Quick Draft Summary
June 10, 2010 at 6:35 am by Capitol Avenue Club under Atlanta Braves
With a new scouting director, little publicity, and an uncertain financial situation, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the 2010 draft. After 51 selections it is finally complete and to say the least it’s quite different from previous drafts.
Not everything was different, though. The first similarity between this draft and recent ones was their inclination to take more signable players. They did deviate some from this philosophy in the middle rounds–taking a string of difficult signs between ~15 and ~25–but overall the trend was to select players that wish to sign. Also, the trend established last year was to take more college players and it continued in 2010, as 38 of the Braves’ selections were from a 2 or 4 year college.
That’s about where the similarities end, though. The Braves took more position players (30) than pitchers (21) this year, something we’re not used to. Of the 21 pitchers selected, only four were left handed. Granted the draft was short on left-handed pitching, but it’s still a surprise to see the Braves select so little. Also, this was one of the more diverse drafts in recent memory. The Braves were all over California (8) and Texas (7) and gave their usual attention to the southeast (14), but selected only one player from the state of Georgia. Surprising, however, is their presence in the northeast (9) and midwest (6).
Here are some visualizations of the draftee distributions:
I won’t be giving a write up on each player, I’m not informed enough to. I will, instead, provide you with this biographical information (Cur = Curaçao, Que = Quebec) on the 51 selections. As the players sign and we hear more about them/I see them, I’ll have more.
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The college v. HS thing is interesting on many levels.
First Oakland targets college pitchers in the mid 90′s and gets some great talents (Hudson, Mulder, Zito). Then, that gets seen by everybody and they mostly seem to overshift to college players (Braves, interestingly, don’t, but continue to be the “masters of the draft and follow”). So, the general trend for the last 2 ot 3 years has backed away from college a little. But here is our team making a major organizational philosphy shift toward college players. Thoughts:
1. Scouting of college players and statistical analysis are much easier and more thorough and even have translatable Major League Equivalents. High school players are way too raw for that kind of thing to work and subjective views of scouts are more important.
2. More teams are open to cutting the lead time to address organizational deficiencies. A good juntor from a good Division 1 conference should be major league ready or close to it by 2 minor league seasons. Except for a Heyward, Griffey, Yount, or A-rod, that doesn’t happen often. Addressing Lord Keynes’ maxim
“in the long run, we are all dead.”
3. I think a reason to shift (curious to see why the Braves are doing it) is conforming “years of control” to “peak production years.”
a. High school player you have draft year plus 4 years of control. Then, must be on 40 man or exposed to Rule 5 draft. Then, 3 option years. So, to develop the talent, you have to put him on 40 man by age 22 season and bring him up for good by age 25 season. So, AT LATEST, you get pre arb for ages 25, 26, 27 and arb for 28, 29, 30.
b. 4 year college player drafted as junior (age 21) you have draft year plus 3 years of control, then 3 option years. So, must be on 40 man by age 24 season, then up for good by age 27 season. So, AT LATEST, you get pre arb for ages 27, 28, 29 and arb for ages 30, 31 and 32.
c. juco player gets the shorter “hold” period when drafted after freshaman year, creating the same profile as a HS player. If drafted after sophomore year, then just add a year to HS.
Of these 3, it appears that the team has to get a lot better player as a HS player than as a college player to be able to get good major league value out of the player. Why? Because the high school player’s pre arb major league minimum years are before the expected major league peak, while the college player’s are right in the middle of his projected peak. Then, as to arb years, the team can go year to year to on the college player until they think the cost is too great.
about how many of these players actually get signed?
I’d be interested to see how many players in the draft were from Georgia. Maybe there weren’t many rather than the Braves ignoring a fact they usually value.
Rhino,
This was a historic draft for players from Georgia. 6 were taken in the first round alone. The Angels in the 1st round selected back to back players from metro Atlanta including the guy that the Braves were wanting to pick the kid out of Marietta. Everyone on MLB Network’s coverage was saying how Georgia is the best baseball state in the country. Not sure why the Braves didn’t take advantage of it.
I heard Arodys is getting promoted. Is this true?
And when Resop gets promoted or traded, could there be a domino effect where Delgado goes to AA to take the spot of the guy promoted to AAA?
Yeah, it’s true about Vizcaino. Mycal Jones also recently got promoted to the Beach, making it the most prospect-heavy team in the system.
Schaaaaaafeeeeer!
Or not.