What Can We Expect From a 15th Overall Draft Pick?
Wednesday, August 18 2004 @ 11:22 AM EDT
Contributed by: Pepper Moffatt
Yesterday we looked at the question "What Can We Expect From a 14th Overall Draft Pick?". Today we bring it down a notch and look at the 15th overall slot where Gabe Gross was drafted in 2001. The results are pretty ugly.
Methodology
See the article "What Can We Expect From a 14th Overall Draft Pick?". Nothing has changed except now we're looking at 15th overall picks.
Recall that I created 5 groups to divide the 30 players into:
Group 1 - Never Reached The Majors
Group 2 - Less Than 5.0 WARP3 in first 6 seasons
Group 3 - Between 5.0 and 9.9 WARP3 in first 6 seasons
Group 4 - Between 10.0 and 19.9 WARP3 in first 6 seasons
Group 5 - 20.0 or more WARP3 in first 6 seasons
The Groups
Group 1 - Never Reached The Majors
18 Players of 30 = 60%. Average WARP3 = 0.0Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1965 Scott McDonald P BAL 0 0.0
1968 Ralph Rickey OF CHC 0 0.0
1969 Alvin Mcgrew OF CLE 0 0.0
1970 Gary Polczynski SS CIN 0 0.0
1972 Brian Vernoy P CHC 0 0.0
1974 Kevin Drake OF HOU 0 0.0
1975 Otis Foster 1B BOS 0 0.0
1977 Paul Croft OF MIN 0 0.0
1978 Bob Hicks 1B STL 0 0.0
1980 Don Collins P STL 0 0.0
1982 Steve Swain OF HOU 0 0.0
1983 Wayne Dotson P DET 0 0.0
1984 Kevin Andersh P PIT 0 0.0
1986 Kevin Dean OF MON 0 0.0
1987 Brad DuVall P BAL 0 0.0
1989 Kiki Jones P LAD 0 0.0
1991 Tyrone Hill P MIL 0 0.0
1994 Jayson Peterson P CHC 0 0.0
PSN stands for the position the player was drafted at (and not necessarily played in the majors), TEAM was the team that drafted him, GAMES were the number of games he played in the majors up to and including the 2003 season, and WARP is the WARP3 he recorded in the first six seasons of his major league career.
Twice as many 15th overall draftpicks missed the majors as 14th overall picks. There are huge sample size issues here so take that fact with a grain of salt. Unlike 14th overall draftpicks, 15th overall draftpicks are still missing the major leagues with alarming regularity. Chase Utley, Gabe Gross, and Scott Kazmir picked in 2000, 2001, and 2002 respectively all look to turn the trend around.
Group 2 - Cup of Coffee / Journeyman
3 Players of 30 = 10%. Average WARP3 = 0.6Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1967 Jim Foor P DET 13 -0.5
1981 Tim Pyznarski 3B OAK 15 0.1
1990 Adam Hyzdu OF SFG 221 2.1
Only Adam Hyzdu had any sort of major league career and that was after bouncing around the minor leagues for a decade. Two thirds of the players in this 30 player sample played 15 games or less in the majors.
Group 3 - Decent Major Leaguers
2 Players of 30 = 7%. Average WARP3 = 6.8Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1992 Sean Lowe P STL 255 6.1
1973 Mike Parrott P BAL 119 7.5
Parrott had a great year with the Seattle Mariners in 1979 going 14-12 with a 3.77 ERA. The next year he went 1-16. No, that's no a typo. Young pitchers will break your heart.
Group 4 - Good Major Leaguers
2 Players of 30 = 7%. Average WARP3 = 15.7Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1985 Willie Fraser P CAL 239 12.8
1993 Chris Carpenter P TOR 157 18.5
Both of these guys pitched for the Jays, though Fraser for only very briefly. Like many players on these lists Carpenter would be in a higher category if not for injuries.
Group 5 - Very Good/Great Major Leaguers
5 Players of 30 = 17%. Average WARP3 = 31.8Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1988 Royce Clayton SS SFG 1661 26.6
1976 Leon Durham 1B STL 1072 28.3
1979 Scott Garrelts P SFG 375 28.5
1966 Richie Hebner SS PIT 1938 35.3
1971 Jim Rice OF BOS 2107 40.3
You can get Hall-of-Fame or at least near Hall-of-Fame talent in the 15th overall slot, as Jim Rice shows us. I often forget that Clayton was a pretty decent player when he first came up with the Giants. The 15th overall slot has produced only one very good/great player after Scott Garrelts was drafted in 1979. Only 17% of the players in this sample can be classified as very good or great major leaguers, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Kazmir or Gross join their ranks one day.
Craig Burley wondered if the performance of 15th overall draft-picks have improved over time. To see, I broke the 30 years down into 6 distinct groups:
YEARS GROUP 1 GROUP 2 GROUP 3 GROUP 4 GROUP 5 AVGWARP3
65-69 3 1 0 0 1 6.96
70-74 3 0 1 0 0 9.56
75-79 3 0 0 0 2 11.36
80-84 4 1 0 0 0 0.02
85-89 3 0 0 1 1 7.88
90-94 2 1 1 1 0 5.34
Where GROUP1, GROUP2 etc. indicate the number of players in each group.
Unlike the 14th overall picks, there does not seem to be any general trend over time. The entire 1980-1984 group played only 15 games in the majors, all of them by Tim Pyznarski. The 1995-1999 group may end up being worse than that. Right now they have a collective negative WARP3.
Conclusion
We saw in the previous articles that the average 14th overall draftpick records a WARP3 level of 8.9 in his first 6 seasons, a level only slightly higher than the performance of Dave Berg in his first six seasons. Here the average was even lower at 6.85. Using the average is rather misleading as 60% of the players had a WARP3 of 0.0 as they never made the majors. The fact that only 5 players of 30 were in the very good/great group and only 2 more can be considered good major league players is more telling. While we still need to examine other mid 1st round slots it appears that many of us expect far too much out of middle of the 1st round picks.
15th Overall Draftpicks Since 1965
Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1965 Scott McDonald P BAL 0 0.0
1966 Richie Hebner SS PIT 1938 35.3
1967 Jim Foor P DET 13 -0.5
1968 Ralph Rickey OF CHC 0 0.0
1969 Alvin Mcgrew OF CLE 0 0.0
1970 Gary Polczynski SS CIN 0 0.0
1971 Jim Rice OF BOS 2107 40.3
1972 Brian Vernoy P CHC 0 0.0
1973 Mike Parrott P BAL 119 7.5
1974 Kevin Drake OF HOU 0 0.0
1975 Otis Foster 1B BOS 0 0.0
1976 Leon Durham 1B STL 1072 28.3
1977 Paul Croft OF MIN 0 0.0
1978 Bob Hicks 1B STL 0 0.0
1979 Scott Garrelts P SFG 375 28.5
1980 Don Collins P STL 0 0.0
1981 Tim Pyznarski 3B OAK 15 0.1
1982 Steve Swain OF HOU 0 0.0
1983 Wayne Dotson P DET 0 0.0
1984 Kevin Andersh P PIT 0 0.0
1985 Willie Fraser P CAL 239 12.8
1986 Kevin Dean OF MON 0 0.0
1987 Brad DuVall P BAL 0 0.0
1988 Royce Clayton SS SFG 1661 26.6
1989 Kiki Jones P LAD 0 0.0
1990 Adam Hyzdu OF SFG 221 2.1
1991 Tyrone Hill P MIL 0 0.0
1992 Sean Lowe P STL 255 6.1
1993 Chris Carpenter P TOR 157 18.5
1994 Jayson Peterson P CHC 0 0.0
1995 Andy Yount P BOS 0 0.0
1996 Matt Halloran SS SDP 0 0.0
1997 Jason Dellaero SS CWS 12 -0.6
1998 Clint Johnston 1B PIT 0 0.0
1999 Jason Stumm P CWS 0 0.0
2000 Chase Utley IF PHI 96 3.4
2001 Gabe Gross OF TOR 0 0.0
2002 Scott Kazmir P NYM 0 0.0
2003 Brian Anderson OF CWS 0 0.0
2004 Stephen Drew SS ARZ 0 0.0
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