The HS pitcher debate, again

[colbyjack]

Jim Callis has done an interesting little study about just how risky HS pitchers really are. It's for subscribers only, so I'll provide some snippets below:

 

www.baseballamerica.com/o...allis.html

 

A year ago, a prominent national columnist wrote that general managers know statistics prove that they can get a major league starting righthander out of high school in the 20th round as in the first.

 

There are just two problems with that statement. There wasn't a single righty drafted out of high school in the 20th round or later that was in a big league rotation at the time. And statistics prove no such thing.

 

Callis is calling out Peter Gammons here, and I remember Gammons making that statement. No surprise that he probably didn't check his facts before making that statement, likely borrowing it from someone else.

 

The bare bones of the study, which was based on college vs. HS RHPs drafted in the first round from 1990-97:

 

50 college RHPs were drafted & signed

35 HS RHPs were drafted & signed

 

41 (82%) of the college RHPs made the big leagues

25 (71%) of the HS RHPs made the big leagues

 

15 (30%) of the college RHPs were average or better at the MLB level

11 (31%) of the HS RHPs were average or better at the MLB level

 

How about injuries?

 

23 (46%) of the college RHPs had elbow or shoulder surgery within 5 years of being drafted

18 (51%) of the HS RHPs had elbow or shoulder surgery within 5 years of being drafted

 

I'm amazed at how close the numbers are, and as Callis also pointed out in the story, the drafting trends of the 90s were drastically different from those in the 80s, when teams largely focused on college talent, especially in the early 80s. Budgets exploded in the early 80s, with Brien Taylor being a prime example, and more & more HS players, particularly pitchers, started to play pro ball directly out of HS.

 

Interesting study. Jim Callis also admits that he would lean towards the college arm since they have faced higher level competition and generally are more proven, but it's nice to see it proven that HS righties shouldn't necessarily be avoided like the plague.

[tlpc4]

I wonder if this will change the opinions of some of the posters on Brewerfan.

[Nefaste]

I've seen a lot of these high school/college pitching comparisons done, over varying time periods by various sports writers (Neyer, Callis, etc). And all of them suffer from small samples, simply because of the nature of what they're studying, successful major league pitchers during the modern baseball era. There certainly seems to be a small advantage in drafting college pitchers, but how much of an advantage has varied widely in those various informal studies. That just reinforces my suspicion that we simply don't have enough data, that's recent enough, to make a judgment call on high school pitching as a whole.

 

Compounding this problem is that you're dealing with a moving target. Drafting styles, "Moneyball" conceptions, ongoing advances in sports medicine, all these things are changing the way drafts are done, which can have unforeseen ripple effects on which players get chosen, and how much success is seen immediately. Statistics from 1990-1997 (aka 14-7 years ago) as seen in that study, may already be too outdated.

 

The way I see it, as the game continues to get richer, and bonuses get bigger, there is a definite shift toward youth that's being led by the players as much as the teams. This is simple economics, we all realize it, it's the way the game is played. Let's play a little game of our own here.

 

We'll take two imaginary pitching draft classes, one from 10 years ago (it could be any time period in the past really), and one from today, all numbers rough and hypothetical

 

Draft Class 10 years ago

-----------------------------------------

 

100 high school pitchers that are "high potential" prospects, all get drafted

 

40 sign with teams

 

60 go to college, and 50 of those eventually get drafted

 

29 of the HS players make the bigs (~71%, which conforms with the study Callis cites)

 

41 of the college players make the bigs (82%, which also conforms to the study)

 

70 players in total from that "high potential" draft class make the bigs, a 70% success rate. Now, if you were a team that concentrated on college pitching, you'd have a larger pool of good prospects to eventually choose from. You'd have a better chance of getting more of these "blue chip" prospects, and a higher percentage of those college prospects would succeed. You'd eventually come under the impression that college pitching was the way to go. But wait, something about the game shifts, the amount of money becomes more appealing, and players are skipping college more and more...

 

Draft Class Now

-----------------------------------------

 

100 high school pitchers that are "high potential" prospects, all get drafted

 

70 sign with teams

 

30 go to college, and 25 of those eventually get drafted (same drafted percentage as above)

 

50 of the HS players make the bigs (~71%, which conforms with the study Callis cites)

 

20 of the college players make the bigs (~82%, which also conforms to the study)

 

Once again, 70 (and 70%) of the players succeed in making it to the major league level. No difference in total player pool. But all of a sudden a team that concentrates on college pitching is fighting over a much smaller pool of players. Even with the higher percentage success rate, the overall talent available has dropped significantly. Your options are narrowing, while other teams are enjoying, and competing with, the 50 HS players that do make the bigs, regardless of the higher failure rate.

 

 

There are a couple caveats of course. The college pool is significantly improved by the addition of players that emerge as prospects while in college. This is offset by the shift that occurs when colleges are forced to fill their rosters using worse players than in the past, as more and more average high schoolers sign with major league teams as well. This leads to less emergence of new prospects. Also creating a shift is the fact that the best of the best, the cream of the crop if you will, of the top 100 high school players are usually the ones that sign out of high school. While the lower end of the top 100 players think they can wait for a better deal by going to college first and proving themselves a bit more. This in my estimation is what leads to the other statistics in the aforementioned study. The equalization at higher performance levels:

 

15 (30%) of the college RHPs were average or better at the MLB level

11 (31%) of the HS RHPs were average or better at the MLB level

 

If the best of the best are coming into the big leagues out of high school, even with the higher attrition rate, they're going to have an equal shot at success by sheer talent alone. So while a college player may be less likely to fail due to injuries, he has a higher chance of being less skilled at the game (this obviously doesn't apply to an individual, but will begin to become apparent as an overall drafting strategy selectively picks players from college).

 

The point of all this is, you have to face the current realities, not the past ones, and assuming things are still the same as they were may burn you. If Jack Z. is drafting high schoolers out of some sort of intrinsic sense of where the game is going, or out of some sort of heavy duty statistical analysis, it doesn't really matter. As long as he's keeping up with the market for players now, and not basing his decisions on old information. So far he's had success, let's hope that continues.

[DHonks]

Nefaste, I kind of skimmed through your post, but it seemed to be touching on something I thought of a while back.

 

With no evidence to support this, I thought hard about which would be better...drafting mostly high schoolers, college kids, or some combination. Arguments are usually made for college kids and some combination, but I came to the conclusion that a team would be more likely to have a better draft taking all high school kids than all college kids. The reason is something you touched on. If in a given year (let's say 2001) there are 100 top high school players in a draft, and 70-80 sign. Then in 2004, you can say that there are another 100 high school kids in addition to the 20-30 college kids (a few more come out of nowhere, too, like Rickie Weeks). You have something like 5 teams only interested in drafting college kids, with lots of others leaning towards college. Even then, one could assume that those college players were not as talented out of high school as their peers that signed back in 2001 (how many of the top 30 or so high school talents don't sign?), so the ceilings on the top college players probably aren't as high as the ceilings of their high school counterparts in 2004. So while they may have impressive numbers in college, it is in part due to watered down competition (thus perhaps the college level of competition isn't that far superior to the high school level of competition)

[emunney]

"So while they may have impressive numbers in college, it is in part due to watered down competition (thus perhaps the college level of competition isn't that far superior to the high school level of competition)."

 

Ehh, I think you may want to reconsider that, for although I also have no statistics to back you, me, or anything else up, I am confident that you are wrong. And basically here's my reasoning: how many HS players are there? And how many D1 players are there? Even when you add in the college age HS draftees, there's no way that the ratio is anything but extreme. Most of the best HS players may go pro, but the rest of the best, or the best of the rest, go to college or JC, where they don't stop developing. Think Angel Salome could hit .800 anywhere but HS? Unless you're thinking church softball, or some other nefarious semantic device, he can't.

 

As far as the HS vs. College debate goes, I've come to the conclusion that it should probably be used only as a tie-breaker in the individual analysis of prospects. That is, each prospect should be evaluated individually, as I very much doubt that not going to college makes a man more injury prone, or makes it nigh impossible to become a relief pitcher. There's something in the way they're treated, something in the way they treat themselves that explains it.

 

My guess is that younger kids hide injuries slightly more frequently, but anybody else's guess is just as good.

[Al the Thinking Man]

My belief is quite simple on this matter: College pitchers are less likely to get hurt from 18-21...because those years are already past. If they got hurt, they've recovered and pitched well, or you woukldn't be drafting them.

 

Simply put, in the first 5 rounds, with the signing bonuses so high, I just can't see taking a kid whose entire future depends on his elbow, shoulder, and ligaments staying healthy. I pass, and allow my gutsier competitors take that risk.

 

I hope Rogers and Gallardo beat the odds, but as I've said before, Drew and Buckner seemed like better dollar for dollar risks.

[colbyjack]

And all of them suffer from small samples, simply because of the nature of what they're studying, successful major league pitchers during the modern baseball era.

 

Nefaste, interesting analysis overall. I agree that it's impossible to just come up with lists & just come to a simple conclusion, but that's basically why there are so many people that think high school pitchers, particularly right-handers, are so risky. And as I pointed out above, taking analysis from 1990-97 is much more accurate than Bill James' early studies which was from when the draft started in 1965 and went through the late 80s or early 90s. As Jim Callis points out, the draft as we know it today, without any supplemental drafts throughout the year, started in '87 IIRC, and as both he & I pointed out, you didn't see the big bonus rush until the early 90s, which is something you also touched on.

 

You are right, more & more HS players are being taken earlier, and I always find it interesting that more & more HS players are throwing in the 90s these days. Not just the low-90s, but the mid-90s. These young men are getting bigger & stronger at younger ages, attending pitching camps, building up their arm strength & doing things most of us never thought about as high schoolers.

 

As far as the HS vs. College debate goes, I've come to the conclusion that it should probably be used only as a tie-breaker in the individual analysis of prospects. That is, each prospect should be evaluated individually, as I very much doubt that not going to college makes a man more injury prone, or makes it nigh impossible to become a relief pitcher.

 

I agree 100% emunney, and this goes back to the idea of taking the best player available. I don't think being a college player should vault you up considerably when better pure players talent-wise are available on the board, and Jack Z. has clearly operated this way in his tenure as our SD. When things are even, as you stated, I fully believe that you should go with the safer risk.

 

My belief is quite simple on this matter: College pitchers are less likely to get hurt from 18-21...because those years are already past. If they got hurt, they've recovered and pitched well, or you woukldn't be drafting them.

 

I just want to point out this again:

 

How about injuries?

 

23 (46%) of the college RHPs had elbow or shoulder surgery within 5 years of being drafted

18 (51%) of the HS RHPs had elbow or shoulder surgery within 5 years of being drafted

 

I too believe the ages of 18-21 are very critical for any young arm, but as the numbers prove, you really aren't going to get any more of a safe player injury-wise from the college ranks than you are from the HS ranks, and you simply can't assume that if they've gotten through those critical years with or without injuries that they're any more of a safe bet.

 

If anything it just proves how lucky you are to land a good player in the draft, no matter where you take that player from. While there are plenty of scientific & not so scientific (often referred to as old-school scouting) methods in which you can decrease the variables, so much of the draft is still an incredible crapshoot.

[batman]

Interesting stuff. I'm certainly willing to re-evaluate my bias in favor of collegians, although I do agree that the available data is still pretty limited and its hard to isolate different variables (like the strength and conditioning that Patrick points out). Still, this is yet another solid research project that has found little variance in risk between prep players and college players.

 

I've always believed that the further one gets from their "peak age," the more difficult it is to accurately predict what kind of player they will be. It seems intuitive, but sometimes I get the feeling that scouts do way too much "projecting," especially with young high school players. That is still a big risk, but if the injury question isn't as clear cut as it was once thought to be, then the equation changes quite a bit. I do think that adding the best quality players possible to the system benefits them insofar as we have more qualified coaches and trainers (arguably... at least we *should*) than they would have access to at college. I still think the "best quality player" calculation is much harder to figure when the player is an 18-year old high schooler versus a 22-year old collegian, but that's why scouts are important pieces of the puzzle.

 

One thing that I've thought about before is this: what if an MLB team made pre-draft deals in the vein of Moneyball, only they exclusively took mid-20th round picks and signed them for very minimal contracts (or didn't sign them at all), instead opting to invest that money in the Major League club? Could a franchise survive for a long period of time relying exclusively on trades and free agents to stock their minor league system? Could the added payroll at the MLB level make a difference in improving the team?

 

Probably not, but it would be an interesting experiment.

 

Good stuff, guys!

 

~Bill

[colbyjack]

One thing that I've thought about before is this: what if an MLB team made pre-draft deals in the vein of Moneyball, only they exclusively took mid-20th round picks and signed them for very minimal contracts (or didn't sign them at all), instead opting to invest that money in the Major League club? Could a franchise survive for a long period of time relying exclusively on trades and free agents to stock their minor league system? Could the added payroll at the MLB level make a difference in improving the team?

 

Look no further than the Mariners.

 

While that statement is said half in jest, some teams don't take the draft as seriously, or at least invest in it as much, as teams like the Brewers are now. The Mariners are the most obvious example, the Giants are another. Both aren't shy about giving up draft picks by quickly signing players like Michael Tucker & Raul Ibanez on the FA market, and we all wonder why they gave up high picks to sign marginal players like that. Of course, if they're spending money on players like Ibanez & Tucker instead of a top draft pick, you do have to question their rationale, but basically they roll the dollars they would normally spend on the draft into their big-league payroll. And one should not underestimate this tactic too much since both teams take their bench very seriously, especially since few teams travel farther than the Mariners & Giants (actually, no team travels farther than the M's).

 

I'm pretty sure you can sign an entire draft class for somewhere in the $8-10 million range. You can save at least $2-3 million by ridding yourself of your first 2 picks, or low-balling them. That money doesn't seem like much, but I supposed that's the difference from having Michael Tucker on your team or not.

 

And look at the Giants & Mariners farm system. The Giants' has started to thin out, while the Mariners is starting to revive, thanks to some key Latin American players making great strides this year, with more thanks to the Garcia trade. In that way, the Mariners aren't really just rolling their money into their big-league budget, as they always have been big spenders on the international market. Take away both high draft picks & premium players from the foreign market & it would be really tough to stay competetive long-term. Even the Yankees need some key prospects to trade for all of the proven All-Stars they have, which is why so many people are wondering how the heck they are going to be able to trade for Randy Johnson. Dioner Navarro won't be enough.

 

Once again the A's really do things well in that they draft players, hype them up (or have others hype them up for you, not to say that they have overrated players), and then deal those prospects for big leaguers that can help for a playoff push. Octavio Dotel is their most recent acquistion, thanks to Moneyball draftee, and favorite of Robert, Mark Teahen. Jack Z., Doug Melvin & even Dean Taylor have all said that draft day is the biggest day of the year, especially for them given the situation the Brewers are in. In my mind, it's just as important for a team like the Yankees, even if they end up dealing those players in 2-3 years, as it is for the Brewers, who are relying on those picks to become key cogs for the future.

 

Looking at the Mariners who got awfully old awfully fast, it's hard not to put a good chunk of the blame on their reluctance to invest in draft picks.

[Never Outhustled]

Its always safer to draft college pitchers , because they don't get injured. Like Mark Priorhttp://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[jwaltz]

And they don't lose 5mph in two years like Bobby Brownlie.

[endaround]

The top high school pitchers tend to do ok, but in general more college pitchers reach the major leagues and of pitchers who do reach the major leagues, college pitchers tend to have more success.

 

May have probably seen this, but I'll link to it again. It covers most of Callis' sample (not the last three years because those pitchers aren't old enough to fit in the study's guidelines). It doesn't necessarily match up because it takes the top 10 pitchers regardless of round. Basically, the study says if the choice is between the #1 high school pitcher and the #1 college pitcher, take the college pitcher. #1 high school vs #2 college, take the top high schooler.

 

sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=neyer_rob&id=1811682

[gregmag]

Colby, something just struck me when you once again quoted the similarity in the percentages of HS and college pitchers that get hurt "within five years of being drafted." Something other than the small sample size.

 

I've read several times over the years that pitchers, as a group, become less susceptible to injury after about age 25. Whether or not that's true is very important for the implications of the Callis study you cite. If a typical 18 year-old HS pitching draftee doesn't get hurt within five years of being drafted, that still leaves him with two years in the "injury window." If a 20 year-old college pitcher doesn't get hurt within five years, he's out of the statistical woods. If there is an "age-injury window" for pitchers, then the Callis stat you quoted is missing a very important piece of the story. That leads back to Al's point, that a college arm is safer in the long run because the guy has come farther without getting hurt.

 

On the "pick the best player available" point . . . how do you compare? How do you determine whether an 18 year-old Maine HS pitcher is "better" than a 20 year-old D1 college pitcher? Do you go purely on visual assessment of stuff? Is there a good way to factor in strength of competition, unpredictability of physical development, etc.? Are some attributes of good players comparable across contexts and others not? The "best player available" logic always has a lot to recommend it, but in this context I wonder whether there's any such thing, at least measurably. Any thoughts?

 

Greg.

[colbyjack]

If injuries do go down after the age of 25, then yes, I would agree that the data isn't entirely accurate. If that is indeed true, the best way to look at it might be looking at a HS pitcher's injury rate 7-8 years after being drafted as opposed to the 5 years for a college draftee.

 

Even without that data, I still am somewhat surprised by just how close those percentages are. I think it would be hard for anyone to say after looking at that data that prep pitchers are still as risky as how many make it out to be.

 

On the "pick the best player available" point . . . how do you compare? How do you determine whether an 18 year-old Maine HS pitcher is "better" than a 20 year-old D1 college pitcher? Do you go purely on visual assessment of stuff? Is there a good way to factor in strength of competition, unpredictability of physical development, etc.? Are some attributes of good players comparable across contexts and others not? The "best player available" logic always has a lot to recommend it, but in this context I wonder whether there's any such thing, at least measurably. Any thoughts?

 

This is where scouts & tools come in. The Brewers obviously thought high enough of Mark Rogers to take him before Homer Bailey, whom most had tabbed as the best prep pitcher. It's for a similar reason that the Tigers took Justin Verlander 2nd overall despite his control problems. His stuff was just too good to pass up, even if a more polished righty like Phillip Humber was on the board.

 

Pure stuff usually lends itself pretty well to the best player available approach. Obviously there are other variables, but if you have a prep pitcher that can throw in the mid-90s with a nasty breaking ball matched up with a college pitcher that throws in the low-90s & relies more on command than stuff, the best player available would likely be the prep pitcher. If the stuff is close, it still would be hard not to give the nod to the college arm. Like all prospect rankings, so much of it is based on potential. Of course everyone has their own idea of who the best player available is, but using the term loosely it's usually the player that projects the best down the road. That's why Rogers got the nod over more established college pitchers like Jeremy Sowers & Wade Townsend. I'm still not sure if I agree with the selection, because if they were looking for pure stuff they had to give Thomas Diamond a long look, who maintains his mid-90s velocity deep into games, although Diamond doesn't have the consistent breaking ball that Rogers & others have.

 

For hitters so much of it has to do with pure athleticism. I'm not as big of a fan going after the raw athlete, as I would much prefer going after the guy that has shown he can hit. While I wasn't a big fan of the selection of Fielder at the time, it's hard not to love that pick now, especially since the Brewers didn't get wrapped up with his perceived conditioning problems. For the same reason I really liked Blake DeWitt this year and Ian Stewart last year because I think those guys have the best chance to hit at the MLB level, even if they don't sport the flashy tools.

[gregmag]

On the injury thing, my ultimate point is that, if we buy the 25 barrier, then (a) the similarity of the percentages you cited shouldn't surprise us, because we're comparing two groups of pitchers during a period where both groups are still facing substantial injury risk, and (b) because the HS draftees have additional time under the higher injury risk, they remain, as a group, substantially riskier investments. In other words, if the 25 barrier is legit, the stat you cite isn't conclusive at all; exactly as you said, you'd need to compare both groups of draftees up to age 25.

 

So is the 25 barrier legit? As far as I can tell from quick research, the answer is yes, with caveats.

 

The age 25 number comes from Craig Wright in "The Diamond Appraised," which included a study through 1987. A more recent article discussing the phenomenon and Wright's analysis is here:

 

www.rotojunkie.com/corner/012104.html

 

Baseball Prospectus did a study that has injury risk dramatically decreasing between 20 and 24, with a gradual upward slope starting at 25:

 

www.baseballprospectus.co...cleid=1658

 

The BP study provides some support for the position I was suggesting: a straight five-year window comparison misses the important fact that college pitching draftees as a group are "out of the woods" after that window, whereas HS pitching draftees are not.

 

On the other hand, the study presents a problem for my hypothesis: Injury risk doesn't just drop from "high" to "low" after age 24. Rather, injury risk occurs on a curve, with a downward slope through age 24. Thus, in the aggregate, more pitchers should get hurt in the 18-22 window than in the 20-24 window, and Callis' numbers suggest that isn't happening. One factor that may skew the data, however, is the tendency of teams not to push HS pitchers in their initial seasons. They won't draft a guy if he's hurt, and if they don't pitch him a lot right after he's drafted, his injury risk at 18 is dramatically reduced. But that's just a guess, and I don't know how long the premise (that teams baby HS pitching draftees at first) has even been true.

 

All of this persuades me that the issue is complicated (duh) and that the Callis study, while on the right track, is inadequate, both in sample size and in design, to prove anything. What we need is a larger variation on the Callis study that compares HS and college pitching draftees up to age 25 (or beyond, for that matter), breaking down injury percentages at each point on the age curve from 18 to 25. That would tell us something meaningful about whether injury risk generically distinguishes HS and college arms as draft risks.

 

Good analysis on the "best player" philosophy; thanks. This gets back to that argument you had with the Mets fan before the draft, but I guess I'm just dubious about taking a HS guy who throws 97 over a college guy who throws 92 but has more polish. Leaving aside the injury issue for a moment, the college guy is a lot farther along in his development as a pitcher; you know what you're getting. The HS kid could fail to make the necessary adjustments against better competition, or he could just lose velocity, a la Mike Jones (it would help to know if that's common or unusual). Of course, he could also turn into Doc Gooden at 19, but the point is that you have a lot less certainty, and I'm inclined to put a premium on certainty in the high rounds.

 

I don't think the same analysis applies to hitters, although I have to confess I haven't worked that view out in my mind. I guess I just don't think hitting is as complex, and thus unpredictable, as pitching. As for defense, there's really no such thing as "tougher competitoin"; the ball is the ball, right?

 

So you've made me think a lot harder about the college vs. HS pitching thing, but you haven't changed my conclusion based on the info I have. I'd still like to see the Brewers take more college arms, fewer HS arms, and a few more HS as opposed to college bats.

 

Greg.

[Katuluu]

One factor that may skew the data, however, is the tendency of teams not to push HS pitchers in their initial seasons. They won't draft a guy if he's hurt, and if they don't pitch him a lot right after he's drafted, his injury risk at 18 is dramatically reduced. But that's just a guess, and I don't know how long the premise (that teams baby HS pitching draftees at first) has even been true.

 

It could also suggest college pitchers are being pushed too hard until they are drafted. Thus developing injuries after the fact from overuse.

[Member]

One factor that may skew the data, however, is the tendency of teams not to push HS pitchers in their initial seasons. They won't draft a guy if he's hurt, and if they don't pitch him a lot right after he's drafted, his injury risk at 18 is dramatically reduced. But that's just a guess, and I don't know how long the premise (that teams baby HS pitching draftees at first) has even been true.

 

It could also suggest college pitchers are being pushed too hard until they are drafted. Thus developing injuries after the fact from overuse.

 

One thing that we seem to be forgetting in all this isn't the HS-drafted players that get hurt in the minors or college drafted players that stay injury free. We've spent a lot of time talking about them

 

What about the number of kids who go to college and get hurt? Could any of them have been "saved" had from abuse and injury if they had been properly developed by a major league organization? How many college arms died because they were allowed to throw 120 pitches a game 6 times as a freshman at USC?

[gregmag]

That's an interesting point. I suppose the same could be true in HS -- does anyone have insights about whether HS or college coaches are relatively more careful with pitchers? Unless there's a demonstrable difference, I'd tend to focus on the difference (if any) in how MLB organizations treat pitchers of different ages in their first seasons.

 

You may have been getting at something else, which is also worth considering: HS pitchers just haven't been pitching as long as college pitchers; the college guys have had more opportunities for wear and tear.

 

What strikes me about these possibilities is that post-draft injury stats (like the ones in the BP study) should account for them. In other words, everything that happens to a pitcher before he gets drafted contributes to his propensity for injury, which we then measure by counting injuries going forward.

 

Greg.

[colbyjack]

One factor that may skew the data, however, is the tendency of teams not to push HS pitchers in their initial seasons.

 

Not necessarily true. It all depends on the organization. Look at the Dodgers rapidly promoting Greg Miller last year, or the Royals bumping up Zack Greinke to the big leagues within 2 years of being drafted. Of course these guys may be the exception more than the rule, but not all organizations promote or handle college arms any differently than HS ones. The Brewers are actually handling several of their recently drafted college pitchers with care this summer, and they did the same last year, which I'm happy to see. Of course, I haven't looked at other organizations to see how they're handling their pitchers, but I'm guessing the Brewers aren't alone in this approach.

 

Another thing to add to the equation is that college pitchers do get a lot of work in their college careers as Kat brought up. But this often leads to them signing later in the summer, and possibly not even throwing until the spring after they were drafted. We're seeing a heck of a lot of first rounders unsigned this year, several of them being college arms, so that too could play into all of this.

 

Of course, some HS arms sign late as well, such as our very own Tom Wilhelmsen, or an even better example since he has made the big leagues now, Ben Hendrickson. I know I'm not the only one that was surprised to see Wilhelmsen start his first pro year at Beloit, and now with guys like Rogers starting at Arizona as opposed to Helena, which is where Mike Jones started his career (only to be named the top prospect in the Pioneer League that season), I think it's another good sign that the Brewers are starting to be more cautious & patient with all of their pitchers.

 

And the woulda/coulda/shoulda scenarios are fun to think about. What if Mark Prior wouldn't have gone to college and what if Nick Neugebauer would have? What if Alan Horne would have signed with the Indians out of HS instead of missing several years of action at Ole Miss due to injury?

 

I agree with your assessment greg that Callis' study isn't exact, but like you said, he is on the right track. I probably would expand the results to the age of 25 as you suggest and see where they stand. I wouldn't expect a dramatic difference, since the basic numbers that he provides show that first-round prep righties are just about as likely to be a big-league regular as a first-round college righty (30% vs. 31%), and you can't really be considered a regular, or average/above average, if you're injured all of the time.

 

This gets back to that argument you had with the Mets fan before the draft, but I guess I'm just dubious about taking a HS guy who throws 97 over a college guy who throws 92 but has more polish.

 

If you remember that debate, you'll know most of me agrees with you, but I still have a part of me that loves the idea of striking gold with a true fireballer. Of course I've been suckered by Gold, Neugie & Jones before. If Rogers stings me as well I may have to finally & completely give up that part of me.

 

And everyone knows who I wanted the Brewers to take, for so many different reasons. I can't say I'm disappointed with the pick of Rogers, although taking 2 prep righties with their first 2 picks does concern me.

 

I don't think the same analysis applies to hitters, although I have to confess I haven't worked that view out in my mind. I guess I just don't think hitting is as complex, and thus unpredictable, as pitching.

 

Oddly enough, hitters are harder to scout. Pitchers are always throwing, but a hitter may never move the bat off of his shoulder in any given game. But, the best hitters typically are identified and known about early. This had me leaning towards a bat as the spring progressed given all of the questions about all of the college arms that seemed to good to pass up before the season started (Weaver's lack of a 2nd dominant pitch, Verlander's control problems, Niemann's injury troubles, Townsend's loss of velocity, Sowers' lack of velocity, etc.). I suggested reaching for someone like Blake DeWitt, who not only was considered one of the best hitters in the draft, but he also would have fit an obvious organizational need at 3B. DeWitt went in the 20s to the Dodgers, so he may have been considered a big reach, and of course, most teams, especially the Brewers, don't draft this way (for the most part, they will target needs, but they won't pick them one by one as they go). Chris Nelson on the other hand wouldn't have been a stretch at all, and for the 2nd year in a row the Rockies got one of the my favorite players in the draft (Ian Stewart a year ago). I know there were quite a few Nelson fans on this board and felt the same way about the uncertainty of the pitchers available, which may confirm the Brewers' conviction in drafting a pitcher this year no matter what.

 

That's not to say there aren't positional prospects that become first-round busts, look no further than Antone Williamson, Kenny Felder & Chad Green. Although it could easily be argued that none of those players should have been our first-round pick even at the time. Scott Moore was supposed to have the sweetest swing of all hitters in 2002, and he hasn't done much to justify the 8th overall selection 2 years ago. But with risk involved, and with lingering questions about pitchers, I tend to lean towards a positional prospect that has shown the ability to hit against the best of them on all levels & venues available to prep hitters.

 

I suppose the same could be true in HS -- does anyone have insights about whether HS or college coaches are relatively more careful with pitchers?

 

There isn't really a difference. We've all heard about how Kenny Baugh threw 170 pitches in a game while at Rice, while our own Yovanni Gallardo threw something like 140 pitches in HS this spring. Some coaches take the whole pitch count phenomena more seriously than others at both levels.

[RobertR]

You know, asking Callis via e-mail what the study would look like using age instead of years from being drafted, sounds like a good idea. Somebody should do that. Especially somebody that proposed the idea in the first place, so they can reap the credit.

 

Robert

[gregmag]

Wow -- you can do that? Use a guy's email address to communicate with him, rather than just guess what he'd say about something?

 

I really am a technoklutz. Thanks for suggesting that, Robert. I just sent him an email. I asked him about the injury window thing and also some other questions about the percentages that reach the majors and become average or better. At the end, I politely (I hope) encouraged him to keep updating the study as he gets more data.

 

It would be really cool if he responded. My note was long, but maybe he'll address part of it.

 

Greg.

[RobertR]

Isn't technology wonderful?

 

Robert

[gregmag]

Okay, Jim Callis officially rocks. He answered my email last night and answered the big question we were kicking around:

 

"As for the timing of injuries, I also think it would be deceptive to cut it off at age 25. That gives your typical college guy four years to get hurt, while it gives the HS guys seven years to get hurt. But let's take a look:

 

"C arm surgery within four years (age 25): 16 of 50 (32 percent)

HS arm surgery within seven years (age 25): 24 of 35 (69 percent)

 

"But see also:

 

"C arm surgery within seven years: 25 of 50 (50 percent)

 

"That's an interesting point. The difference is more significant if you look at it that way. It still wouldn't change my quick one-sentence opinion: I would lean toward college righthanders (or to make it broader, players) in the draft, because you have a bigger track record, they pay off quicker and they are safer, but the difference compared to high school righthanders (or players) isn't significant enough for me to just exclude that entire demographic out of hand. Regardless of how you sift the injury data, in the long run, the college righthanders aren't that much better than the high school righthanders to just give up on them."

 

I think this information is very helpful, although the small sample size caveat remains in effect. I don't see it as a slam-dunk for my side of this argument, but I think it provides significant support. If we trust this data, there seem to be two interesting things to argue about.

 

First, Callis makes the point about what's "fair" in sifting the data. I think reasonable people can disagree about that. My perspective is that, whenever pitchers get drafted, they're going to have a useful lifespan based on age (as a group; Orosco caveat duly noted). For that reason, the age-based comparison makes more sense to me than the "years after draft"-based comparison. If you focus on the age-based comparison, the numbers suggest a stark difference in injury risk for HS and college arms.

 

Second, Callis concludes that the difference in injury risk isn't great enough to rule out a whole demographic. Again, I think reasonable people can disagree about this. I'm inclined to take a somewhat opposed view, and here's where the Moneyball philosophy comes into play. Ignoring a whole demographic -- say, HS arms -- makes perfect sense even if there's nothing wrong with that demographic, because scouting resources are limited. The Braves put their resources disproportionately into the South. That severly limits them elsewhere, but they get better info than any other team about that region, so they end up with good players. The info we have, as I read it, tells us that HS pitchers are a demographic with which there is something wrong. If you ignored HS pitchers altogether and put those resources into scouting collegians, you'd increase your comparative advantage in that area.

 

I wouldn't go that far, in part because I'm not certain you could find enough college arms that other teams missed to offset completely the loss of HS arms. What I would do is strategize to ignore HS arms in the first 5-10 rounds (leaving some flexibility). The most consistent knock on HS pitchers, injuries aside, is developmental unpredictability -- so take your fliers on the unknown quantities in the later rounds.

 

BTW, I also asked Callis some questions about the numbers on HS and college arms that (a) reach the majors and (b) become average or better. He didn't have time to get to those, although he did make this valid point (in response to my thought that more college arms may end up providing that value to the teams that drafted them:

 

"One other aspect that's hard to measure in a study is trade value. Because so many trades are financially motivated, it's difficult to break down how much trade value (versus the other team saving money) a player has. But almost all of these guys, even the Todd Van Poppels of the world, had huge trade value for a long time. Had the A's chosen to cash him in while he was in the minors, they could have gotten a potentially much higher return than he gave them."

 

True dat -- but the thing is, teams never do it. That's a strategic innovation for GMs to consider: get Mike Jones and cash him in as soon as he has burned up A-ball. Maybe he becomes Kerry Wood, and you end up losing the gamble -- but the odds are better that he helps you most as trade bait.

 

Greg.

[RobertR]

That was very nice of Callis to respond so promptly.

 

I agree that an age based comparison is more useful as well. There are very few pitchers, from college or high school ranks, who are able to pitch in the majors successfully before age 23 or 24. The fact that High School pitchers take a few more years to reach the majors shouldn't be ignored. I'd rather not have a pitching injury, but if one was inevitable, I'd rather it be after I recovered some of the bonus value through major league performance. Cal Eldred's effective career probably wasn't too far past J. M. Gold's, but Eldred at least had value in the majors.

 

Robert