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A question that I forgot to ask Randy Flores at Winter Warm Up –
“You just stated that it’s about a 50/50 mix of high school players and college players in the high rounds of the draft each year. Since articles have compared the two and found that a larger percentage of college players make to it to the majors each year, and of those that make it the college players have a higher average WAR, why not draft mainly college players in the first few rounds?”
Aren’t high floor quys less of a risk than supposed high ceiling high schoolers who may be more of a risk?”Here are some of the high schoolers we’ve spent a pick on in the first 5 rounds over the past few years (some in the first 3 rounds) –
Perez
Carelson
Robbins
Plummer
Denton
Tilson
Williams
Kaminsky
McKinney
Bean
McElroy
Peoples-WallsMaybe Flaherty, Woodford, Hicks, and Mercado have made up for it? Thoughts?
In your last group, do not forget Carson Kelly.
My generic answer to your question is that it would depend who is left on the board, how much they like the player and what his bonus demands are. I would imagine/hope that drives decisions more than whether the player is college or high school.
Here is the split for the Cards’ first three rounds over the last eight years. 2015, which was not Flores’ draft, appears to be the anomaly. It should be noted that 2015 was Chris Correa’s only draft. He was primarily an analytics guy with minimal scouting background.
So far, Flores has drafted two-thirds college majority in the first three rounds – four of six.
College High school College pct. 2017 1 0 100% 2016 3 2 60% 2015 1 4 20% 2014 3 2 60% 2013 2 2 50% 2012 5 2 71% 2011 1 2 33% 2010 3 2 60% total 19 16 54% It is better to draft college players who might reach the majors but have a limited ceiling? Just as you posted your list of high school disappointments, consider this.
Among the college players drafted in the first five rounds during these years: (I switched to five rounds, since that is what you did above)
Jeremy Martinez
Andrew Morales
Trevor Megill (not signed)
Marco Gonzales
Mason Katz
Mike Mayers
Alex Mejia
Cory Jones
Sam Gaviglio
James Ramsey
Tim Cooney
Zach Cox
Seth Blair
Jordan Swagerty
Cody Stanley
Nick LongmireAs I see it, organizations have to take some gambles to try to find a potential superstar. The Cards have a system full of very good players, but none with an Alex Reyes-Oscar Taveras kind of ceiling. There are not going to be those kinds of college players often available when the Cards pick at #20 or thereabouts. So, they roll the dice on a Delvin Perez.
I get it. There has to be balance.
P.S. Good thread idea. I hope others join in the discussion.
It makes sense that they’re looking for a super star and a high ceiling high school player might develop into that. But if you’re constantly drafting toward the end of the 1st round, that would seem to diminish the odds. The cream of the crop could probably be gone, which raises the risk even higher with less track record to go on than a 3 year major college player.
If one picked in the top 10 every year, taking risk would be less important. Yet, your approach with the ~#20 pick seems to be similar – to try to minimize risk. What you prefer to choose from is a group of three-year college players about which a lot more is known, including having a better handle on their upside. The best ones are gone, so lower-ceiling guys are what is left.
To explain it with third-round names, I would be willing to have fewer Mike Mayers in hopes of finding more Jordan Hicks. But again, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. The situation is more complex than that.
P.S. I forgot to mention that for some organizations, there is a timing dimension. If the system is barren, getting more college players can lead to help in the majors sooner. Fortunately for them, their consistency enables the Cardinals to be patient in player development.
Some organizations have put more focus on international, which is closer to drafting high schoolers than college from a development perspective. However, with the tighter caps, there is now less opportunity to leverage signing money that way.
Uh oh… You may have just unleashed the cardinals2016 monster j/k..
🙂 fun topic really.. Sometimes bucking the math works… It has also been proven if you go straight college you can’t replenish a system either… So yeah… It is a balance and frankly… Luck plays a major factor.
The cards do exactly what they need to do in many ways — replenish the vast majority of positions with cheap starters often and they do that especially on the pitching side which is the more difficult. It also says something that they are doing it from the back of the draft.
You can nitpick due to our inability and/or unwillingness to acquire great talent but that seems to be more of a trading/will issue to me. Our owners are so risk averse they will sit there… And sit there… And sit there…
I just hope when that finally changes they don’t do something too stupid out of frustration similar to what happened with fowler (there was a run on cf so they gave him a contract).
@bccran – you missed a golden opportunity to get an answer I would have loved to have heard.
I don’t think college players have lower ceilings, on average, than HS players. With the slotted bonus pools, a lot of players are telling teams not to bother drafting them or are signaling to teams it will cost millions above slot value to forego collage. Think Drew Mendoza who went to Florida State. Last year, 44 of the Top 300 were not drafted at all.
Yes, the only reason to draft a HS kid in the first round is you think he is going to be a superstar. The problem is that when you draft guys like Nick Plummer and Dylan Carlson whose best tool is their ability to draw walks, you are not drafting guys that profile as superstars, and you are better off drafting college guys who have faced tougher competition.
There are stratifications of draft eligible players, and many guys with first round talent go in the second round. This is, in part, because a lot of team prioritize high schoolers with upside over college players with experience and competition.
The only reason the average WAR between HS players and college players is even close, is when you draft guys like Mike Trout and Ken Griffey JR that put up 80 WAR over their careers, it significantly raises the average of all the HS busts. But I can almost guarantee there were significant differences between the scouting reports of Griffey Jr/Trout than Plummer/Carlson.
Just to play Devil’s Advocate with your last point, C2016, if Trout’s pre-draft scouting reports were so glowing, why did he drop to #25 overall?
In fact, here it is to read. I especially got a kick out of this sentence, summarizing his weaknesses.
“Still a bit crude at the plate; some teams may not look at him and see him as an everyday Major League center fielder.”
https://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/draft/y2009/reports.jsp?content=trout
On the other hand, Griffey Jr. was a first overall pick, so of course he was very different from Plummer (#23rd overall)/Carlson (33rd overall) – and he was different from Trout, too.
Carlson does not fit in this discussion as he was picked ahead of where his scouting reports suggested he belonged. The Cards did this to save more than a half million dollars early on so they could go overslot on a number of others afterward, which they did. Since they took Hudson with the very next overall pick (#34), it isn’t like the Carlson selection kept them out of that round. (I do get that you do not like this strategy, C2016, but that is a matter of opinion.)
In hindsight, everything is always much clearer.
P.S. I did not see an MLB scouting report for Plummer, but our Scout guys a few months before the 2015 draft wrote this:
https://247sports.com/mlb/indians/Article/2015-MLB-Draft-Profile-OF-Nick-Plummer-105182937
“Some came out and said Plummer has the best hit tool in this class; a plus tool with potential to be plus-plus.”
“In other words, the reports are almost too glowing, and one has to wonder the affect the limited exposure has had.”
“…it is hard to look past the fact that the majority of scouts predict that Plummer will be an above average player in every facet offensively. He can hit the ball to every part of the park and has the eye and patience to wait for the right pitch. It’s a profile which should be very enticing to teams.”
“…I think Plummer – baring (sic) a bad year – will be a top 10 prospect for me.”
His main concerns with Plummer were height and limited exposure coming from a cold weather state, with the latter point similar to Trout. In Trout’s case, MLB scouts questioned his build, saying he looked like a football linebacker or safety.
Unlike Carlson the next year, Plummer was signed at slot value, as had been Trout in 2009.
2015 draft seems really odd. You have an analytics guy in charge (Correa) yet the top of the draft is High School heavy – the exact guys that almost everyone says are harder to evaluate based on analytics.
CC, I was thinking of it as more along the lines of the analytics guys may believe they are better at finding the diamonds than the scouts. Seems like high school players would be harder to evaluate in all aspects.
Unless we decide to tank (highly unlikely) the chances of us getting our next superstar through the draft are rather slim. We will get most of our meat and potatoes players through the draft but will have to resort to trades and free agents for the big stars. I know the organization doesn’t like that but it seems unavoidable to me. We aren’t going to tank like the Cubs and Astros.
All i know is the Cards need to find some offense in the next draft or two.System wise the entire bunch lack power .There have to be some good bats available.You have to have some guys that can drive the ball and some guys who can hit some Homeruns.
I can’t think of a single guy in the system that profiles as a future 25-30 Homerun guy besides O’Neill .Bader has a chance at 15-20 Homers with everyday playing but no one else i can think of.I don’t know that we need power hitters if we can acquire them (O’Neill and Ozuna)
They just graduated a guy that hit 38 in DeJong too.
It’s odd that we don’t have any int’l signees that have big power. I guess Oscar Taveras would’ve counted though. Victor Garcia was thought to have big power, but I have no idea if that’s true.
But gscottar they are going to reallocate the money they were going to use on Luis Robert to make the team better.
*sarcasm*
gscottar, probably the ‘superstar’ definition is in the eye of the beholder, but the most recent two Cardinals likely headed for Cooperstown are a 13th-rounder (Pujols) and a fourth-rounder (Molina). They don’t come often, but they can eventually.
BHC, there is no hurry other than the at-bats Plummer would take from someone else. The bonus money is sunk cost. As a comparison, they gave Steve Bean five healthy years before cutting bait.
Yeah. Missing on Robert really hurt our long-term MiLB depth. We will be a bottom of the barrel system by as early as next year. Robert would have kept that at bay.
I don’t see a single top 100 prospect in our system for 2019 unless Jordan Hicks stays down in the minors all year. Maybe Perez will rebound, but he would have to crush it. Machado could skyrocket through the system. Maybe Seijas can remove the questions about his height or Oviedo can regain his fastball velocity.
We have some position players with some pop in our lower levels that will rise in the rankings as they progress. Mendoza #26, Montero #36, Cedeno # 53 (Shore) and Bandes #58 stand out. It takes the younger guys time to develop power.
I agree that there is a general lack of power organizational-wide. There is a general lack of talent at the rookie levels, which is concerning.
14 NyquisT said:
We have some position players with some pop in our lower levels that will rise in the rankings as they progress. Mendoza #26, Montero #36, Cedeno # 53 (Shore) and Bandes #58 stand out. It takes the younger guys time to develop power.
Hey, I am one who ranked Cedeno #53! He is my sleeper of the year so when he has a great season, we need to remember who called him out. Come to think of it, I will probably remind everyone! 😉
1,000 pardons… you are right he was #53 on your list. I never saw a completed “Shore” or “Walton” top-70, just the prospects that corresponded with the overall top-70. Did you want to add any “rookie” prospects into the potential power category?
It is very early for him still, but Julio Rodriguez executed the unusual jump from the DSL to Johnson City just as he turned 20 and slugged a respectable .451 in just his second pro summer. Definitely a player to watch, IMO.
I have always wondered why a team wouldn’t put emphasis on left handed pitching, at least as a tiebreaker in making choices. 3 things mostly coveted would have to be power, speed and left handers. Especially for the current state of our farm system, which we have only 1 left hander who stands out, Gomber. It is a quality that always be traded, i.e. Marco Gonzalez.
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