Trading Down in the Draft: A Sucker's Bet
by Vlad on Apr 28, 2011 6:45 PM EDT
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PrintPeter Gammons periodically writes pieces for MLB.com, and in one that was published today , he related an interesting anecdote from this spring:
When the Pirates and Rays were playing a Spring Training game this March, Neal Huntington and Andrew Friedman discussed what it would be like if teams could swap picks. The Pirates have the first pick. The Rays have 10 picks in the first and compensation rounds, which covers the first 60 picks.
The Rays know that when they make their first selection at No. 24, the sure things will be long gone. So Friedman and Huntington discussed the fun what if game of trading the top pick. The Rays are loaded with promising pitching prospects on the top two Minor League levels in Chris Archer, Matt Moore, Alex Cobb and Alex Torres, and would love an impact bat that could be ready in a year or two. So they could take the 24th pick, add in the 37th and 41st and offer them to Pittsburgh to get Rendon.
If that amounted to a first-round college outfielder with tools (say, Brian Goodwin of Miami-Dade), another college bat (maybe 3B Cory Spangenburg?) and a big high school arm (like Tyler Beede of Lawrence Academy in Groton, Mass.), the Pirates just might do it to deepen and fill out a system that may be a year from starting to produce. They could make it even more fun by including Major League relievers. If Pittsburgh would throw in Evan Meek , would the Rays adjust their Draft-choice package?
Hey, it's something to discuss.
That is kind of an interesting question, isn't it? In a swap of that kind, how would we do?
I looked at ten years' worth of drafts, from 1996-2005, and compared the return on the first overall pick to that on a package of the 24th, 37th, and 41st overall picks. I chose 2005 as the endpoint so that we'd have a fairly good idea of the success or failure of individual picks, and a ten-year sample seems like a good compromise between concerns about sample sizes and concerns about changing trends in the usage of draft picks.
As it turns out, under Gammons's proposed swap, we probably get taken to the cleaners. The overwhelming majority of first overall picks become, if not impact players, at least productive regulars for the teams that draft them. The fan base may be disappointed if a first overall pick ends up with the career of Kris Benson or Pat Burrell , but those types of players still provide a decent amount of return on their teams' investments. The first overall pick also gives you a fairly good chance of snagging a star like Josh Hamilton (1999), Adrian Gonzalez (2000), Joe Mauer (2001), or Justin Upton (2005).
Meanwhile, in only three of the years from the sample did even one of the three low-round picks achieve any significant major league success: Jacque Jones (37th) in 1996, Joe Blanton (24th) in 2002, and Chad Billingsley (24th) and Adam Jones (37th) in 2003. The chance of drafting a significant contributor drops sharply as you move toward the bottom of the first round. While the grouping of three late picks did provide more than twice as many major league players as the top overall pick, by a margin of seventeen to eight (as of today - several minor leaguers such as Beau Jones still have a chance of making the Show), the overwhelming majority of those were marginal performers like Jason Repko (37th, 1999) or Macay McBride (24th, 2001) or the recently-waived Jeff Marquez (41st, 2004), who provided little benefit beyond what their teams could have gotten from a random waiver claim.
Putting all your eggs in one basket may involve running the risk of picking the occasional Bryan Bullington or Matt Bush, but at the end of the day you're still likely to end up with a much bigger omelette for your trouble. And while taking the three lower picks likely would allow you to save several million dollars' worth of signing bonus money, that's not really a course our organization should be pursuing at this point, is it?
Since today is the first round of the NFL draft, I thought it might also be fun to compare the proposal to the chart NFL front offices use when comparing the value of relative picks . Under that system, the first overall pick is worth 3,000 points, and the 24th, 37th, and 41st picks add up to only 1,760 points' worth of value.
In the event that the next CBA allows draft picks to be traded, I'm not opposed to the idea of us dealing a high pick if we're able to garner good value in return, but I think a fair deal may be much more difficult to arrive upon in practice than some of the casual talk on the subject would lead you to believe.
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Incredibly stupid suggestion on Gammons’ part, even worse to say the Pirates should throw in somebody like Meek. The one way this works—and I’d have to do the kind of research you did—would be because this is supposed to be an extraordinarily deep draft. If the Rays give up . . . oh . . . eight of their ten early picks, then maybe.
The trouble is, the Pirates don’t need depth, they need impact guys. So this really doesn’t work on any level.
You're entitled to your own opinions. You're not entitled to your own facts.
In fairness to Gammons, I took the part about Meek to mean that if we added him to the deal, Tampa would add one or more additional picks in return.
That’s still a pretty lousy deal for us, of course, but at least it’s less lousy than it would be under your interpretation.
by Vlad on Apr 28, 2011 7:15 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
If they only throw in one or two more picks, then we get hosed even more with the addition of Meek.
Even if they would send us all of their picks, I would have to really think hard about giving up #1. I doubt I’d do it.
by MarkInDallas on Apr 28, 2011 7:56 PM EDT up reply actions
I just looked at some drafts to refresh my memory about the falloff in talent being around pick 20 generally.
The only way this would make sense is if you traded #1 and got at least 4 picks in the 10-20 range.
by MarkInDallas on Apr 28, 2011 8:03 PM EDT up reply actions
I just have too many visions...
of this kind of thing being a money saving measure instead of something to improve the team. Call me a cynic, but we’ve just seen that kind of thing too often.
You don’t ditch the #1 unless you are going to significantly improve your major league roster. And you have to be pretty darn sure that the piece you acquire is going to be more beneficial than anyone you could select in the draft.
As much as I hate to say this … the New England Patriots do a pretty good job of remaining competitive by compiling large numbers of draft picks. I know they aren’t an MLB team but it could be a similar approach. Plus we could have traded back a few spots when we drafted Tony Sanchez and probably still draft him plus a pick or two.
by Cainyoudigit on Apr 28, 2011 7:36 PM EDT up reply actions
True, but...
I hate the Patriots but they are very well run. I think they’d manage to remain competitive whether they had the extra picks or not. The extra picks don’t make them good, their talent evaluation and valuation makes them good.
That is true. If you have the extra pick you need to draft the right people.
by Cainyoudigit on Apr 28, 2011 7:49 PM EDT up reply actions
But the patriots already have their superstar in Tom Brady...
Their method wouldn’t work if they had a 2nd tier QB. At some point, you need to hit a HR in the draft to be a succesful team. While they were able to brab Brady in the 6th round, that isnt always going to happen with later picks.
Football is different too because you are drafting players who are much close to finish products, and their isnt as much risk involved. It is also much easier to identify talent later on in the draft for that reason.
by goodtymes31 on Apr 28, 2011 10:34 PM EDT up reply actions
The Steelers are good right now because
they had years where no matter where they have picked in the first round, they got the best or close to the best player in the draft. Troy Polamalu at 16 and Rothlisberger at 11, for example.
Very rarely do you see first round picks after theirs that are demonstrably better football players than the one they chose.
The Pirates, on the other hand, have rarely gotten the best player they could have chosen. Even in the Huntington era, which has certainly been improved from before, they pretty much missed on Buster Posey, and that’s the only draft we have to go on right now.
by MarkInDallas on Apr 28, 2011 11:17 PM EDT up reply actions
I think it’s an interesting story regarding the notion of trading up/down in the draft overall, rather than that specific package.
Vlad noted the chart used by some NFL teams to assign values to draft picks, and as the chart suggests, a trade of #1 for #24, 37, and 41 would never happen. For example, the Chargers drafted Eli Manning #1 and traded him to the Giants for picks #4, 65, and 1st and 5th round picks the following year. When the Falcons wanted Michael Vick back in 2001, they traded the #1 pick to San Diego for picks #5 and 67, a second-rounder the following year, and a player.
So the idea of trading down isn’t bad, but trading down that far is a bad idea, especially given the volatility of MLB draftees as opposed to those from the NFL. Maybe a #1 pick for a top 10 pick and two late 1st rounders/sandwich picks is doable.
I think this is exactly right
Every baseball pick past the top 15-20 isn’t much more than a lottery ticket, while top 5 picks are surprisingly close to sure things, so trading out of the top 5 to anywhere below top 20 is always going to be a loser.
In general I think that trading draft picks in baseball is an idea that sounds better than it is. Maybe trading picks plus players would be workable because you could say that a bird in the hand is worth one in the bush (wouldn’t you take Tulo in exchange for the #1 overall?), but the discrepancy between draft slots is too great for any but the smallest moves to be worthwhile.
The chart is the key
Baseball would need its own chart. Basically, the “draft pick” value was used in the example, not the “draft pick value”. In the NFL, a late first and two seconds might be an OK deal, even if not by the chart’s values. But baseball is not football, and the MLB draft is not the NFL draft. The difference in value between 1 and 24 in baseball might not be possible to be made up without including major or minor league players already in the system.
NH strength so far has been the draft
there is no way i would be ok with them giving away the first pick, unless there was a huge, major league caliber return
Perhaps not allowing trading of draft picks
is, indeed, a way of “saving teams from themselves?”
I can just see the Yankmees taking advantage of lesser teams somehow, some way.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
I'm sure
they’d be able to fleece Ned C. with summat.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Apr 29, 2011 1:46 PM EDT up reply actions
Agree completely
The value curve seems to be pretty steep in baseball, which makes trading the first overall pick a pretty bad idea. This guy did a graph of average WAR values through the first round, and while I don’t necessarily agree completely with his methodology, it seems like a fair approximation of reality:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/6/3/896533/graph-of-the-day-draft-pick-value
Waves
Trading Draft picks would impact our waves problem with the pitching not on the same pace as the hitting
Waves?
Seismic? Tidal? Marcel? Longitudinal? Electromagnetic?
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Apr 28, 2011 8:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Charlie
To be fair, taking Gammons’ listed draft picks rigidly is perhaps too literal. Obviously trading down results in a wider but shallower talent pool from which to draft, but there’s still the opportunity for player evaluation. Having pick 24 means, for example, that in 2005 we’d have drafted Brian Bogusevic. However, Matt Garza was still on the board, and went at 25. We could have selected him instead, but we obviously would have lost out on the tidal wave of talent taken before pick 24 (Bruce, Tulo, Zimmerman, Braun, etc).
Between picks 24 and 37, by year:
2005 Matt Garza (25), Colby Rasmus (28)
2004 Blake DeWitt (28), J.P. Howell (31)
2003 Daric Barton (28), Carlos Quentin (29), Jarrod Saltalamacchia (36), Adam Jones (37)
2002 Matt Cain (25)
2001 Jeremy Bonderman (26), Noah Lowry (30)
2000 Adam Wainwright (29), Aaron Heilman (31)
1999 Mike MacDougal (25), Jason Repko (37) ….this year = yuck
1998 Brad Wilkerson (33), Aaron Rowand (35)
1997 Jack Cust (30)
1996 Jason Marquis (35)
Players drafted after pick 37 and before pick 45 include Luke Hochever, Clay Buccholz, Jed Lowrie, Mark Teahen, David Wright, Kelly Johnson, Gio Gonzalez, Huston Street, Colby Lewis, Brian Roberts, and Mark Prior.
Obviously not a TON of talent for 10 years’ worth of picks, but there’s definite value to be had. That being said, I’d probably still rather have the first overall pick than picks in this range. To give up #1 overall we’d definitely need to get several picks between 10 and 20 and getting a top-10 pick in return isn’t out of the question. In a draft this deep it would benefit us, perhaps, to trade down to 5 or 6, but not 27.
Sorry to thread-jack/ramble.
*Vlad, not Charlie.
My mistake for not checking the author…sorry guys.
I think Vlad’s methodology was sound. Nobody picks the best available guy every time. You have to take into account the difficulty of judging talent in baseball.
You're entitled to your own opinions. You're not entitled to your own facts.
Sure
I’m not saying that we would have taken any of those players let alone all of them. I was merely pointing out that saying “At 24 they would have gotten X because that’s who went to the team who had that specific pick” isn’t 100% sound. Good outline of the situation to be sure, I just felt like digging a little deeper to see what kind of talent was otherwise available at those picks. Turns out, not much at all.
Also
In the interest of full disclosure, not 100% of the later picks signed that season, IE Mark Prior drafted in the supplemental round but didn’t sign, and was drafted #2 overall the following season.
WTM: honestly, when I read Vlad’s post…the first thing I thought was what Tuckshop25 did.
I do understand both sides of it — Vlad specifically looked at the # – 37th pick, for example. Tuckshop25 looked at the range…which would give us the talent possibility for those picks. Yes, we may not have taken Matt Cain or Colby Rasmus…but maybe we would have.
Unless we would be able to obtain MiL/ML talent for the pick, I don’t move the #1.
What I DO see as an interesting topic is HOW Tampa is going to draft this year. That’s a lot of picks — signability is going to have to come into play with some (if not many) of those picks. They did cut their ML payroll this year…perhaps they shifted budgets this season to account for the glut of picks.
by insane_sanity on Apr 29, 2011 11:04 AM EDT up reply actions
Me, too
If nothing else, Tuckshop’s method lets you see if such a trade could even possibly work – is there enough talent that deep in the draft that a self-confident GM could realistically think that he could make out.
The fact that the answer is still no indicates that it’s useful to look at it both ways, because you’re getting a definitive answer. Vlad’s method could rely too heavily on bad GMs (it’s also handicapped by the fact that those 3 slots are picked by 3 different GMs most of the time, which means inconsistent methods and strategies).
I do understand both sides of it — Vlad specifically looked at the # – 37th pick, for example. Tuckshop25 looked at the range…which would give us the talent possibility for those picks. Yes, we may not have taken Matt Cain or Colby Rasmus…but maybe we would have.
That was why I looked at a large range of years – to give us a sense of how likely it actually was that guys in that range would turn out to be Matt Cain or Colby Rasmus.
If you assume ideal drafting by your scouting department, you can get yourself in a lot of trouble. Mike Piazza lasted until the 62nd round, but that doesn’t mean that 62nd round picks are particularly valuable (pretending for a moment that they still even exist…).
But it's not a huge range of years
In the WAR chart someone linked, the 9th slot produced significantly more WAR than the 7th over a 10 year period – but would anyone seriously argue that trading from the 7th slot to the 9th would be a trade “up”? Of course not – it’s a fluke created by SSS and (conceivably) unrelated factors°.
Furthermore, what if a Pujols or a Piazza had happened to land in the 41st slot one of those years? That wouldn’t suddenly make the proffered trade into a good one. There’s nothing magical about those particular slots: the question is what kind of talent is picked in those kinds of slots – is there any particular reason to expect 3 picks between the 24th and 41st overall to add up to a #1 overall? And the answer is no, not because Purpurra was dumb enough to pick Bugosevic instead of Garza, but because, except for surprise successes like Piazza and Pujols, there simply isn’t enough talent that late.
° if slots 5-7 were somehow consistently occupied by orgs that were less capable than the orgs in slots 8-10, taking the 7th org and giving it the 9th pick wouldn’t eliminate that factor anyway
Furthermore, what if a Pujols or a Piazza had happened to land in the 41st slot one of those years?
Then that’s still only one year out of the ten in my sample where you have the superstar as part of the late group. They’d still be well behind the first overalls in the aggregate.
not because Purpurra was dumb enough to pick Bugosevic instead of Garza
Why was Purpurra “dumb” for taking Bogusevic instead of Garza? That pick reflected the scouting consensus of the time – in BA’s pre-draft rankings, for example, Bogusevic was #19, and Garza was #60. You can pick a kid who has all the ability in the world, but at the end of the day, they’re autonomous human beings who can’t be modeled with 100% accuracy.
This
is exactly the reason why you can’t look at a range of picks and assume you are smart enough to find the right one. Nobody can pick with 100% accuracy. The Rays picked Josh Hamilton. Obviously an incredibly solid pick. They got nothing for that. Were they too stupid to realize he was going to way several years of his baseball life on blow?
by MarkInDallas on Apr 29, 2011 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions
You say "waste several years of his baseball life on blow,"
…like it’s a bad thing.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Apr 29, 2011 7:28 PM EDT up reply actions
The thing I haven’t seen anyone mention (and if someone has talked about this in the comments, I apologize for missing it) is that the idea of trading draft picks takes on a whole new meaning if the farm systems are opened up. Keeping the example above, if guys like Archer or Moore or Hellickson were potentially available, I think that changes the entire equation. My question is that trading of draft picks has been talked about in regards to the next agreement, but would the minors be part of those trades? I think it would really limit the swapping of draft picks if thats all it was limited to.
Keeping the example above, if guys like Archer or Moore or Hellickson were potentially available, I think that changes the entire equation.
That would be a different sort of calculation, of course, but I think that even player-for-pick trades might be tougher to work than most people think. Don’t forget that for high picks, you’re not getting the player. You’re getting the right to spend millions of dollars to sign the player. From the perspective of the team trading an established prospect, the cost of the draftee’s signing bonus would need to come out of the offer that they’re making. But if you’re only offering a B- prospect in exchange for the right to draft and sign Jameson Taillon, who’s going to go for that?
If the dynamics weren't so messed up...
..(Where a guy gets drafted and is signed months later at the deadline)
I’d say a sign and trade could easily solve this problem. A hard-slot system could fix this, which would be one benefit I guess.
I’d say a sign and trade could easily solve this problem.
Sign and trade potentially creates new problems, though. What happens when you use the first overall pick on Bryce Harper, and he says, “I won’t sign with any team but the Yankees”?
Isn’t that what Heywood basically did with the Braves? He set his price outrageously high for everyone else except Atlanta.
by MarkInDallas on Apr 29, 2011 6:46 PM EDT up reply actions
No one would go for the B- prospect for Taillon idea…thats not the issue. But, if a team was absolutely in love with a player (and vice versa, I’m thinking Harper here) why wouldn’t something like Jesus Montero as a starting point work?
I understand what you’re saying…I think the situation is a lot more complex with the top overall pick or teams picking in the top 5 since those picks are much more likely to turn into stars, or at least major league regulars. However, I could see teams in the mid-to-late first round making deals involving the systems and making it work.
Gammons was onto something...
but then seemed to take a stupid turn.
Instead of suggesting that the Pirates trade the #1 overall pick for other picks, the Pirates should be hedging their bets and, if they or any team traded the #1 pick, it would make much more sense to trade for actual minor league talent.
This is fun, interesting, and something that would actually be worth thinking about:
Pirates get: #24, Cobb, and Moore.
Rays get: Rendon and Meek
Much more even to me. The Rays deal from a position of strength to get a true elite bat that can move through their system quick. Pirates get two young minor league pitchers (Who they don’t have to pay bonuses to!), a 1st round pick back that they can take best player available and go over-slot.
How about
our #1 for their 24, 37, 41 and Desmond Jennmings (or another hi end Ray prospect).
Does this make it any better?
How about our #1 for their 24, 37, 41 and Desmond Jennmings (or another hi end Ray prospect).
Does this make it any better?
Depends how you see Jennings, but going by the current scouting consensus, that’s lopsided in our direction, IMO. Rendon’s going to get a high-seven-figures signing bonus, while Jennings is already under contract, and the Rays don’t exactly have a huge war chest to draw upon. You also need to discount Rendon’s value a bit since he’s several years from the bigs, while Jennings is basically ML ready right now.
Another conisderation
I assume that the FO is working with a fixed budget. Unlike the NFL, or any other major sports drafts, many baseball players who are drafted go unsigned. In the NFL, for example, many undrafted players are at least given camp invites. To compile those high picks would take away the ability to sign the Prep High School arms that we have been getting in late rounds. There would be some value to the extra first round picks, but baseball draft boards are unlike all others. Signability issues only apply in baseball (except for the rare Ricky Rubio case).
Once you move past a certain point in the draft, the amount a team is willing to spend often dictates the pick more then talent. It almost becomes a weighted auction. At the very least, teams cannot have as much of an idea where other teams will go because talent/need are not always relevant. Without that knowledge, predicting value of future picks is much more difficult. For example, the Pirates got a top 10 arm as the 52nd overall pick. Even though it was in the beginning of the first round, it is actually near the end of the second if you would think of the pick number and each team having only one pick instead of all of the sandwiches.
Side note
Maybe Selig should bring in Jerrod to run the “Subway Sandwich Picks” a little product placement, plus a whole range of great food analogies. “This gy is like a turkey sub with extra mayo, at first he looks lean, but he projects to add much more to a team then the first glance” “His leadership is like the maranara on the Meatball Sub, it is unsung, but really holds the sandwich together. Would anyone want a meatball sub with no sauce? No. Same thing with this 5’3 shortstop. Scrappy = Marinara”
by Wizard of Woz on Apr 29, 2011 9:38 AM EDT up reply actions
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Apr 29, 2011 10:46 AM EDT up reply actions
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