Scouting the Draft: Wrapping Up

Much has been written about the Giants 2012 draft already, so a lot of this may be redundant.  We have broken down each day of the draft separately so I thought it might be a good idea to summarize it from an overall standpoint.  Much has been made of Day 3 and a perception on the part of some analysts that the Giants were too conservative taking almost exclusively college players in general and a large number of college seniors in particular.  In all the hubbub that ensued, I think we might have lost track of the relative importance of the top of the draft and what the Giants accomplished there.

If you look at the historical success rate of draft picks relative to their draft position, at least 80% of the value of any team's draft is in the first round pick.  Probably 90% of any team's draft value is in the top 2 rounds and then asymptotically approaching 100% by the final pick.  By the time you get past single digits, any argument about draft strategy is arguing over no more than about 2% of the territory.  Expectations should be tempered even for late first round picks as historically at least 50% of any draft's overall value lies in the top 10 picks and drops off exponentially through the remainder of the first round and the rest of the draft.

The Giants entered this draft with several factors working against them:

1.  It was a weak draft class to begin with.
2.  The Giants had a paucity of picks in the first 2 rounds as they had to wait through 64 picks after #20 to make their second pick
3.  The new CBA bonus rules gave them a very small pool of money for signing their top 10 picks.  While a team like the Astros could sign their #1 pick to a $4 M bonus and still have $3 M left over to spend on later picks, the Giants total spending allowance for the first 10 picks was $4 M only $1 M more than what Houston had left over from their first pick.  The Giants simply had no room to move money around and try to go over-slot in subsequent round or conversely to take money from later rounds and go substantially over-slot in round 1.  The Giants were pretty much stuck with the slot bonuses they were assigned.

The Giants did have some easily identifiable organizational needs going into the draft:

1.  Organizational pitching depth has thinned considerably in the last 2-3 years as recent drafts have emphasized hitting more.  Their top pitching prospect from last year was traded in the Beltran deal which we won't re-debate here.
2.  The Giants have openly said that they believe power hitters won't come to SF as free agents because AT&T Park suppresses HR's.  Thus, the Giants have to draft and develop their own power hitters.

Although weak overall, the draft did have some areas of talent:

1.  5 tool HS position players- again, no outstanding single talent but quite a few interesting names extending into the supplemental rounds talent-wise.
2.  HS pitchers- the top talent, Lucas Giolito, had and arm injury and Scott Boras weighing him down, but there was a large pool of second tier talent both left and right handed.
3.  College pitchers- Not a great class, as the top guy, Mark Appel had his warts, but there was a scattering of hard throwing talent available.

This draft was notably weak for college hitters.

You could make an argument that the Giants took the best player available at each point in the first 3 rounds.  You can also make an argument that they focused on their organizational need for pitching depth.

As we have pointed out earlier, the first round pick is the key to drafting success. It is essential to get value with the first round pick or the entire draft is doomed.  The Giants have had better success in the first round than most teams without any set formula.  They have taken pitchers and hitters. They have taken highly ranked players who "fell" to them and they have taken "reaches" who other evaluators have ranked lower.  Going by pre-draft rankings, the Giants got excellent value with their first round pick.

Chris Stratton was ranked #18 overall by Baseball America ahead of several HS arms the Giants were thought to be interested in.  Matt Grabusky of MLB Draft Guide had him at #22.  Matt Garrioch of Minor League Ball also had him at #22.  Jonathan Mayo at MLB.com had him right at #20.  As for higher ranked players who "fell", there were really only two, Marcus Stroman and Lance McCullers Jr.  Stroman has size and delivery issues and McCullers is a controversial talent with widely divergent opinions plus possible signability issues.  Summary:  The Giants probably took the best player availalble in the first round in Chris Stratton.

The Giants second round pick was local favorite Martin Agosta from St Mary's.  Agosta is another hard thrower with good command and a fairly advanced repertoire of pitches.  BA had him ranked at #106 overall, but Matt Grabusky had him all the way up at #37! Garrioch had him at #116 and Mayo had him at #92.  While there is more variation in the rankings for Agosta, it appears the Giants got solid value with a strong argument that he was the best player available.  Looking over the last 15 picks of round 2, I don't see any names that jump out as being obvious choices ahead of Agosta.

In round 3, pick #115, the Giants may have reached for a college power hitter in Mac Williamson from Wake Forest.  BA had  him ranked at #236, but Grabusky had him ranked much higher at #144 and had him as the 50'th ranked player left on his board for Day 2, so he must have been moving up Grabusky's rankings as draft day approached.  Personally, I am very suspicious of any college hitter who doesn't crack a .300 BA, but Williamson had better secondary stats than Richie Shaffer, a hitter I think most Giants fans would have been happy with at #20.  Given the variance in rankings, possible late rise up draft boards and the Giants stated desire to draft power, Williamson may well have been the best player available on the Giants draft board at the time of the pick.

From rounds 4-9, the Giants did exactly what they did last year, load up on college power arms.  In the process, they got several players ranked as high or higher by pre-draft rankings:

Round 4, #148  Steven Okert ranked #152 by BA

Round 5, #178  Ty Blach ranked # 194 by BA

Round 6, #208  Stephen Johnson # 63 by BA!

Round 7, #238  EJ Encinosa #322 by BA.

Round 11  #358 Ryan Tella, OF #201 by BA.

I initially was not impressed by the Giants lone signficant HS pick, Shilo McCall in round 9, but after reading a bit  more about him, I've concluded that his scouting video does not do him justice and he deserves to be at least in the same discussion as Alex Bregman who a lot of people would have been happy with in round 2.

Matt Grabusky did an exercise looking at draft value in the first 6 rounds measured by his pre-draft rankings and the Giants came out #2 overall.  That does not mean the Giants got the second most talent in the first 6 rounds of the draft, but it does suggest that they did very well relative to their position in the draft which is really all anyone can ask of them.

In addition to the Day 1 and 2 picks where I think the Giants did very well, there were a scattering of other players who I find particularly interesting due to some outstanding statistic, physical characteristic or underdeveloped tool:

#14  Tyler Hollick- Video game numbers in JC ball.
#16  Ian Gardeck- 98 MPH fastball with command issues.  Was the White Sox 8'th round pick last year.
#24  Andrew Cain- unusual mix of tremendous size and athleticism for an OF with pretty good statistical numbers to back it up.  College senior but fits the profile of a late bloomer.
#26.  Mason McVay- Another big LHP with velocity up to 94 MPH.
#30   Michael Blanchard- "top shelf" speed.  Bat is raw, but he draws walks with a low K rate.

Much has been made of the Giants failure to draft HS talent in this draft, again, particularly in Day 3.  I am not aware of one shred of evidence to support the notion that HS talent has a higher success rate than college, particularly when drafted after round 15.  The overall success rate after round 15 is so low it is almost laughable to think this would be any kind of issue at all.

Given where they were drafting and the constraints of the CBA bonus rules, I don't think there was ever any possibility of the Giants having the type of draft you would give an A grade to.  I do think they did very well with the resources they had to work with even on Day 3!

Drafts take a minimum of 3-5 years to play out in terms of success or failure so all grades are preliminary.  My preliminary grade for the Giants draft is a solid B.

Next up:  Signings, which should be wrapped up expeditiously, which means we should get to see how most of these kids perform in short season ball this summer.