Drafting and the Rays

by R.J. Anderson on Jan 21, 2009 9:18 PM EST

Raysdrafts_medium

MLBers - Simply put, players who are, or have been in the majors. I did not set an innings or plate appearances limit, so Reid Brignac and Carl Crawford are weighed equally. I did not count Jason Hammel twice.

T10 Rounds - Pretty self explanatory, these are the players selected in the first 10 rounds of the draft. Not just the Rays top 10 picks.

With Rays - This is to say with the Rays when they debuted, not currently with the Rays.

Now, I know some people prefer cold and hard data, so here are the tables with this same information. Note: "Total" is the amount of players drafted that year.

Year	MLBers	T10	With Rays	Total
1996	8	2	5	97
1997	8	4	5	92
1998	6	3	4	47
1999	7	4	5	50
2000	5	2	4	47
2001	9	5	7	50
2002	6	5	2	50
2003	5	2	3	50
2004	4	3	4	50
2005	0	0	0	50
2006	1	1	1	50
2007	1	1	1	50

For those too lazy to add those columns up, here are the totals:

MLBers	T10	With Rays	Total	%
60	32	41	683	8.8

Take 2006 and 2007 out of the equation and we get...

MLBers	T10	With Rays	Total	%
58	30	39	583	9.9

It's hard to evaluate this information. I don't know the league average over these years, and while the raw numbers look poor, hitting on ~10% of your draft picks seems fair.

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Comments

Good Stuff

Obviously it makes sense to take out 2006 and 2007. I would also expect more of the 96-98 picks to make the bigs due to a lack of talent at the top…of course given that regimes love for mid-level free agents that may not be such a good assumption.

by GomesSweetGomes on Jan 21, 2009 10:37 PM EST reply actions

2001 looks like a nice year.

by Erik Hahmann on Jan 22, 2009 8:48 AM EST reply actions

None of the 9 were really that good.

Dave Bush and Chad Gaudin have had nice careers for other teams. Oh and Jonny Gomes.

by Tommy Rancel on Jan 22, 2009 9:17 AM EST up reply actions

Dave Bush didn't sign though

Not sure he should count. Otherwise, it rewards spending late draft picks on guys who everyone knows probably won’t sign.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on Jan 22, 2009 10:41 AM EST up reply actions

Averaging about 7 guys who make the majors is very good

If you’re counting only the guys we actually signed. 2004 still has the potential to be a very good one – guys like Wade Davis and Jake McGee still have yet to hit the majors.

Nothing like the 1968 Dodgers though, which has to be the best MLB draft ever:

Bobby Valentine
Bill Buckner
Steve Garvey
Doyle Alexander
Davey Lopes
and about 5 other role players.

Of course, half those guys were drafted in drafts that no longer exist. Back then, there were separate drafts for high school and college, and another draft in January.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on Jan 22, 2009 10:40 AM EST reply actions

My recent favorite: 2000 Expos

Grady Sizemore (All Star)
Cliff Lee (All Star – Cy Young)
Jason Bay (All Star – NL ROY)
————————————————————
Russell Martin (Did not sign – All Star)
Fred Lewis (Did not sign)

Plus six others (four signed) who have been in the majors.

Not bad considering the first-round pick (Justin Wayne) flamed out and no second-round pick in what was categorized as a weak year for draft talent.

by RATW on Jan 22, 2009 11:18 AM EST up reply actions

and the dumbasses traded those 3 for nothing

TB Rays in 09!!!

by RaysOfHope on Jan 22, 2009 11:12 PM EST up reply actions

To me it makes more sense

to track this against signings. A decent % of draftees, at least lately, were never going to be signed – HS draftees beyond about the 15th round are very low frequency signs for example. The Rays have signed 28-30 of their picks in the last 2 -3 years.

Of course, the data might be hard to come by for past years, but if you assume about 30 signed per year, that changes the picture a bit. And that’s typically all an org has room for anyway. Plus, if you never signed a guy, why should their making the majors have anything to do with you? Perhaps that’s how you tabbed the numbers – that wasn’t clear to me.

by nyyfaninlaaland on Jan 22, 2009 1:37 PM EST reply actions