What Can We Expect From a 6th Overall Draft Pick?
Friday, October 08 2004 @ 01:09 AM EDT
Contributed by: Pepper Moffatt
Recently we looked at the questions "What Can We Expect From a 14th Overall Draft Pick?" and "What Can We Expect From a 15th Overall Draft Pick?" Now that we know that the Jays will be picking 6th overall in next year's draft the question on everyone's mind is "What Can We Expect From a 6th Overall Draft Pick?"
Methodology
See the article "What Can We Expect From a 14th Overall Draft Pick?". Nothing has changed except now we're looking at 6th 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
4 Players of 30 = 13%. Average WARP3 = 0.0Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1968 Robert Weaver SS CLE 0 0.0
1978 Tito Nanni OF SEA 0 0.0
1983 Jackie Davidson P CHC 0 0.0
1989 Paul Coleman OF STL 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.
As always there are huge sample size issues at play. We saw that 60% of 15th overall picks and 30% of 14th overall picks miss the majors. Here only 13% of the 6th overall picks missed the majors, indicating that teams are less likely to get an absolute bust this early in the draft.
Group 2 - Cup of Coffee / Journeyman
11 Players of 30 = 37%. Average WARP3 = 0.6Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1970 Lee Richard SS CWS 239 -1.0
1975 Butch Benton C NYM 51 -0.7
1965 Rick James P CHC 3 -0.6
1993 SteveSoderstrom P SFG 3 -0.2
1991 John Burke P HOU 29 0.5
1994 McKayChristense OF CAL 99 0.5
1988 Monty Fariss SS TEX 104 0.6
1974 Butch Edge P MIL 9 0.7
1972 Danny Thomas 1B MIL 54 1.9
1984 Erik Pappas C CAL 104 2.4
1990 Marc Newfield 1B SEA 355 2.4
While most 6th overall picks make the majors, a great deal of them only have cup-of-coffee careers or bounce around the majors as journeymen. My guess would be that this is because teams are a lot more likely to give a player the benefit of the doubt to a player who is picked that highly, so these players are often promoted to the major leagues despite less-than-stellar minor league careers.
Note that exactly half of the 30 players picked 6th overall either did not make the majors or had very limited big league careers. That's something to think about when we put the "can't miss" label on a draft pick.
The most notable players in this group are Monty Fariss and Marc Newfield whose rookie cards haunt baseball card investors from the late 1980s and early 1990s and the immortal Butch Edge who pitched in 9 games for the 1979 Blue Jays.
Group 3 - Decent Major Leaguers
4 Players of 30 = 13%. Average WARP3 = 8.3Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1973 JohnnieLeMaster SS SFG 1039 5.4
1971 Roy Thomas P PHI 182 8.5
1966 Tom Grieve C WAS 670 9.7
1980 Darnell Coles SS SEA 957 9.7
There's some decent players on here, including Darnell Coles, who had a pretty good year with the Tigers in the late 80's. Johnnie LeMaster was a bit of a late bloomer, so he doesn't not do well when you only examine the first 6 years of a player's career.
Group 4 - Good Major Leaguers
2 Players of 30 = 7%. Average WARP3 = 11.6Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1969 Mike Anderson 1B PHI 721 10.2
1987 DerekLilliquist P ATL 262 12.9
Derek Lilliquist didn't have a very long career, but had two killer seasons as a relief pitcher for the Indians in the early 90's. Mike Anderson has a couple of years where he was a near full-time outfielder for the Phillies but was out of baseball by the age of 28.
Group 5 - Very Good/Great Major Leaguers
9 Players of 30 = 30%. Average WARP3 = 34.1Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1976 Ken Landreaux OF CAL 1264 22.0
1982 Spike Owen SS SEA 1544 25.3
1977 Terry Kennedy C STL 1491 26.9
1986 Gary Sheffield SS MIL 1823 28.6
1967 John Mayberry 1B HOU 1620 31.0
1981 KevinMcReynolds OF SDP 1502 34.2
1979 Andy Van Slyke OF STL 1520 39.1
1992 Derek Jeter SS NYY 1366 46.5
1985 Barry Bonds OF PIT 2716 53.5
Here are the guys we all hope our 6th rounder develops into. Only 9 of the 30, or 30% of the players in this sample turned into star or superstar level players and that distinction is pretty loose as it includes guys like Spike Owen, who had a few very good years early in his career. John Mayberry had a killer year in 1975, which propelled him ahead of Gary Sheffield on this list, who battled injury problems early in his career.
If Jeter, Bonds, and Sheffield all make the Hall of Fame like I expect they will, then 10% of the 6th overall picks will have be inshrined in the Hall.
Craig Burley wondered if the performance of 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 1 1 1 1 1 10.06
70-74 0 3 2 0 0 3.10
75-79 1 1 0 0 3 17.46
80-84 1 1 1 0 2 14.32
85-89 1 1 0 1 2 19.12
90-94 0 4 0 0 1 9.94
Where GROUP1, GROUP2 etc. indicate the number of players in each group.
In general there does not seem to be much of a trend. The 1985-1989 figure is high due to Bonds and Sheffield being taken back-to-back in 1985 and 1986. Between 1988 and 1999 it appears that Derek Jeter will be the only player in that group who could be considered to have even a "good" major league career.
Conclusion
We saw in the previous article 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 much higher at 12.33. Thus your average 6th overall pick turns out to be as useful as Derek Lilliquist in his first six season. Of course the average can be misleading. What is more important is that half of the time your pick does not pan out, while 30% of the time it turns into a star or superstar player, and 10% of the time you have a Hall of Famer on your hands.
One thing you'll want to notice is how much better outfielders and shortstops did relative to pitchers. Drafting pitchers, particularly highschool pitchers, seems to be suicidal when you have a 6th overall picks, with our usual caveat of sample size. On the complete list of 6th overall draft picks you'll want to take note of all that pitchers that have been taken in recent years:
6th Overall Draftpicks Since 1965
Year Player POSN TEAM Games WARP
1965 Rick James P CHC 3 -0.6
1966 Tom Grieve C WAS 670 9.7
1967 John Mayberry 1B HOU 1620 31.0
1968 Robert Weaver SS CLE 0 0.0
1969 Mike Anderson 1B PHI 721 10.2
1970 Lee Richard SS CWS 239 -1.0
1971 Roy Thomas P PHI 182 8.5
1972 Danny Thomas 1B MIL 54 1.9
1973 JohnnieLeMaster SS SFG 1039 5.4
1974 Butch Edge P MIL 9 0.7
1975 Butch Benton C NYM 51 -0.7
1976 Ken Landreaux OF CAL 1264 22.0
1977 Terry Kennedy C STL 1491 26.9
1978 Tito Nanni OF SEA 0 0.0
1979 Andy Van Slyke OF STL 1520 39.1
1980 Darnell Coles SS SEA 957 9.7
1981 KevinMcReynolds OF SDP 1502.0 34.2
1982 Spike Owen SS SEA 1544.0 25.3
1983 Jackie Davidson P CHC 0.0 0.0
1984 Erik Pappas C CAL 104.0 2.4
1985 Barry Bonds OF PIT 2716.0 53.5
1986 Gary Sheffield SS MIL 1823.0 28.6
1987 DerekLilliquist P ATL 262.0 12.9
1988 Monty Fariss SS TEX 104.0 0.6
1989 Paul Coleman OF STL 0.0 0.0
1990 Marc Newfield 1B SEA 355.0 2.4
1991 John Burke P HOU 29.0 0.5
1992 Derek Jeter SS NYY 1366.0 46.5
1993 SteveSoderstrom P SFG 3.0 -0.2
1994 McKayChristense OF CAL 99.0 0.5
1995 Jaime Jones OF FLA 0 0.0
1996 Seth Greisinger P DET 29 3.5
1997 Geoff Goetz P NYM 0 0.0
1998 Ryan Mills P MIN 0 0.0
1999 Josh Girdley P MON 0 0.0
2000 Rocco Baldelli OF TBD 292 11.4
2001 Josh Karp P MON 0 0.0
2002 Zack Greinke P KCR 0 0.0
2003 Ryan Harvey OF CHC 0 0.0
2004 Jeremy Sowers P CLE 0 0.0
Your thoughts?
22 comments
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20041008010921999