FanPost

Losing Our 2nd Draft Pick - Catastrophe or Yawner?

I love draft picks. I've been tracking them for roughly 20 years. I saw Gaby Hernandez 2005 no-hitter for the Hagerstown Suns in person and was convinced that he and teammates Grant Psomas, Dante Brinkley and Mike Carp were destined for stardom! Oh well.

Despite my love for draft picks I really want a winning club in Queens. So how should we weigh having to sacrifice our second round draft pick for a free agent this year?

Most probably agree that if the player is Shin-Soo Choo or Robinson Cano it's a no-brainer - give up the pick. When it comes to some of the more flawed options like Curtis Granderson, an aging Carlos Beltran or a good but not great shortstop like Stephen Drew many in the AA community aren't quite so sure.

So in an effort to figure out how much we should sweat the loss of that pick I've taken a look at the 150 guys that were drafted with the top ten picks of the second round of the 1990 - 2005 drafts. That's a fifteen-year window. I stopped at 2005 because many of the guys drafted from 2006 or later are still establishing themselves. Most of those best guys still have a chance to provide substantial production moving forward.

Even though I looked at the top ten picks of the second round it's important to remember the Mets have the 10th pick of the second round - so 90% of the guys I looked at would have already been taken by other clubs that thought they were better than the guy that would still be available for the Mets.

First a table that shows how those draft picks from the 1990's did. I used bWAR because of Baseball Reference's terrific historical draft tool. You'll see how many of the 10 guys drafted that year made the bigs followed by how many of the guys that made the bigs posted less than 1 bWAR in their career and other bWAR bench marks.

Year

Made Bigs

bWAR less than 1

bWAR 1-4.9

bWAR 5-9.9

bWAR 10-19.9

bWAR 20-29.9

bWAR 30+

1990

6/10

4

1

1

1991

3

2

1

1992

5

4

1

1993

7

4

1

1

1 Rolen 70

1994

3

2

1 Glaus 38

1995

7

5

1

1

1996

6

4

2

1997

7

3

1

1

1

1

1998

5

2

1

1

1999

7

2

1

1

1

1

1 Crawford 37.7

1990s

56/100

32

3

6

7

4

3

And next the same table for the draft years 2000 - 2004. I split the table because some of the guys drafted in later years may still have productive years in front of them. Even though I did this it doesn't really make much of a difference.

Year

Made Bigs

bWAR less than 1

bWAR 1-4.9

bWAR 5-9.9

bWAR 10-19.9

bWAR 20-29.9

bWAR 30+

2000

5

4

1

2001

5

3

2

2002

5

3

1

1 Votto 33.9

2003

6

4

2

2004

3

1

1

1

00-04

24/50

15

2

5

1

1

So the good news is that over half (80) of the 150 players drafted among the first 10 picks of the second round made it to the majors. But don't hug that 2nd round pick too tightly.

Forty-seven of those eighty - or 59% - of the guys that made it to the bigs posted less than 1 bWAR over their career. When you look at all 150 picks - 77.9% failed to accrue even one full bWAR! Five of the 150 managed between 1 and 4.9 bWAR and eleven posted between 5 and 9.9 bWAR.

Only 16 of the 150 that were drafted managed to post a career bWAR of 10 or higher! Only four posted 20-29.9 bWAR and four posted bWAR of 30 or higher.

If you prefer looking at your odds in percentages - here's how they break out.

Total drafted

150

100%

Cum Tot

Never played MLB

70

46.6%

46.6%

bWARless than 1

47

31.3%

77.9%

bWAR 1-4.9

5

3.3%

81.2%

bWAR 5-9.9

11

7.3%

88.5%

bWAR 10-19.9

8

5.3%

93.8%

bWAR 20-29.9

4

2.7%

96.5%

bWAR 30+

4

2.7%

99.2%

So if you want to get a 10+ bWAR player out of the top 10 picks of the 2nd round good luck. Just 10.6% of those picks managed to do that. And remember the Mets have the 10th pick out of the top 10 picks in the second round. So 90% of the guys looked at in this analysis were drafted at a higher slot than the Mets pick.

So when we think about forfeiting our second round draft pick it's entirely possible that the guy we sign will post a higher bWAR in four years than 93% of the guys drafted in their entire careers. Is a 5% chance at a really good to great player really worth losing sleep over?



This FanPost was contributed by a member of the community and was not subject to any vetting or approval process.