For some reason, my links to my studies won't post at Extra Baggs, so I had to post my comment here. Here is what I was trying to post:
BHF (and anyone interested) I wrote on the crapshoot that is the draft a while back: click here.
I also wrote on the Giants angle in my full series (links embed): click here.
Generally, even in the first round, a small percentage ever makes it to the majors, even for an AB or IP, smaller yet get to see regular time, even smaller become the good players that fans want to see.
Among Top 5 picks (appropriate because of Posey), less than half (around 40-45%) become these good players, the rest are useful players like Grissom or Tucker or never make much if any impression in the majors, either because of injury or general lack of development.
Basically, we just made a $6.2M bet on coin flip odds, though obviously the odds are hopefully improved if we have good scouts. Of course, that's debatable at the moment (laughable if it weren't that we added John Barr to the mix - he found Russell Martin for Dodgers, which I now realize is about what we could hope for in Posey, roughly - and Lewis, Pablo, Bowker, Ishikawa, Frandsen, Burriss, Horwitz, and Schierholtz are an OK bunch of position prospects that provides some hope for the future of our lineup).
Grissom "not much of an impression"?
ReplyDeletePlayed over 15 seasons, was a 4 time gold glover, 2300 hits, stole over 70 bases twice in his career.
Do you thing Felipe Alou didn't make much of an impression? Grissom's #'s are about the same.
Never thought I would have to go on the defensive for that comment. :^)
ReplyDeleteGrissom is a nice player, but when I'm talking a good player, I'm talking a player good enough to be one of the offensive or pitching leaders of the team. Grissom, to me, is a very nice complementary player, useful, but not good.
Plus, you read it wrong (and I puobably didn't word it right). I meant to say that you might get Grissom or Tucker, who are useful players, or you might get a prospect who never makes much if any impression in the majors.
After the top 5, particularly after the top 20, the vast majority of picks fall to the wayside in the gaunlet that is MLB development and never do more than a cup of coffee in the majors.
1996
ReplyDelete200+ hits, 30+ doubles,100+ runs,10 triples,25 homers, 30 SB and a Gold Glove.
Tucker I can see as complimentary, but Grissom did very well on some not so good Expo teams.
Unless you are talking about him as a 38 yr old Giant.
I'm talking about his career as a whole.
ReplyDeletePerhaps my standards are high but I'm not looking for a player who can have a good year or two or three, maybe, but sustained performance over a long period of time. He, in my opinion, didn't sustain a good level of play over a long period of time.
Grissom had a number of good years, but overall a player whose career average of .272/.318/.415/.733 just doesn't scream "I'm a good player". Look at his bb-ref profile, just 3 seasons over 110 OPS+, only 5 seasons over 100, he had 12 seasons where his offense was not good enough to be average, meaning he had to make up a lot in defense and stealing bases. At a 78% success rate, that's OK, but I think a base stealer, to be effective, have to be successful at least 80% of the time, so he's lacking there as well.
He was not that good an offensive player for much of his career and I doubt his defense was so good all the time that it made up for that lack of offense.
If one is going to base getting a good player as getting one peak year out of him, who is going to provide the peak value all the other years, and who picks up the slack for him when he's not peaking?
I am talking about players you can build your team around, isn't that the whole point of the draft, to find your good players who will lead you into the future? If he peaks one year early and is below average much of the time, how are you going to sustain winning?