80% of the stuff you post about here seems to be individual stats dude. and that's hardly an exageration.
and batting average...yeah, still a pretty good stat to go by.
regardless, my point was how horrific a slump they're in...and it looks like it is continuing today unfortunately. damn it.
1 - that couldn't be further from the truth (like your ridiculous turf is harder to play on than grass crap)
2 - BA is useful...just not 2 months into a season. talk to me in august/sept about batting avg
3 - tough road trip
4 - valdez has to be the dumbest player in the history of baseball. last night he tried to bunt with guys on 1st and 3rd when the phils were down 4. today he tries to bunt with guys on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs!!! fucking idiot
No shit. those guns are bullshit. I just saw that the phils have an intern that sits behind the plate with a radar gun and a walkie talkie. he takes the reading on the radar gun and relays via walkie talkie what the pitch was and what that speed of the pitch was. that's how they put that info on the scoreboard during games. no wonder why it's wrong most of the time.
No shit. those guns are bullshit. I just saw that the phils have an intern that sits behind the plate with a radar gun and a walkie talkie. he takes the reading on the radar gun and relays via walkie talkie what the pitch was and what that speed of the pitch was. that's how they put that info on the scoreboard during games. no wonder why it's wrong most of the time.
Haha, thats funny. I figured there was a gun that went straight to the scoreboard. Um, where do I get that job?
If you take away the 6 games against the Nationals at the beginning of the season when the Phils scored 50 runs in 6 games, they are averaging 4.09 runs a game for the season which would only be better than the lowly Pirates and Astros in the NL.
I know you can't arbitrarily take away games from season totals, but those two series look like aberrations now.
80% of the stuff you post about here seems to be individual stats dude. and that's hardly an exageration.
and batting average...yeah, still a pretty good stat to go by.
regardless, my point was how horrific a slump they're in...and it looks like it is continuing today unfortunately. damn it.
1 - that couldn't be further from the truth (like your ridiculous turf is harder to play on than grass crap)
2 - BA is useful...just not 2 months into a season. talk to me in august/sept about batting avg
3 - tough road trip
4 - valdez has to be the dumbest player in the history of baseball. last night he tried to bunt with guys on 1st and 3rd when the phils were down 4. today he tries to bunt with guys on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs!!! fucking idiot
1-there was nothing ridiculous about that argument
2-its a little more than useful. and a quarter of the way into the season it's worth starting to pay attention to. and 30 point drops in 10-12 days in batting average is a pretty damn good indicator of how much of a slump this team is in.
3-do you just enjoy being difficult? i'm sure you're a cool dude but you come across very uptight in here on a daily basis...
This is fucking atrocious. Absolutely fucking atrocious. Everyone - top to bottom. Utley hitting into a double plays when HE KNOWS fucking full well that Lowe is going to pitch him low and outside early in the count to induce exactly that. THIS is what's scaring me. The absolute professionals looking like dog meat. This only underlines how important Jimmy is to this lineup. Right now this is a 1-9 lineup where you can immediately cross off four of them of being a threat. They're rubbing sticks together to get a measly fucking single run per game. This is deplorable right now. Of course there's plenty of time to right the ship, but this is not even close to enjoyable to watch. You can't afford to have two players of the ilk of Valdez and Castro on the same roster, let alone in the same lineup more often than not. I know this is a matter of injuries, but they better accept right now that Rollins is always going to have the propensity to be hurt again, as is the nagging of the type of injury. Without Rollins at the top of this lineup, this team is fucked pure and simple.
If you take away the 6 games against the Nationals at the beginning of the season when the Phils scored 50 runs in 6 games, they are averaging 4.09 runs a game for the season which would only be better than the lowly Pirates and Astros in the NL.
I know you can't arbitrarily take away games from season totals, but those two series look like aberrations now.
those are also the few games where the whole lineup was together. maybe rollins is pretty darn important to this team despite his meager on-base percentage (which some claim on here claim to be the be all end all of stats).
If you take away the 6 games against the Nationals at the beginning of the season when the Phils scored 50 runs in 6 games, they are averaging 4.09 runs a game for the season which would only be better than the lowly Pirates and Astros in the NL.
I know you can't arbitrarily take away games from season totals, but those two series look like aberrations now.
those are also the few games where the whole lineup was together. maybe rollins is pretty darn important to this team despite his meager on-base percentage (which some claim on here claim to be the be all end all of stats).
Well it pretty much is - what stat is more important than getting on base? It's the hitters only job when he's at the plate.
If you take away the 6 games against the Nationals at the beginning of the season when the Phils scored 50 runs in 6 games, they are averaging 4.09 runs a game for the season which would only be better than the lowly Pirates and Astros in the NL.
I know you can't arbitrarily take away games from season totals, but those two series look like aberrations now.
those are also the few games where the whole lineup was together. maybe rollins is pretty darn important to this team despite his meager on-base percentage (which some claim on here claim to be the be all end all of stats).
Well it pretty much is - what stat is more important than getting on base? It's the hitters only job when he's at the plate.
my point is sometimes people take stats like obp too literally. Rollins' career on-base percentage would indicate he was not an effective leadoff hitter - me, having watched him his whole career though would have to disagree with that assessment. stats lie - real baseball (or any sport) is not a fantasy league matchup.
Any of you guys read Morgan Ensberg's blog? it is fucking fantastic. If you don't, you should. Dude is a good writer, has great opinions and great stories. Check it out if you don't know about it.
8/28/98- Camden, NJ
10/31/09- Philly
5/21/10- NYC
9/2/12- Philly, PA
7/19/13- Wrigley
10/19/13- Brooklyn, NY
10/21/13- Philly, PA
10/22/13- Philly, PA
10/27/13- Baltimore, MD
4/28/16- Philly, PA
4/29/16- Philly, PA
5/1/16- NYC
5/2/16- NYC
9/2/18- Boston, MA
9/4/18- Boston, MA
9/14/22- Camden, NJ
9/7/24- Philly, PA
9/9/24- Philly, PA
Tres Mts.- 3/23/11- Philly. PA
Eddie Vedder- 6/25/11- Philly, PA
RNDM- 3/9/16- Philly, PA
This is fucking atrocious. Absolutely fucking atrocious. Everyone - top to bottom. Utley hitting into a double plays when HE KNOWS fucking full well that Lowe is going to pitch him low and outside early in the count to induce exactly that. THIS is what's scaring me. The absolute professionals looking like dog meat. This only underlines how important Jimmy is to this lineup. Right now this is a 1-9 lineup where you can immediately cross off four of them of being a threat. They're rubbing sticks together to get a measly fucking single run per game. This is deplorable right now. Of course there's plenty of time to right the ship, but this is not even close to enjoyable to watch. You can't afford to have two players of the ilk of Valdez and Castro on the same roster, let alone in the same lineup more often than not. I know this is a matter of injuries, but they better accept right now that Rollins is always going to have the propensity to be hurt again, as is the nagging of the type of injury. Without Rollins at the top of this lineup, this team is fucked pure and simple.
it really is tough to watch right now....at least we got a good flyers run during this debacle to distract us somewhat.
doesn't it feel weird to have that perfect game right in the middle of this drought and during the flyers cup run? i feel like it's gotten lost in the shuffle with everything else going on.
This is fucking atrocious. Absolutely fucking atrocious. Everyone - top to bottom. Utley hitting into a double plays when HE KNOWS fucking full well that Lowe is going to pitch him low and outside early in the count to induce exactly that. THIS is what's scaring me. The absolute professionals looking like dog meat. This only underlines how important Jimmy is to this lineup. Right now this is a 1-9 lineup where you can immediately cross off four of them of being a threat. They're rubbing sticks together to get a measly fucking single run per game. This is deplorable right now. Of course there's plenty of time to right the ship, but this is not even close to enjoyable to watch. You can't afford to have two players of the ilk of Valdez and Castro on the same roster, let alone in the same lineup more often than not. I know this is a matter of injuries, but they better accept right now that Rollins is always going to have the propensity to be hurt again, as is the nagging of the type of injury. Without Rollins at the top of this lineup, this team is fucked pure and simple.
it really is tough to watch right now....at least we got a good flyers run during this debacle to distract us somewhat.
doesn't it feel weird to have that perfect game right in the middle of this drought and during the flyers cup run? i feel like it's gotten lost in the shuffle with everything else going on.
Worst of all, I'm unemployed right now and this shit is the only pathetic thing I have to look forward to, and of course the Flyers.
EDIT: Speaking of which, if you Philly peeps know of anyone in the Philly area looking to hire anyone...for anything.....the info would be sure appreciated.
If you take away the 6 games against the Nationals at the beginning of the season when the Phils scored 50 runs in 6 games, they are averaging 4.09 runs a game for the season which would only be better than the lowly Pirates and Astros in the NL.
I know you can't arbitrarily take away games from season totals, but those two series look like aberrations now.
those are also the few games where the whole lineup was together. maybe rollins is pretty darn important to this team despite his meager on-base percentage (which some claim on here claim to be the be all end all of stats).
Well it pretty much is - what stat is more important than getting on base? It's the hitters only job when he's at the plate.
ah, a voice of reason. I love talking baseball with people that understand the game
The Phillies better turn things around. Halladay wanted to pitch for a winning team and so far it seems like he should have stayed in Toronto.
serious, clark?
As is stands right now, the Blue Jays are 31-24 without Halladay and the Phillies are 28-24 with him. The Phillies are in a weak division though, which gives them the edge over a team like the Blue Jays.
The Phillies better turn things around. Halladay wanted to pitch for a winning team and so far it seems like he should have stayed in Toronto.
serious, clark?
The Phillies are in a weak division
really? the NL east is arguably the best division in baseball this year. for the record I think the AL east is better, but you could make the argument (no orioles in the NL East)
The Phillies better turn things around. Halladay wanted to pitch for a winning team and so far it seems like he should have stayed in Toronto.
serious, clark?
As is stands right now, the Blue Jays are 31-24 without Halladay and the Phillies are 28-24 with him. The Phillies are in a weak division though, which gives them the edge over a team like the Blue Jays.
how do you think things will look come october, friend?
As is stands right now, the Blue Jays are 31-24 without Halladay and the Phillies are 28-24 with him. The Phillies are in a weak division though, which gives them the edge over a team like the Blue Jays.
how do you think things will look come october, friend?
The Phillies and Blue Jays both won't be in the playoffs.
I'm not a big ryan howard fan, but I thought this article was interesting. Add the author of this article to the long list of analysts that think the howard contract sucks.
Also, I have been reading a lot of shit about Jonathan Singleton. He's the 1B that the phils took in the 8th round of last year's draft. Apparently he has really taken off at low A ball. Jayson Stark (who I'm not a big fan of...he is too phillie-biased...he does have good phillie related sources though) reported that he spoke to a couple of scouts about singleton recently. One scout said singleton is the best 19 year old hitter he has seen since manny ramirez. The other scout said Singleton is the best hitter he has seen in the minors all year. Interesting stuff. Hopefully he can learn to play the OF since the phils are stuck with howard for pratically the rest of the decade (every time I think about that I throw up in my mouth a little bit).
The most valuable recent drafteesUsing WAR and signing bonus, Ryan Howard does come out on top
By Matt Meyers
ESPN Insider
Archive
Getty Images
The $125 million deal was a lot, but in terms of draft value, Ryan Howard is among the elite.
Once upon time, the Philadelphia Phillies were awful at the draft. It's hard to overstate this. In the 1980s, their first-round picks were Henry Powell, Johnny Abrego, John Russell, Ricky Jordan, Pete Smith, Trey McCall, Brad Brink, Pat Coombs and Jeff Jackson. You could do a better job if you had a subscription to Baseball America and a set of darts. A decade later, under the guidance of former scouting director Mike Arbuckle, the Phils had finally turned things around. They were not only hitting on first-round picks such as Pat Burrell, Brett Myers and Chase Utley, but also unearthing late-round gems; one of those finds has developed into the most valuable pick in recent draft history.
Building off some of the research that Tom Haberstroh did for his piece on revaluing the draft, I decided to determine the player who has given the most bang for his signing bonus buck through 2009.
However, we have comprehensive data for signing bonuses going back only to 1999, and since it's probably not fair to judge the most recent draftees -- since they haven't yet had a chance to establish themselves -- I've cut off my study in 2005, which featured Justin Upton, Ryan Braun, Ryan Zimmerman, Troy Tulowitzki and Andrew McCutchen; this draft is shaping up as one of the greatest in baseball history. On the most basic level, we can figure this out by taking every player's Wins Above Replacement (WAR), and dividing it by their signing bonus. (For the purposes of this study, we are going to say that $1 million is equal to the number 1. This will make the numbers manageable. If we didn't do this, our metric would include lots and lots of decimals, and who wants that?)
When we divide WAR by bonus, we find that the most valuable draft pick from 1999 through 2005 was -- wait for it --
MLB draft 2010: Essential Resources
What you must know -- and read -- before Round 1 on June 7.
Keith Law's Mock Draft: 5/24 | 5/31 Top 100 Prospects: 6/2 | 5/14 | 4/26 Top 50 Prospects (2/19) Collection of player cards Top players by position: 4/26 2010 Draft Order
Mark Ellis. The Kansas City Royals took him in the ninth round of the 1999 draft and gave him a $1,000 bonus. He produced a WAR of 18.4 through 2009, that means his WAR/bonus is 18,400, which is head and shoulders above the second man on our list. Who's that? It's Mike Aviles, who was also drafted by the Royals and got a $1,000 bonus for a WAR/bonus of 3,200. (Who says the Royals don't know how to draft?)
Obviously, this method is a bit flawed. If a player got $1,000, it means he wasn't thought of as a real prospect, and the team that drafted him simply got lucky, so we don't want to give them too much credit. Also, WAR is a counting stat, and we shouldn't overvalue average players who have racked up WAR little by little.
So let's adjust our guidelines to include only players who were considered "real major league prospects." How do we do that? I posed this question to Keith Law, and he said a signing bonus of around $150,000 is a good starting point, because in the late rounds of the draft that's roughly the price point at which teams need to get approval from MLB before they can complete the signing. We'll also adjust it for yearly WAR average, as opposed to total WAR, and we'll call this metric Draft Bonus Value (DBV).
So who has the highest DBV of any player who received a bonus of more than $150,000? That would be Ryan Howard of the Phillies. As a fifth-round pick in the 2001 draft out of Missouri State, Howard received a $230,000 bonus and has produced 18.8 WAR. If you divide that WAR by the bonus and then the number of seasons (seven), you get 11.7. And yes, that includes Howard's 2004 season, when he had just 42 plate appearances. That places Howard just ahead of Jonathan Papelbon, who signed for $264,500 in 2003 out of Mississippi State and had a DBV of 11.1 from 2005-09. A lot of folks said the Phillies massively overpaid when they recently gave Howard a $125 million contract extension, and I certainly won't disagree. However, at least they can take solace in the fact that Howard has been the best draft bargain in recent history.
Top 10 in Draft Bonus Value (DBV)
PLAYER YEAR DRAFTED BONUS DBV
Ryan Howard 2001 $230,000 11.7
Jonathan Papelbon 2003 $264,500 11.1
Dontrelle Willis 2000 $200,000 10.5
David DeJesus 2000 $245,000 9.6
Cliff Lee 2000 $275,000 8.1
Yunel Escobar 2005 $475,000 7.9
Garrett Atkins 2000 $190,000 7.2
Bobby Jenks 2000 $165,000 7
Curtis Granderson 2002 $469,000 6.8
Josh Johnson 2002 $300,000 6.7
As Peter Keating recently pointed out, the teams that pay a little extra in the draft usually get their money's worth, as the prices in the draft pale in comparison to free-agent prices. When you hit, it pays off big. When you miss, it's at most a million bucks, which is the amount of money most teams waste on mediocre relievers.
Some could argue that a $150,000 signing bonus is too low of a threshold for labeling someone a "legit major league prospect," as it's about what the typical fifth-rounder gets. So let's up the ante a little bit.
Let's say we use $500,000 as our cutoff. Then the player with the highest DBV is Dustin Pedroia, who signed for $575,000 in 2004 and has a WAR of 14 through 2009. Therefore, his DBV is 6.1. And if we increase the threshold to $1 million, the winner is Chase Utley. He received a $1.780 million bonus in 2000 and has produced 34.5 WAR, giving him a DBV of 2.4.
A lot of people cite big payrolls as the main reason for the success of teams like the Boston Red Sox the Phillies. While that may be true, their ability to find value in the draft has been at least as important. And for Philadelphia, this newfound clairvoyance is a far cry from their Reagan-era draft incompetence.
Matt Meyers is an editor for ESPN The Magazine and Insider. You can find his full online archives here.
Well it pretty much is - what stat is more important than getting on base? It's the hitters only job when he's at the plate.
ah, a voice of reason. I love talking baseball with people that understand the game
I have this vague recollection that the object of the game is to score more runs than the other team, not to have more baserunners than the other team. That's why Jimmy Rollins is a (albeit injury-prone) championship caliber player, not a sabermetric player.
Spectrum 10/27/09; New Orleans JazzFest 5/1/10; Made in America 9/2/12; WF Center 10/21/13; WF Center 10/22/13; Baltimore 10/27/13; WF Center 4/28/16; WF Center 4/29/16; Fenway Park 8/7/16; Fenway Park 9/2/18; Asbury Park 9/18/21; Camden 9/14/22; Las Vegas 5/16/24; Las Vegas 5/18/24; WF Center 9/7/24; WF Center 9/9/24; Baltimore Arena 9/12/24
Tres Mtns - TLA 3/23/11; EV - Tower Theatre 6/25/11; Temple of the Dog - Tower Theatre 11/5/16
Comments
80% of the stuff you post about here seems to be individual stats dude. and that's hardly an exageration.
and batting average...yeah, still a pretty good stat to go by.
regardless, my point was how horrific a slump they're in...and it looks like it is continuing today unfortunately. damn it.
Edit: Fired up the old mlb.tv and its almost over.
1 - that couldn't be further from the truth (like your ridiculous turf is harder to play on than grass crap)
2 - BA is useful...just not 2 months into a season. talk to me in august/sept about batting avg
3 - tough road trip
4 - valdez has to be the dumbest player in the history of baseball. last night he tried to bunt with guys on 1st and 3rd when the phils were down 4. today he tries to bunt with guys on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs!!! fucking idiot
No shit. those guns are bullshit. I just saw that the phils have an intern that sits behind the plate with a radar gun and a walkie talkie. he takes the reading on the radar gun and relays via walkie talkie what the pitch was and what that speed of the pitch was. that's how they put that info on the scoreboard during games. no wonder why it's wrong most of the time.
Haha, thats funny. I figured there was a gun that went straight to the scoreboard. Um, where do I get that job?
I know you can't arbitrarily take away games from season totals, but those two series look like aberrations now.
- 8/28/98
- 9/2/00
- 4/28/03, 5/3/03, 7/3/03, 7/5/03, 7/6/03, 7/9/03, 7/11/03, 7/12/03, 7/14/03
- 9/28/04, 9/29/04, 10/1/04, 10/2/04
- 9/11/05, 9/12/05, 9/13/05, 9/30/05, 10/1/05, 10/3/05
- 5/12/06, 5/13/06, 5/27/06, 5/28/06, 5/30/06, 6/1/06, 6/3/06, 6/23/06, 7/22/06, 7/23/06, 12/2/06, 12/9/06
- 8/2/07, 8/5/07
- 6/19/08, 6/20/08, 6/22/08, 6/24/08, 6/25/08, 6/27/08, 6/28/08, 6/30/08, 7/1/08
- 8/23/09, 8/24/09, 9/21/09, 9/22/09, 10/27/09, 10/28/09, 10/30/09, 10/31/09
- 5/15/10, 5/17/10, 5/18/10, 5/20/10, 5/21/10, 10/23/10, 10/24/10
- 9/11/11, 9/12/11
- 10/18/13, 10/21/13, 10/22/13, 11/30/13, 12/4/13
1-there was nothing ridiculous about that argument
2-its a little more than useful. and a quarter of the way into the season it's worth starting to pay attention to. and 30 point drops in 10-12 days in batting average is a pretty damn good indicator of how much of a slump this team is in.
3-do you just enjoy being difficult? i'm sure you're a cool dude but you come across very uptight in here on a daily basis...
those are also the few games where the whole lineup was together. maybe rollins is pretty darn important to this team despite his meager on-base percentage (which some claim on here claim to be the be all end all of stats).
Well it pretty much is - what stat is more important than getting on base? It's the hitters only job when he's at the plate.
- 8/28/98
- 9/2/00
- 4/28/03, 5/3/03, 7/3/03, 7/5/03, 7/6/03, 7/9/03, 7/11/03, 7/12/03, 7/14/03
- 9/28/04, 9/29/04, 10/1/04, 10/2/04
- 9/11/05, 9/12/05, 9/13/05, 9/30/05, 10/1/05, 10/3/05
- 5/12/06, 5/13/06, 5/27/06, 5/28/06, 5/30/06, 6/1/06, 6/3/06, 6/23/06, 7/22/06, 7/23/06, 12/2/06, 12/9/06
- 8/2/07, 8/5/07
- 6/19/08, 6/20/08, 6/22/08, 6/24/08, 6/25/08, 6/27/08, 6/28/08, 6/30/08, 7/1/08
- 8/23/09, 8/24/09, 9/21/09, 9/22/09, 10/27/09, 10/28/09, 10/30/09, 10/31/09
- 5/15/10, 5/17/10, 5/18/10, 5/20/10, 5/21/10, 10/23/10, 10/24/10
- 9/11/11, 9/12/11
- 10/18/13, 10/21/13, 10/22/13, 11/30/13, 12/4/13
my point is sometimes people take stats like obp too literally. Rollins' career on-base percentage would indicate he was not an effective leadoff hitter - me, having watched him his whole career though would have to disagree with that assessment. stats lie - real baseball (or any sport) is not a fantasy league matchup.
http://morganensberg.wordpress.com/
In the words of the late, great, Dennis Hopper in 'Blue Velvet' -
FUCK!
THAT!
SHIT!
and still waiting.......
10/31/09- Philly
5/21/10- NYC
9/2/12- Philly, PA
7/19/13- Wrigley
10/19/13- Brooklyn, NY
10/21/13- Philly, PA
10/22/13- Philly, PA
10/27/13- Baltimore, MD
4/28/16- Philly, PA
4/29/16- Philly, PA
5/1/16- NYC
5/2/16- NYC
9/2/18- Boston, MA
9/4/18- Boston, MA
9/14/22- Camden, NJ
9/7/24- Philly, PA
9/9/24- Philly, PA
Eddie Vedder- 6/25/11- Philly, PA
RNDM- 3/9/16- Philly, PA
it really is tough to watch right now....at least we got a good flyers run during this debacle to distract us somewhat.
doesn't it feel weird to have that perfect game right in the middle of this drought and during the flyers cup run? i feel like it's gotten lost in the shuffle with everything else going on.
Worst of all, I'm unemployed right now and this shit is the only pathetic thing I have to look forward to, and of course the Flyers.
EDIT: Speaking of which, if you Philly peeps know of anyone in the Philly area looking to hire anyone...for anything.....the info would be sure appreciated.
serious, clark?
ah, a voice of reason. I love talking baseball with people that understand the game
really? the NL east is arguably the best division in baseball this year. for the record I think the AL east is better, but you could make the argument (no orioles in the NL East)
how do you think things will look come october, friend?
I'm not a big ryan howard fan, but I thought this article was interesting. Add the author of this article to the long list of analysts that think the howard contract sucks.
Also, I have been reading a lot of shit about Jonathan Singleton. He's the 1B that the phils took in the 8th round of last year's draft. Apparently he has really taken off at low A ball. Jayson Stark (who I'm not a big fan of...he is too phillie-biased...he does have good phillie related sources though) reported that he spoke to a couple of scouts about singleton recently. One scout said singleton is the best 19 year old hitter he has seen since manny ramirez. The other scout said Singleton is the best hitter he has seen in the minors all year. Interesting stuff. Hopefully he can learn to play the OF since the phils are stuck with howard for pratically the rest of the decade (every time I think about that I throw up in my mouth a little bit).
The most valuable recent drafteesUsing WAR and signing bonus, Ryan Howard does come out on top
By Matt Meyers
ESPN Insider
Archive
Getty Images
The $125 million deal was a lot, but in terms of draft value, Ryan Howard is among the elite.
Once upon time, the Philadelphia Phillies were awful at the draft. It's hard to overstate this. In the 1980s, their first-round picks were Henry Powell, Johnny Abrego, John Russell, Ricky Jordan, Pete Smith, Trey McCall, Brad Brink, Pat Coombs and Jeff Jackson. You could do a better job if you had a subscription to Baseball America and a set of darts. A decade later, under the guidance of former scouting director Mike Arbuckle, the Phils had finally turned things around. They were not only hitting on first-round picks such as Pat Burrell, Brett Myers and Chase Utley, but also unearthing late-round gems; one of those finds has developed into the most valuable pick in recent draft history.
Building off some of the research that Tom Haberstroh did for his piece on revaluing the draft, I decided to determine the player who has given the most bang for his signing bonus buck through 2009.
However, we have comprehensive data for signing bonuses going back only to 1999, and since it's probably not fair to judge the most recent draftees -- since they haven't yet had a chance to establish themselves -- I've cut off my study in 2005, which featured Justin Upton, Ryan Braun, Ryan Zimmerman, Troy Tulowitzki and Andrew McCutchen; this draft is shaping up as one of the greatest in baseball history. On the most basic level, we can figure this out by taking every player's Wins Above Replacement (WAR), and dividing it by their signing bonus. (For the purposes of this study, we are going to say that $1 million is equal to the number 1. This will make the numbers manageable. If we didn't do this, our metric would include lots and lots of decimals, and who wants that?)
When we divide WAR by bonus, we find that the most valuable draft pick from 1999 through 2005 was -- wait for it --
MLB draft 2010: Essential Resources
What you must know -- and read -- before Round 1 on June 7.
Keith Law's Mock Draft: 5/24 | 5/31 Top 100 Prospects: 6/2 | 5/14 | 4/26 Top 50 Prospects (2/19) Collection of player cards Top players by position: 4/26 2010 Draft Order
Mark Ellis. The Kansas City Royals took him in the ninth round of the 1999 draft and gave him a $1,000 bonus. He produced a WAR of 18.4 through 2009, that means his WAR/bonus is 18,400, which is head and shoulders above the second man on our list. Who's that? It's Mike Aviles, who was also drafted by the Royals and got a $1,000 bonus for a WAR/bonus of 3,200. (Who says the Royals don't know how to draft?)
Obviously, this method is a bit flawed. If a player got $1,000, it means he wasn't thought of as a real prospect, and the team that drafted him simply got lucky, so we don't want to give them too much credit. Also, WAR is a counting stat, and we shouldn't overvalue average players who have racked up WAR little by little.
So let's adjust our guidelines to include only players who were considered "real major league prospects." How do we do that? I posed this question to Keith Law, and he said a signing bonus of around $150,000 is a good starting point, because in the late rounds of the draft that's roughly the price point at which teams need to get approval from MLB before they can complete the signing. We'll also adjust it for yearly WAR average, as opposed to total WAR, and we'll call this metric Draft Bonus Value (DBV).
So who has the highest DBV of any player who received a bonus of more than $150,000? That would be Ryan Howard of the Phillies. As a fifth-round pick in the 2001 draft out of Missouri State, Howard received a $230,000 bonus and has produced 18.8 WAR. If you divide that WAR by the bonus and then the number of seasons (seven), you get 11.7. And yes, that includes Howard's 2004 season, when he had just 42 plate appearances. That places Howard just ahead of Jonathan Papelbon, who signed for $264,500 in 2003 out of Mississippi State and had a DBV of 11.1 from 2005-09. A lot of folks said the Phillies massively overpaid when they recently gave Howard a $125 million contract extension, and I certainly won't disagree. However, at least they can take solace in the fact that Howard has been the best draft bargain in recent history.
Top 10 in Draft Bonus Value (DBV)
PLAYER YEAR DRAFTED BONUS DBV
Ryan Howard 2001 $230,000 11.7
Jonathan Papelbon 2003 $264,500 11.1
Dontrelle Willis 2000 $200,000 10.5
David DeJesus 2000 $245,000 9.6
Cliff Lee 2000 $275,000 8.1
Yunel Escobar 2005 $475,000 7.9
Garrett Atkins 2000 $190,000 7.2
Bobby Jenks 2000 $165,000 7
Curtis Granderson 2002 $469,000 6.8
Josh Johnson 2002 $300,000 6.7
As Peter Keating recently pointed out, the teams that pay a little extra in the draft usually get their money's worth, as the prices in the draft pale in comparison to free-agent prices. When you hit, it pays off big. When you miss, it's at most a million bucks, which is the amount of money most teams waste on mediocre relievers.
Some could argue that a $150,000 signing bonus is too low of a threshold for labeling someone a "legit major league prospect," as it's about what the typical fifth-rounder gets. So let's up the ante a little bit.
Let's say we use $500,000 as our cutoff. Then the player with the highest DBV is Dustin Pedroia, who signed for $575,000 in 2004 and has a WAR of 14 through 2009. Therefore, his DBV is 6.1. And if we increase the threshold to $1 million, the winner is Chase Utley. He received a $1.780 million bonus in 2000 and has produced 34.5 WAR, giving him a DBV of 2.4.
A lot of people cite big payrolls as the main reason for the success of teams like the Boston Red Sox the Phillies. While that may be true, their ability to find value in the draft has been at least as important. And for Philadelphia, this newfound clairvoyance is a far cry from their Reagan-era draft incompetence.
Matt Meyers is an editor for ESPN The Magazine and Insider. You can find his full online archives here.
let's go doc!
love having the phils and flyers on at the same time. I'm a professional with the remote
I have this vague recollection that the object of the game is to score more runs than the other team, not to have more baserunners than the other team. That's why Jimmy Rollins is a (albeit injury-prone) championship caliber player, not a sabermetric player.
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