2024 MLB (Rule 4) Draft Discussion

[julio]

[Austinfan]

I'm always amused how fans obsess over draft picks with a 5-10% chance of making it in both baseball and hockey drafts.
After the 1st rd, you're hoping to land back of the rotation starters, RPs, and bench players.
For every Howard, how many whiffs in the 5th rd?

Most of these picks have the same odds that Kennedy, Stevenson, etc. will be late bloomers, i.e., slim and none.
What are the odds that any pitcher in this draft will make the Show v the odds of landing another Hoffman?

Point is to relax a bit, what matters is how the organization does everything, from drafting marginal prospects, player development, waiver wire acquisitions, etc. If they think the OFs on the board had more upside (you draft for three things after the 1st rd, variability (upside), role players and organizational depth (someone has to play with the real prospects) then you take those OFs. If they're wrong too often, time to get new scouts/decision makers.

The only area you can't afford to screw up on a regular basis are 1st rd picks, big money FAs and big LA bonus babies. Because those are your best shots to obtain top starting pitchers and position players well above replacement level.

[Squire]

I enjoy following the draft. For many years pre-2007 it was the only source of hope for the fanbase.

[BostonRoss]

The only area you can't afford to screw up on a regular basis are 1st rd picks, big money FAs and big LA bonus babies. Because those are your best shots to obtain top starting pitchers and position players well above replacement level.

The Rangers won a World Series after signing Jacob DeGrom. The Giants won three championships after signing Barry Zito. The Astros whiffed on two #1 picks before winning a couple World Series.

[Austinfan]

I said "regular basis." Phillies can live with an Abel meltdown if Bohm continues to shine and Painter is for real. Would help if Stott turns it around.

Same way it would be nice if Caba, Bergolla and Tait finally break the LA jinx that has resulted in almost zero Latin talent the last decade (Sanchez as trade bait, Ranger, SD and Marchan is about it).

A good draft is one starter and two role players.
2011, 2012 no starters. 2013 Crawford traded away, 2014 Nola and Hoskins, 2015 nada, 2016 nada, 2017 nada,
2018 Bohm, Vierling and Logan O'Hoppe traded away,
2019 Stott (but all the big arms flamed out)
2020 nada
2021 Painter?

2014, 2018 the best drafts of the last decade with some really bad years

[Docs]

The only area you can't afford to screw up on a regular basis are 1st rd picks

That’s why we are grumbling. After many years of forfeiting a second round pick, the Phillies went out and drafted three players with a second round grade.

[zambonir]

What are the odds that any pitcher in this draft will make the Show v the odds of landing another Hoffman?

Well, it still doesn't hurt if your dumpster dive was a former first-round pick. Though it also doesn't always help (Dahl).

It's a message board. On game days we second-guess the manager's line-ups and bullpen usage without truly knowing anything about the data and decision-making used and on draft day and trade deadline day we get to do it with the entire front office. Making too much of it is all part of the fun.

[andyb]

What are the odds that any pitcher in this draft will make the Show v the odds of landing another Hoffman?

That is a silly question. Teams should always try to find Hoffmans because they cost almost nothing. Are you suggesting we forfeit our draft picks because we got lucky on one or two low budget free agent signings? I would also submit that you are not finding frontline starters off the scrap heat. One normally develops them from the draft or international signings. If you spend virtually no money on pitching in either avenue you suddenly don't develop a lot of pitching.

Position players may be a bit less risky but you need both. You can't just rely on finding them on the scrap heap or for $10,000 in Latin America. I guess you are advocated spending hundreds of millions in free agency, right?

[zambonir]

The Astros whiffed on two #1 picks before winning a couple World Series.

Well, over three years of drafting #1 between 2012 and 2014 they really only whiffed on Appel while getting Correa; Walking away from Aiken was their choice and he became Bregman at #2 a year later (and they also got Kyle Tucker at #5 that year). Plus they had Springer at #11 before they were in full tank mode.

So that's an 80% hit rate at a seriously high level in five years of first round picks. Even if you discount that to 67% (i.e. four hits out of six) that's impressive.

Especially compared to the Phillies from 2015 to 2018 when they were supposedly following the Astros' rebuild model!

And of course those players plus their international successes (Altuve, Pena, several more) meant they could go write the big checks (and/or have the system depth to trade for) pricey veteran starting pitchers and let their free agents walk away.

[andyb]

The draft and international pools are the best player acquisition value in baseball. In terms of dollars per WAR there is nothing close to it. Are there other ways to win? Free agents, trades, minor league free agents, voodoo dolls? Sure. But nothing really beats the draft for long term value.

[Docs]

I agree except that i believe that voodoo dolls belong in the former and not the latter category

[Austinfan]

You're missing the point. Most moves are long shot, for every Hoffman they cycle through the Ruiz, Allards, etc.
If they want to go off the consensus picks in the 4th rd, I'm not going to lose sleep.

The real problem is missing 1st rd picks on a regular basis, not hitting on any of those million plus LA bonuses, etc.

Finding a starter after the 1st rd is the kind of luck you can't depend on, it's pure gravy.
If you scout and develop well, and get lucky, you might land 2 a decade.

Teams tend to built off one or two "jackpot" offseasons, if Crawford, Miller, Caba, Bergolla, Tait, Painter, all pan out, there's your core to carry the team when Harper and Turner are in their declining contract years.

[andyb]

I am not missing the point at all. Yes just about every pick in the draft can have a long shot at success. But the draft is still the best value dollar-wise in baseball.

Sometimes it is hard to find your point. Are you saying the draft is unimportant? Probably not. Are you saying teams should only acquire players off the scrap heap? I sure hope not.

Teams are not built off jackpot offseasons traditionally. They are built by accumulating talent by any means necessary. You keep listing prospects but most neutral observers say we have a below average minor league system. And your posts on the draft seem to suggest a low priority in improving that system.

There just isn't much logic to your point I guess.

[julio]

I enjoy following the draft. For many years pre-2007 it was the only source of hope for the fanbase.

This. Reading the Sporting News. Trying to find any other information...there was a Phillies fan newspaper. (Can't remember the title, the owner/editor was Rich Westcott.) But it was really a challenge in the pre-internet days.

I have to add that it was pretty forlorn hope, for the most part. The Bill Giles era was not noted for intelligent drafting or player development. Giles really seemed to think it was enough to provide "wholesome family entertainment," without any real commitment to excellence, either on the field, in the minors, or in the front offices. His investment partners by and large weren't even baseball fans. John Middleton, and the second-generation Buck cousins, changed that.

[gmwannabe]

Julio, The Phillies Report? I still have a few of them somewhere if that is what you are talking about.
gm

[dicemen99]

Except the Phillies are the best team in baseball in 2024, with the best pitching in the majors IMO and surely top 10 talent on the field, probably top 5.

And they have done that with a pretty poor draft record over the 10 years that have impacted this team and possibly an even worse LA record.

Who cares about dollars per WAR? It's not our money they are spending and we are certainly not the A's. When we get different ownership and/or a guy running the club who can't win a trade, maybe I'll start worrying about the draft. We're in a new era now - we don't have to worry about scrimping at the margins.

I get it - as long-time Phillies fans our minds are conditioned one way. But I'm older now - screw it, I'm riding this train!

[zambonir]

But amateur development is still not marginal. This team has Nola, Bohm, Stott, Marsh (acquired for O'Hoppe), Sanchez (acquired for Mead), Seranthony, Sosa (acquired for Jo Jo Romero), Rojas, Kerkering and Suarez, plus Marchan. And even Moniak got them some value in 2022, as did Ben Brown and then the Lorenzen trade last year. Plus the Soto trade, FWIW.

If that list was shorter, the team's present and future would both be more precarious, the latter because you can't just max out your salary and CBT penalties every year indefinitely, the former because there would be some Merrifields and Taijuan Walkers among their replacements, not just Turners and Schwarbers (with Nick being somewhere between those two groups).

[andyb]

Good teams use every means at their disposal to acquire talent. Signing Curtis Mead got us Cristopher Sanchez. Money allowed us to have Jeremy Hellickson and trade him for Garrett Clevinger who got us Jose Alvarado. Cole Hamels got us Jorge Alfaro who got us JT Realmuto (after adding international free agent Sixto Sanchez and overslot draftee Will Stewart to the deal). The draft got us Aaron Nola and Alec Bohm and multiple others.

Good teams use all of the above. The reason the 2008 team was not a dynasty is that we stopped replenishing the system and used dollars on the major league roster. That lead to a decade of losing.

This is not a negative mindset. It is a smart mindset. We have the best team in baseball now. And we are probably about to trade a draftee or three to make it better. I kind of want to replenish the cupboard after we do that. Are you against that?

[Austinfan]

My point is that it's about low percentages after the 1st rd, or in LA, after the one big bonus.

Which doesn't mean it's not important, just that the difference between say a 3 v 5% hit rate is hard to see until 5 years down the road or so, but can be significant spread over 95 draft picks and a couple hundred low cost LA signings.

So to me getting too enamored with the details of low probability moves gets you away from the big picture, the rate at which they're hitting long shots.

That's different than the high quality assets, where it's much easier to determine whether they're screwing up.
When you spend $2+M and they're still in the FCL at 20, or your 1st rd HS pick is floundering after 2-3 years.

[California_Dreamin]

It was called The Phillies Report and I have every issue. I actually drove Rich Westcott nuts because I was constantly calling him to see if JD Drew was going to sign. That was back in 1997-1998. I finally was told by a friend that I should look online for a good Phillies site. That's how I found Philliesphans. And Squire is correct, back then we almost had nothing else to look forward to but the draft. It was really the most exciting time of the baseball year, especially after Mike Arbuckle took over. In fact, I recall a long lasting thread called Whither Mike Arbuckle when we all feared he might leave [he eventually did.]

Probably not until the signing of Jim Thome did the draft take a back seat to the daily happenings of the Phillies, they were so often depressing. From Scott Rolen's discontent to Ed Wade's continuous love of acquiring relievers at the trade deadline, it was the draft [[Burrell, Rollins, Hamel,] that kept us going.