The Draft Board

I spend much of my budget on the draft, 18 college and 14 high school. On the the 24th, WIS said they were going to adjust draft board to where there were more pitchers and less position players. This is not the problem with the draft. The problem I see with the draft is quality players and has been consistent lately. I will use my draft board as an example and the counts at each position and compare their projected defensive abilities to the ML standards for the position.

C - 29 total - Range:21 Glove:14 Arm S:6 Arm A:7 PC:22 Coll:20 HS:9 ML Quality:3
Hitting: 0 of 3 OVR > 70 :2
First 5 rounds: 12, ML defensive quality: 1 ML hitting quality: 7

In simple terms there was not a REAL catcher worth having in the draft. In my estimation there should have been at least 3 ML quality/hitting catchers at a minimum.

1B - 89 total - Range:76 Glove: 39 ArmS:60 ArmA:16 Coll:75 HS:14 ML Quality:17
Hitting: 0 of 17 OVR>70:2
First 5 rounds: 4, ML defensive quality: 0 with 1 unknown ML hitting quality: 2 with 1 unknown

This was more pathetic than the catchers as there should have been 9 at least instead of 0.

2B - 49 total Range:17 Glove: 8 ArmS:33 ArmA:49 Coll:38 HS:11 ML Quality:7
Hitting: 0 of 7 OVR>70:12
First 5 rounds: 17, ML defensive quality: 0 ML hitting quality: 7

Well at least 2B was better and that isn't saying much.

3B - I am not even going to do 3B. Reason: Of all the drafts I have been through, WIS has never generated a true 3B at all, most generally they end up at COF though a select few can hit. Most defensively short SS end up at 3B. This could be caused by my scouting making them SS.

SS - 33 total Range:10 Glove: 5 ArmS:15 ArmA:15 Coll:26 HS:7 ML Quality:5
Hitting: 0 of 5 OVR>70:6
First 5 rounds: 23, ML defensive quality: 7 ML hitting quality: 4

As can be seen, not a good draft for a SS either and some make a good 2B

LF - 92 total Range:82 Glove: 69 ArmS:40 ArmA:76 Coll:78 HS:14 ML Quality:26
Hitting: 1 of 26 OVR>70:6
First 5 rounds: 11, ML defensive quality: 6 ML hitting quality: 1

As can be seen wasn't anything here, most short LF end up at 1B if they hit well.

CF - 8 total Range:4 Glove: 1 ArmS:1 ArmA:1 Coll:5 HS:3 ML Quality:1
Hitting: 0 of 1 OVR>:2
First 5 rounds: 13, ML defensive quality: 4 ML hitting quality: 2

Many defensively short CF end up at 2B as this draft didn't have much to cheer about.

RF - 40 total Range:28 Glove: 8 ArmS:18 ArmA:23 Coll:33 HS:7 ML Quality:3
Hitting: 1 of 3 OVR>70:5
First 5 rounds: 10, ML defensive quality: 3 ML hitting quality: 2

Once again pathetic.

P - ( Bunches) total Control: 98 vsL:54 vsR:48 ML Quality:25 OVR>70:19
First 5 rounds: 76 ML value: 44

Once again not all that great and to get one of decent value, had to be done in first 2 or 3 rounds.

Notes: ML hitting quality equates to a player that has 50's in each hitting category at least.
ML quality only implies the position to which he was scouted.
Physical qualities were not part of this equation.

Analysis: It is hard to have a good draft with nothing to draft from, after the second round there was hardly anything worth drafting to help a team. The biggest problem is the critical positions have been thin at quality in both defense and hitting. In many cases you get hitting and not the defense which means he gets degraded to a position he can play, if there is one, creating a backlog of good unwanted players at unwanted positions. With the injury toll being as it is and the drafts over the last three seasons, ML teams are gonna start looking like minor league teams in the near future. As I have shown, a rebuilding team remains in the rebuild mode much longer than expected because they can only get maybe one to three players to help each season. Taking 3 to 5 seasons for development winning would become a very slow process.