Your 2016 Giants: Prospect Musings

A while back, I was invited to participate in a Giants prospect discussion, where we answered five questions for this site, MLB Top Prospects, which is linked to the side as well.  The results was released a couple of weeks ago and I had been meaning to put it up, but just been busy with other things, including my own posts (though another consideration was that this chat reminded me of an internet bully who tried to use my dead father in an effort to insult and embarrass me, so I was a bit upset about that, as I don't like being reminded of people like him; but I decided it's out there, I should at least link to it and share it).  Here is a link to the 2016 San Francisco Top Prospects Chat.

ogc thoughts

I included some follow-up thoughts that sprung from reading the chat in the comments of that chat, which I'll include here, since I discuss a lot of my philosophy about the draft and prospects:

Thanks for including me! Just wanted to note that an interview that came out soon after I had submitted my answers Fox noted that the reason he moved back was for financial reasons (meaning his family couldn't afford it anymore). So, at least publicly, he stated that he did not move back home to take advantage of the market driven IFA market over the structured amateur draft process. 

Also, for those new to prospecting, I would note a draft study that I did long ago (under a different handle) which showed that no one should see "first rounder" and think that they are suppose to be great or even good prospects. Once you get past the first five picks overall, the draft quickly devolves into a big crapshoot. Teams which are playoff competitive get the last ten picks of the first round, and historically picks in that range have become good roughly 10-11% of the time, per my study. So a first rounder is not a sign of quality for a prospect. 

So, for me, a first round pick failing isn't that much more disappointing than any other round, because the odds are so low (unless it's one of the top five picks overall) anyway. And it's tough even for the first five picks overall, less than a coin flip, it is just that hard to find and develop baseball players. Thus, an average team that is competitive every year develops one good player with their first round pick every 5-10 drafts (and it takes another 3-6 years generally before reaching the majors). 

I would also like to add comments regarding player development. I believe it is silly to say that a team can't develop this position or that. This is because, as I noted above, a first round pick is not a sure thing, and there are 9 positions on a team (10 if you count closer, 11 if you need a DH). Even if you generalize to C, P, IF, OF, that's still four positions. Per above odds, you can get one of each of the four every 20+ years of first round picks (assuming none are punted :^). And that's if you can chose which position makes it. You might just end up with four of one position. 

Thus, no one should care that the Giants have not developed an OF. What they should care about is that they have developed a C and the four IF positions. And per my notes above about how hard it is to develop first round picks, I would note that before 2009, the vast majority of first round picks (as well as majority of picks overall) made by the Giants were pitchers. You pick more pitchers, you increase the odds of developing pitchers. But starting in 2009, they have been roughly 50/50 between position and pitchers, and as a result, their hit rate on pitching has dissipated. 

Drafting is kind of like trying to shoot with a musket: if you miss, it takes a long while (a year to the next draft) to get the musket ready to shoot again. And again I refer back to my study above, about the low odds involved. Bumgarner was developed a long time ago, but it takes up to 3-7 drafts to find that next good player, generally (assuming mostly competitive, but some mediocre years in there too), then another 3-6 years to develop that player. So it could take up to 6-13 years to find that next good player with the first round pick. And that's not even considering what position that prospect plays. It is hard just to develop a player, period, harder still to try to develop one particular position. Thus it is a strawman to me to see anyone talk about a team not developing any type of position, because development is too hard to reduce it down to one position. 

So the way I like to gauge how well the Giants are doing in terms of development is to look at how many self-developed players do they have among their starting 8 position players, starting 5 rotation, and closer. Out these expected 14 players, the Giants have developed 7 of them, or 50%. I don't know what the average is for other playoff competitive teams, but that seems pretty good to me. And a Fangraph analysis looked at WAR production by developed players, and the Giants were ranked first in that study for homegrown talent: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs... That is all I care about, whether it's one position or another, that don't matter, what matters most is the big picture, and there the Giants shine for homegrown talent.

My comment captures a lot of my thoughts on the draft and player development, for those new to my site and/or new to understanding prospects.