Grading Zduriencik's drafts

[LouisEly]

(Note - the article says that this will be his ninth draft, so that means that 2000 was his first. If that is not correct let me know.)

 

Even more than football, it takes several years to evaluate a baseball draft. Unlike football, only a handful will ever make it to the majors, and if you can get one all-star player and 2-3 solid/average major leaguers out of a draft you've done well. That being said, here's a look back at his first four drafts (number in parenthesis is the round taken):

 

2000 Draft - Grade: D+

All-Stars: none

Solid major-leaguers: Corey Hart (11)

Average major leaguers: none

Cup of coffee: Krynzel (1 - #11)

Still developing: none

 

Corey Hart may yet creep into that All-Star category, but for now he is a solid major leaguer. Krynzel is a great example of why I don't like drafting high schoolers, especially slap-hitting high schoolers, in the first round. Side note - the Brewers drafted The Schwam (ok, not that Schwam, but he had a very good year at Beloit in 2001 before what looks like an injury in High Desert in 2002). Should have drafted: Chase Utley, #15 overall; John "Boof" Bonser, #21

 

2001 Draft - Grade: B

All-Stars: JJ Hardy (2) (but not this year)

Solid major leaguers: none

Average major leaguers: Dennis Sarfate (9), Manny Parra (26)

Cup of coffee: Chris Barnwell (25), Chris Saenz (28)

Still developing: Brad Nelson (4), does Mike Jones (1 - #11) really count?

 

Another example of why people don't like high school arms in the first round with Jones, but guys like Hardy show the upside of HS players. Hardy in reality is more like a solid major leaguer, but he has one All-Star under his belt so I put him there. Parra is still developing; for now an average major leaguer but still has upside. Nelson still has upside also; he and Parra could make this draft a B?. Saenz, despite his one great game, probably would have been an average ML pitcher, but Barnwell didn't look good in his very small sample. Sarfate also still has some upside, but no longer is with the organization. Should have drafted: Casey Kotchman, #12; Bobby Crosby, #25; Jeremy Bonderman, #26

 

2002 Draft - Grade: B+

All-Stars: Prince Fielder (1 - #7)

Solid major leaguers:

Average major leaguers: Dana Eveland (16)

Cup of coffee: Callix Crabbe (12), Craig Breslow (26)

Still developing: Tim Dillard (34)

The one that got away: Hunter Pence (40)

 

Fielder alone makes this draft at the minimum a B. After him, I don't think you could possibly have a bigger flameout than the rest of the picks in the first 10 rounds - Ballouli was the only one in rounds 2-10 to even make AA. Eveland may yet fulfill his promise, albeit with another organization. Dillard still has upside and may be an average to solid reliever. Breslow keeps bouncing around as a LOOGY. If they could have inked Pence this draft would have been an A.

 

2003 Draft - Grade: C+

All-Stars:

Solid major leaguers: Weeks (1 - #2)

Average major leaguers: TGJ (2)

Cup of coffee: Taubenheim (19), Drew Anderson (24)

Still developing: Palmisano (3), Heether (11), Stetter (16), Hinton (40)

 

Weeks is a solid major leaguer with upside to be an All-Star, but I sort of expect that with the #2 overall pick. I am a TGJ apologist - it's hard to look good when you only get 1-2 ABs per week. He's still young and will be back, but his ceiling is probably an average major leaguer. Palmisano could still be a serviceable #2 catcher, Stetter could have a long career in the pen if he can find the strike zone again, Heether profiles as a utility bench player at best. Others are higher on Hinton than me.

[berniebrewer4life]

I can't wait to see the 2004 and 2005 draft ratings. Thanks Louis!

[rousieboy]

Good stuff...but no way that a draft where you get the #7 overall correct and then totally whiff on the next 10 rounds get a B+.

[uwisfan]

I don't think its fair to give Jack Z a negative for not being able to sign players like Jemile Weeks or Hunter Pence. You judge him on his drafts, not what the org was able to do with those players. I want to see how he would fare under Mark A, not the Seligs. Mark A would have signed these players I think.

 

Also, I dont care if he whiffs on rounds 3- through 13. The bench and role players on major league teams are a dime a dozen compared to the allstar caliber players he has netted. If you can get Prince and Pence in a single draft, you've done very well.

[colbyjack]

This point has been talked about before concerning Corey Hart, but if Alfonso Soriano is an All-Star, so is Corey Hart, who put up numbers last year extremely similar to Soriano's. I think his selection alone warrants a higher grade from 2000, even if no one else panned out from that draft.

 

That's what makes grading drafts extremely tough, because for the most part, if you do get one solid, successful big-leaguer from a draft, whether it be your first-round pick or your 11th rounder, it still has to be viewed successful.

[battlekow]

I know you addressed this somewhat in your comments, LouisEly, but it doesn't make much sense to call Hardy an All-Star and Hart a "solid major leaguer".

[LouisEly]

As stated before, my categorization of "solid" and "All-Star" is by technicality - if they were named to an All-Star team they were put in the "All-Star" category, if not I classified them as a solid major leaguer. I thought about it a lot, but if I had put Hardy under "Solid major leaguer" then I would have had just as many (if not more) people tell me tell me that he was named to the All-Star team and thus is an All-Star.

 

2000 was tough to grade, and Hart was a great pick; however I expect at least one player like Hart from a draft (which makes it an average draft - a "C" in my book). The fact that Krynzel was the only other player who even made the big leagues brought it down from a "C", and it's debatable if that call up was earned or if it was a "let's see what he can do because we have no one else good". Had there been just one other average major leaguer in the draft it would have been a C+, maybe B-, but with no other major leaguers from a draft eight years ago makes it slightly below average. In fact, Hart might be the only one left from that draft still playing somewhere in anybody's system.

 

I did not penalize them for drafting a player they did not sign - in fact I moved it from a B to a B+ because of Pence (I am a tough grader). They would have gotten "extra credit" if they had signed him. They signed other DFEs from that class, so I don't think it was so much Selig's tight purse strings.

[kazmir19]

"but no way that a draft where you get the #7 overall correct"

 

I would contend that they even got that one wrong at #7. They passed on Kazmir, Blanton, Francis, and Francoeur all to take a one tool, overweight first baseman. To recap, that's 2 staff aces (one of them the most dominating lefthander in the game right now) and a gold glove outfielder.

[Never Outhustled]

I would contend that they even got that one wrong at #7. They passed on Kazmir, Blanton, Francis, and Francoeur all to take a one tool, overweight first baseman. To recap, that's 2 staff aces (one of them the most dominating lefthander in the game right now) and a gold glove outfielder.

Thats rediculous. How many of those guys finished in the top 5 in the MVP voting last year? None. Francoeur wouldn't even start on the Brewers. Kazmir is good, but hasn't had a great season yet and is fragile. Blanton and Francis are just average pitchers.

[kazmir19]

"Thats rediculous. How many of those guys finished in the top 5 in the MVP voting last year? None. Francoeur wouldn't even start on the Brewers. Kazmir is good, but hasn't had a great season yet and is fragile. Blanton and Francis are just average pitchers. "

 

Your response is equally ridiculous. Kazmir hasnt had a good season yet? Are you serious? I would say that 13-9, 3.48, leading the league in K's while pitching for the worst team in baseball is a pretty dang good season. Nearly 3:1 k/w ratio last year.1.379 whip. Ludicrous that you would say Kazmir hasnt had a good year yet, or that he is fragile. One stint on the DL in 4 years, and then an immediate return to being the top lefty in the league doesnt give much credibility to that. If they had picked Kazmir instead of Fielder, the Brewers would have won the division last year by at least 5 games.

 

And to say that Hart is better that Francoeur is debatable, but to take him in RF over Francoeur is as equally ridiculous as the Kazmir statement. His offensive numbers are slightly better, but Francoeurs defense takes care of that. They dont just give out gold gloves to right fielders for fun. The guy has the best arm in the game, and Hart is an average fielder at best. Takes bad routes on balls, his arm is only regarded as "good" by Brewer fans and FSN North broadcasters. If Francoeur were the Brewer RF, Hart would be playing LF (where he will wind up eventually, if they sign him long term) and Braun would still be at 3rd.

 

Morgan Ensberg, Ryan Howard, Adrian Beltre and Javy Lopez all finished top 5 in the MVP balloting as well. Hows that working out for all of them? Worse players have actually won the award that were more important than Fielder is.

[splitterpfj]

I have no problem taking Prince over any of those players, except for Kazmir, and at that, I've got the gift of hindsight to work with.

 

Interesting comparison of Hart and Francoeur, I actually think that one's a fair fight, and I'd argue that Hart is a better defender than you imply, he is also the superior baserunner of the two. I would never say Francouer wouldn't start on the Brewers, if he were here, I believe Hart would be playing center field, with Cameron in another city.

[JoeHova]

this Prince bashing is getting almost ludicrous, Francoeur's bat is piss-poor for a corner outfielder. He's still young, but he's nothing close to a star, despite whatever hype he's received. As of now, he's Jose Cruz Jr. with worse plate discipline.

[Never Outhustled]

Your response is equally ridiculous. Kazmir hasnt had a good season yet? Are you serious? I would say that 13-9, 3.48, leading the league in K's while pitching for the worst team in baseball is a pretty dang good season. Nearly 3:1 k/w ratio last year.1.379 whip. Ludicrous that you would say Kazmir hasnt had a good year yet, or that he is fragile. One stint on the DL in 4 years, and then an immediate return to being the top lefty in the league doesnt give much credibility to that. If they had picked Kazmir instead of Fielder, the Brewers would have won the division last year by at least 5 games.

 

 

 

Fielder had more win shares than Kazmir last year, (Kazmir only threw 206 innings) so I don't know how they'd have won 12 more games with Kazmir.

 

However, this argument actually shouldn't even exist. We're grading Jack Z's draft, so we should only be looking at players he could have drafted. Its not Jack Z's choice to only draft players who sign for slot. Kazmir signed for well over slot, a big part of why he was available to the Mets.

[Bambis Bombers]

X -

 

While Kazmir signed for more than slot, his signing bonus with the Mets ($2,150,000) was lower than less than what the Brewers has to pay to sign Prince ($2,400,000).

[Mass Haas]

Obviously Doug Melvin is the blame here. If he'd only have acquired Victor Zambrano at some point, the Brewers would have both Fielder and Kazmir.

[rousieboy]

ColbyJack...I think one solid MLBer per draft (40-50 kids) kinda sets the bar low...I know all sports come at their drafts at a different angle but I'd be upset if my hockey, basketball, or football team only got ONE starter per draft...and MLB has soooo many rounds...and only 25 guys on the active roster...

 

Is it because of the massive talent dropoff after say round 10 or so?

 

It just seems to sell the process short and other teams have done better than that historically.

[gregmag]

A draft that nets Corey Hart -- an upper-tier starter with All-Star potential and a wide variety of avenues for reaching it -- is not average; it's very successful.

 

Greg.

[colbyjack]

ColbyJack...I think one solid MLBer per draft (40-50 kids) kinda sets the bar low...I know all sports come at their drafts at a different angle but I'd be upset if my hockey, basketball, or football team only got ONE starter per draft...and MLB has soooo many rounds...and only 25 guys on the active roster...

 

This really isn't my take on it as much as it is the take of front office executives around the league. You often hear Doug Melvin talking about how getting 1-2 big-leaguers from any given draft makes that draft a successful one. Again, I hate using the word crap-shoot, since that takes away all of the hard work teams put into scouting, but as we all know so much can happen between a player getting drafted and the end of their professional career, which unfortunately usually ends up to most players never even sniffing the big-leagues.

[JoeHova]

This really isn't my take on it as much as it is the take of front office executives around the league. You often hear Doug Melvin talking about how getting 1-2 big-leaguers from any given draft makes that draft a successful one.

 

 

But isn't Melvin not a reliable source on that kind of thing? After all, his job (and the jobs of all GMs) depends on the perception his boss has of him and how successfully he does his job. Wouldn't it be better to try to set the bar a little lower, rather than higher? Of course a guy who drafted Rickie Weeks is going to say "if we get a Weeks in a draft, it's a success", because to say otherwise would be to say that he's been failing at his job.

 

I'm not saying he has been failing, just that it wouldn't be in his or any other GMs interest to say that a team should come away with a high number of good players from a draft. Even if the owner were to disregard such statements, other people wouldn't. Look at what happened to Beane when Lewis made it seem that Beane thought all the guys he drafted in 2003 would be stars. There was a lot of schadenfreude going on among other execs and commentators when many of those guys washed out.

[danzig6767]

kazmir19 wrote:

If they had picked Kazmir instead of Fielder, the Brewers would have won the division last year by at least 5 games.

 

I've seen many dumb things said on message boards, but the above ranks pretty damn high up there. So you want people to believe that removing Prince and his 50 home runs and 1.013 OPS from last years team and instead adding Kazmir would have AT LEAST been seven more wins for the Brewers last year?

[kazmir19]

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. You take Prince out of last years lineup, the Brewers still score a lot of runs, but if you add Kazmir, he pitches more innings, wins at least 17 or 18 and there are your extra wins.

[rousieboy]

Well I am not here to doubt Colby or GM DM but 50 some odd kids drafted for 1 nugget of gold seems like a lot of picks for a maybe...especially when you cannot trade out of the 1st round and are all but guaranteed a top 30 player at a relatively high level of play.

[uwisfan]

Well I am not here to doubt Colby or GM DM but 50 some odd kids drafted for 1 nugget of gold seems like a lot of picks for a maybe...especially when you cannot trade out of the 1st round and are all but guaranteed a top 30 player at a relatively high level of play.

It's all relative. You could have 2 rounds or 50 rounds and you would still need to replace the same number of players at the major league level.

The average roster player is going to take up 7 or 8 years of service time in the bigs. This means you need to draft 1/7th or 1/8th of a roster every year, which on a 25-man roster, comes to about 1 in 3 or 4.

 

Now of those 3 or 4, you get a lot of marginal players, who didnt even make it with their initial clubs and get bounced to a few organizations, but still fill up some of those roster spots at the ML level. So really, you should expect to get 2 average starters in a few years in a draft.

 

Someone like Corey Hart is worth about 1.5 league-average starters in trade (Prince could net 3). So you draft him, and get a marginal scrub that makes it in 5 years and another that latches onto another team and wins a roster spot, and you've gotten a respectable draft.

 

Obviously you can debate the weightings of the numbers and years that are equivalent, but the same concept is there.

[JoeHova]

Last year, according to BP, Kazmir was 7.9 wins above a replacement player. Prince was 6.9. That would mean the Brewers would have gained one win with Kazmir over Prince, in a vacuum. However, that's not the whole story.

 

2007 Brewer pitcher WARP:

 

Sheets: 5.9

Gallardo: 4.6 (7.6 including his AAA numbers)

Bush: 4.9

Vargas: 3.6

Villanueva: 4.6

Suppan: 6.3

Capuano: 3.4

 

So, Kazmir would have been replacing one of those pitchers, who were all well above replacement level. Prince would have been replaced by somebody too, probably Overbay, which would have cost the team Bush (but we'll leave that aside).

 

Let's say, with the benefit of hindsight, Kazmir would have replaced Capuano, who had the worst year among starters. That gives the Brewers a net of 4.5 wins. Then let's replace Prince with Overbay, who had 2.2 WARP last year. That gives us a net of -4.7 wins, leaving the Brewers .2 wins worse than they were last year.

 

I think any time you draft 7th in a draft and you end up with one of the top 4 players in the first round (Prince, Upton, Kazmir, Cain, it's up to personal preference how to rank them because they are all so young), you've done well. It's not really fair to point to guys not in the first round, I feel, because nobody felt those guys were on the same level, even though many turn out to be stars (Piazza, Pujols, etc.).

 

Also, among those top 4 guys from 2002, I would take the hitter over the pitcher (assuming they are on a similar level) 100 times out of 100 because of the injury risk inherent in pitchers. I realize you can't do that all the time because a team realistically needs some pitchers, but given any one choice, I'll take the hitter. So, with the Brewers getting the top hitter available to them in that draft, I am quite pleased with how the 1st round turned out.

[SoCalBrewfan]

uwisfan, I was thinking about a similar analysis. But don't forget that a healthy portion of the roster spots are occupied by players never eligible for the draft, i.e., those from Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Japan, etc. Thus one average starter from the draft and a role player or two is probably par for the course. Getting a full-blown all-star out of any given draft is very unlikely.