Just for the Heliot: Ramos' Bad Bad Terrible 7 Games

I was trying to think up a prospect question for Jim Callis on Twitter, when I decided to dig into Heliot Ramos' numbers.  Here's what I found.

The Conundrum of Draft Picks: Joey Bart and Sean Hjelle

Now that Joey Bart has been signed, for a reported $7.025M, which is the highest largest upfront bonus given, ever, to a position player in the draft (Posey was also a highest bonus given when he was signed, though Boras had to manipulate his player's contract to squeak past Posey and gain that press release; that guy just got released, having never amounted to much, but was still worth the money, given 6.4 WAR produced and roughly $9-11M per WAR produced in recent years.  ), I thought I would take a look at Joey Bart and Sean Hjelle, to illustrate the high odds against either becoming a good player in the majors, and ended up looking at Andy Suarez as well.

I have been wanting to re-do my draft study but the work necessary to gather up that information has been too much for me to handle (I was going to use R to pull down the data last season, but then BB-Ref changed their URL from http to https, and then I was unable to use R anymore to pull the data; I was that close...).  Still, it is instructive to see how bad the odds are in the draft so that one can set their expectations for the prospect properly.  So I'll looking at how other teams have done in finding good players with the #2 and #45 picks during the history of the draft.

Giants 2018 Second Round Draft Pick: Sean Hjelle, RHP

The Giants selected University of Kentucky's Sean Hjelle, with their second round draft pick of 2018, second overall.  He's 6' 11" and there has been only one other pitcher that tall to pitch in major league history.

Looking over the drafted players, this is probably the first draft under Sabean where their first four picks were all around where they were ranked, at least ranked by MLB Pipeline in 2018 (I've usually used Baseball America, but everything is behind a paywall now).  Per Fangraphs, the first three picks.

• Joey Bart:  selected 2nd, ranked 6th Pipeline/3rd Fangraphs
• Sean Hjelle:  selected 45th, ranked 44th/53rd FG
• Jake Wong:  selected 80th, ranked 72nd/93rd FG
• Blake/Jake Rivera:  selected 106th, ranked 111th/worse than 130th overall FG 

Generally, the Giants select amateurs who are ranked far behind where they selected him in the draft, usually at least one round (30 picks) ahead of where he is ranked by talent.  

Giants 2018 First Round Draft Pick: Joey Bart, C

The Giants selected Georgia Tech's Joey Bart, C, with their first round draft pick of 2018, second overall.

Your 2018 Giants Draft: Final Thoughts

Thought I would give my final thoughts, with the draft on Monday, June 4.   Woke up early today so that I could leave work early and finish up this post before the draft.

Final (or last I can find) Mocks:

• MLB Pipeline (June 4th):  Both Callis and Mayo have the Giants selecting Joey Bart, catcher of the future, but has the Giants looking at Casey Mize, Joey Bart, Brady Singer, and Cole Winn.
• Fangraphs 3.0 (June 1st):  Fangraphs takes a very specific view.  First, they are sure the Giants are picking Bart.  Second, should the Tigers take Bart, the Giants would not select Mize, but instead would sign Cole Winn to a reduced deal, which would enable the Giants to sign a good prospect, like Tristan Casas or Sean Hjelle, with their second round pick.   
• Perfect Game, Version 4 (June 4th):  Got the Giants selecting Bart, but not Mize should he fall to them.  Also kicking the tires on Singer, Liberatore, and Bohm, plus the Winn if Detroit takes Bart scenario that everyone has latched onto.
• Minor League Ball (Sickels and gang):  There is a mock draft, but done by people volunteering to be each team's GM, so I always take with grain of salt, as you don't have a lot of info about why that person chose that prospect.  He/they selected Bohm, FYI.  I provide this link more because there are profiles on most of the top prospects there, that's of more value in my eyes. 
• Baseball America:  They no longer provide free access, someone collected all of the major ones and shared them in a Google Doc, BA Mock Draft 5.0 has, surprise, the Giants selecting Bart.
• Keith Law (same link as BA, someone collected and shared):  Sees the Giants selecting Cole Winn, the only mock draft to do that.