good use of resources, not bad as most people have painted it. He should have been written up in a Moneyball type book for that.

And success in the first round is the be-all and end-all of rebuilding a team, that is why once a team is not a regular contending and treading water, they should quickly implode the team, have a team among the Top 5 worse in the majors, and pile up top picks, like what the Braves did with Cox as GM, like what the Rays have done over the past decade. That is not a sure ticket to rebuilding, but that is the quickest and most likely way of rebuilding, from what I have noticed from baseball history.

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