1/ 7 Andrew McCutchen CF
2/ 17 David Freese 3B
3/ 27 Alex Avila C
4/ 33 Vance Worley SP/RP
4/ 37 David Hernandez RP
5/ 47 Joe Smith RP
6/ 57 Jim Johnson RP
7/ 67 Nelson Cruz RF/LF
8/ 77 Daniel Descalso 3B/SS/2B
9/ 87 Adam Jones CF
10/ 97 Carlos Villanueva SP/RP
11/107 Marc Rzepczynski RP
12/117 Wilson Betemit 3B/1B
13/127 Alexi Casilla 2B/SS
14/137 Will Venable LF/CF/RF
15/147 Yoshinori Tateyama RP
Just missed out getting Ellsbury in the first round. Didn’t really need a catcher, but Avila too good to pass up in third round. Stocked up on relievers early, because that’s where the value was this draft. Late bargains: Adam Jones & Betemit.
On this 1963 LP, Hall of Famer Waite Hoyt spins yarns during rain delays over his long career as Reds broadcaster. The last track ends abruptly, but that’s the way it is on the wax. There was a volume two in the series, which was devoted to Babe Ruth.
The Cardinals’ championship made the papers in Gothenburg Sweden!
St. Louis Story Ends with Victory
“Left for dead in August. Setback after setback. Now the St. Louis Cardinals are American baseball’s most unlikely winners in living memory.”
Commish & I were speculating about the amateur draft. How many guys make it to the big leagues? How much more likely is a first-round pick to reach the majors compared to, say, a tenth-round pick?
I collected stats from the 2002-2005 June drafts, figuring that almost everyone from the 2005 draft that would ever reach the majors would have already had some time there by the end of the 2010 season. (Maybe that’s a bit optimistic.) BR has a nice draft section that goes all the way back to the beginning. (Rick Monday in 1965, remember?) The graph below (click to enlarge) shows the percentage of players with MLB appearances for each round of the draft. (Again, 2002-2005 drafts only.)
I see about three distinct sections in the graph.
From rounds one to ten, there’s a pretty good correlation between the round and the number of guys who make it. That tells me that the scouts make pretty accurate predictions for the first 320 or so amateurs each year. A little over half the guys who make the big leagues from the draft are selected in the first ten rounds.
Rounds 11 to 20 send about the same percentage of guys to the bigs: 12%, which is also the overall big-league rate for the entire class. These rounds account for about a quarter of the big leaguers from the draft.
There’s a big drop-off for rounds 21-50, with only about 5% of the guys making the show. These rounds provide the other quarter of the drafted MLBers.
I also collected some WAR stats, but you can’t draw too many conclusions from these, as all of the players are still young and will rack up lots more over the coming years. Still, from the 2002-2005 drafts, counting WAR through the 2010 season, it appears that the first-rounders account for 45% of the total WAR accumulated by all draftees. (The supplemental picks, usually about ten a year, are classified as first-round picks, so this inflates the first-round WAR figure compared to other rounds.) The first ten rounds account for 81% of the total WAR. It’s actually probably more than that, because many of the guys picked in the later rounds (Lincecum 48th round 2003 & 42nd round 2005) get credit there, even though they didn’t sign. (Lincecum signed after getting picked in the first round in 2006.)
Tough draft. Hitting very scarce. Ended up with a weak platoon patchwork. Many picks are really for 2012. Counting on good 2011 MLB performances from the youngsters.
The new yearbook is available. 137 sides of paper for a sawbuck or the PDF for a fin. Contains a history of the league, records, and a statistical review by yours truly.
Bud Weiser was from Shamokin. Played 41 games for the Phils in the teens and a couple of seasons with the Triplets in the 20s. The marketing possibilities boggle the mind.
Article and box score from the 1966 Official Baseball Guide about the then-record 27-inning game down the road at Dunn Field. Amazing how few pitchers & position players were used. This game was later surpassed by a 33-inning affair in 1981. Still, the Elmira game might be the longest pro game completed in one day. Belanger and Piniella were to be the big names from this Pioneers team. Earl Weaver piloted the squad.
