Every fall, the methodically revealing regular season gives way to playoff series of irrepressible volatility. To the chagrin of some, the game’s finely tuned averages descend into a month of total statistical anarchy. I call it a beautiful anarchy. Then again, I’m not a Cubs fan.
Every summer, the complex and meticulously crafted system of player development begins anew with the hopelessly speculative exercise of the amateur draft. Without belaboring the obvious, it’s safe to say that the draft serves a different purpose in baseball than it does in other sports. It’s long (like, 40 round long) and its primary purpose is to project how good draftees will be in 3 to 5 years, not how good they are now. Naturally, the MLB amateur draft produces a much higher degree of variability as a result.
And so I grimace when folks try to compare the MLB amateur draft to its NFL and NBA counterparts, particularly when they revisit the draft 5 to 10 years later in order to determine who was a “bust” and who was a “steal.” In baseball, no one expects the 22nd pick in the draft to become a star like they might in the NFL. If the 22nd pick makes the majors and contributes he has matched expectations. And unlike NBA draftees who are a mere six months from playing in the league, even the best amateur prospects usually require one to three years of seasoning. In the interim any number of calamities can derail a career -- personal, professional, and, most commonly, physical.
I bring this up in the light of Russ Adams’ recent retirement. Like so many other first-round selections (Adams went 14th overall to the Blue Jays in 2002) Adams’ unremarkable big league career is predictably framed by the impressive list of names drafted after him in that year’s draft (Kazmir, Swisher, Hamels, Cain, Francouer, and Votto...in case you’re curious). Which, given the nature of baseball, is completely unfair. The presumption, of course, is that Adams was a “bust.” In the NFL, a 14th overall pick is expected to start and contribute, in the NBA he might even become an all-star. By those comparisons Russ Adams failed.
But how does he compare to other 14th overall picks in the MLB draft? I give you the picks in that slot between 1995 and 2005.
2005 - Trevor Crowe (Career to date: .246 BA, 3 HR, 53 RBI, 2 seasons)
2004 - Billy Butler (Career to date: .299 BA, 55 HR, 278 RBI, 5 seasons)
2003 - Ryan Wagner (Career: 4.79 ERA, 130 SO, 11 wins, 5 seasons)
2002 - Russ Adams (Career: .247 BA, 17 HR, 113 RBI, 5 seasons)
2001 - Jake Gautreau (Career: NEVER APPEARED IN MAJORS)
2000 - Beau Hale (Career: NEVER APPEARED IN MAJORS)
1999 - Jason Stumm (Career: NEVER APPEARED IN MAJORS)
1998 - Jeff Weaver (Career: 4.71 ERA, 1214 SO, 104 wins, 11 seasons)
1997 - Brandon Larson (Career: .179 BA, 8 HR, 37 RBI, 4 seasons)
1996 - Dermal “Dee” Brown (Career: .233 BA, 14 HR, 89 RBI, 8 seasons)
1995 - Reggie Taylor (Career: .231 BA, 14 HR, 58 RBI, 5 seasons)
The yield from eleven years of #14s? One good doubles hitter (Butler), one decent innings eater (Weaver), six marginal big league players (Crowe, Wagner, Adams, Larson, Brown, and Taylor), and three guys who never made the show (Stumm, Hale, and Gautreau). All in all, Adams’ career is pretty typical of the 14th overall pick. In fact if I was ranking these eleven he might fall right on the median.
Now a second list to bury my point about the draft’s volatility. For the same years (1995-2005) I present a list of the highest drafted players who never appeared in a major league game and their draft position.
2005 - Wade Townsend (3rd overall)
2004 - Matt Bush (1st overall)
2003 - Kyle Sleeth (3rd overall)
2002 - Chris Gruler (3rd overall)
2001 - Josh Karp (6th overall)
2000 - Mike Stodolka (4th overall)
1999 - Corey Myers (4th overall)
1998 - Ryan Mils (6th overall)
1997 - Geoff Goetz (6th overall)
1996 - Matt White (7th overall)
1995 - Jamie Jones (6th overall)
Every single year at least one of the top ten picks failed to make the major leagues. Sometimes injury were to blame, but more often the players simply weren’t good enough.
To hold a player like Russ Adams up against the 1000 or so players picked after him in the 2002 draft is unfair and unwise. And yet, on Adams’ wikipedia page (which, I'll admit, was the genesis of this rant) the comparison surfaces in the first paragraph. The prevalence of such statements underscores how completely sports fans have bought into the draft-day nomenclature of the NBA and NFL, and recklessly applied it across the rest of the sports universe.
Maybe this is all patently obvious. So I suppose my point isn’t really that the baseball draft is different than the NFL and NBA drafts. Rather, it’s how different. We’re talking apples and orangeade. The events share a name, but little else.
Applying a Mel Kiper-style analysis to the MLB draft is a bit like judging the 2001 Mariners based on their postseason performance -- it misses the essence of baseball. Forget bookends, the real game is played somewhere in-between.
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