Monday, June 07, 2004

Monday night draft analysis

Here's how the first eighteen rounds break down by position:

pos all avg per team Bucs
c 48 1.6 2
1b 28 0.9 0
2b 24 0.8 1
ss 55 1.8 2
3b 25 0.8 2
lf/rf 57 1.9 1
cf 38 1.2 1
rhp 197 6.4 7
lhp 79 2.6 2

All players designated as "lf," "rf," or "of" are lumped together in the lf/rf category. Multi-position players were put into the category of their first listed position.

Looks like the Pirates drafted up the middle. No first basemen, few corner outfielders (one), and two catchers. Also an extra third baseman. Given that first basemen and corner outfielders have been pretty easy to get at a reasonable price on the free agent market, this distribution looks right for the Pirates. The only exception would be the lack of left-handed pitching.

Here's another table.

pos all # top 200 % Bucs first two
c 48 25 52% 11, 442
1b 28 8 29% none
2b 24 5 21% 412
ss 55 17 31% 52, 382
3b 25 6 24% 82, 352
lf/rf 57 20 35% 172
cf 38 15 39% 262
rhp 197 75 38% 112, 202
lhp 79 28 35% 142, 532

What does this tell us? A ton of catchers were taken in the first two hundred picks. Only six third basemen went in the top two hundred. The draft also had few highly-regarded second basemen.

Read another way, the draft looks like this:

overall name pos by pos
11 Neil Walker c 1
52 Brian Bixler ss 5
82 Edward Prasch 3b 2
112 Joseph Bauserman rhp 44
142 Kyle Bloom lhp 23
172 Atlee Johnson rf 10
202 Jason Quarles rhp 76
232 Eric Ridener rhp 88
262 Christopher Covington cf 18
292 Derek Hankins rhp 107
322 Matthew Guillory rhp 115
352 Juan Padron 3b 16
382 Brett Grandstrand ss 35
412 Jermal Lomack 2b 18
442 John Slone c 41
472 Ryan Herbort rhp 169
502 Matthew Bishop rhp 182
532 Cory Luebke lhp 76

The Bucs took the first catcher, the fifth shortstop, and the second third baseman. Unless the crop of third basemen is really, really weak, or unless there's no good reason to regard Prasch as the second-best third-basemen available in the draft, that third-round pick looks great.

Not much else to say at this point - if you have something to add, please put it into the comments thread.

...6/9 update. FWIW, Steven Goldman at Baseball Prospectus explains that there's never much in the way of draftable second-base talent.

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