Sunday, October 21, 2018

Scouting the Draft: 2010 Retrospective

We have discussed the Giants string of first round draft busts from 2010-2016 with the question being, do the Giants need a new scouting director?  One way of answering that question is to take a look at who was drafted after their first rounder in each of those seasons.  Could or should have John Barr made a different choice that would have turned out better?

With that question in mind, let's start with the 2010 draft when the Giants took Gary Brown at #24 overall.  The 2010 draft produced Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Chris Sale and Christian Yelich.  That is a pretty great draft.  How were the Giants so stupid as to end up with a bust like Gary Brown?  Well, first of all, the Giants won 88 games in 2009 so all of those players were drafted before the Giants had a chance to pick them.  In Yelich's case, he went to the Marlins at #23 just one pick ahead of the ill-fated Gary Brown.  What about those players taken after Brown who the Giants still had a chance to draft?  Let's break it down:

25.  Zack Cox, 3B, Cardinals:  Bust.
26.  Kyle Parker, 1B, Rockies:  Bust.
27.  Jesse Biddle, RHP, Phillies:  Bust.
28.  Zach Lee, RHP, Dodgers:  Bust.
29.  Cam Bedrosian, RHP, Angels:  Decent Reliever.
30.  Chevez Clarke, OF, Angels:  Bust.
31.  Justin O'Conner, C, Rays:  Bust.
32.  Cito Culver, SS, Yankees:  Bust.
33.  Michael Kvasnicka, C, Astros:  Bust.
34.  Aaron Sanchez, RHP, Blue Jays:  Decent SP.
35.  Matt Lipka, SS, Braves:  Bust.
36.  Bryce Brentz, OF, Red Sox:  Bust.
37.  Taylor Lindsey, SS, Angels:  Bust.
38.  Noah Syndergaard, RHP, Blue Jays:  Ace SP.
39.  Anthony Ranaudo, RHP, Red Sox:  Bust.
40.  Ryan Bolden, OF, Angels:  Bust.
41.  Asher Wojciechowski, RHP, Blue Jays: Bust.
42.  Drew Vettleson, OF, Rays:  Bust.
43.  Taijuan Walker, RHP, Mariners:  Decent SP.
44.  Nick Castellanos, 3B, Tigers:  Average Corner IF/OF.
45:  Luke Jackson, RHP, Rangers:  Bust.
46.  Seth Blair, RHP, Cardinals: Bust.
47.  Peter Tago, RHP, Rockies:  Bust.
48.  Chance Ruffin, RHP, Tigers:  Bust.
49.  Mike Olt, 3B, Rangers: Bust.
50.  Tyrell Jenkins, RHP, Cardinals: Bust.

You have to go down 5 spots in the 2010 draft to find the first player taken after Gary Brown to have a significant MLB career, 10 spots to find the next one and 14 spots to find the guy John Barr should have drafted, Noah Syndergaard.

Conclusion:  The failure of the Giants 2010 first round draft was not due to bad drafting by John Barr, but due to the Giants low draft position and the general spottiness and luck of the draft(Christian Colon was #4, Barrett Loux #6, Karsten Whitson #9, Michael Choice #10, Deck McGuire #11).  In other words, it is highly unlikely the Giants would have done better in that draft with a different Scouting Director.

14 comments:

  1. I guess the hit in this draft was 11th rounder Adam Duvall (to Reds for Leake in 2015). Heath Hembree was drafted in the 5th round (traded for Peavy before 2014 season) has become a decent reliever and has a 0.00 ERA for the Red Sox this post-season with 3.2 IP.

    Peavy got his ring and a parade and the trades made some sense when the Giants made them, but Peavy, Leake, Moore were a pretty bad run middle rotation trades.

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    1. Couldn't disagree more about the "pretty bad run middle rotation trades"!
      Giants got exactly what they wanted in the Peavy trade -- something can be good for both sides.
      Moore got the Giants to the 9th inning of 4th game of 2016 NLDS with a 3-run lead -- what more could you ask? Cueto-Lester would have been a fine match-up in the final game.
      By the time Duvall was traded for Leake, Duffy had established himself at 3B -- and that was a trade that might have worked. The Giants were a half game out of 1st without much of a rotation after Bumgarner -- you gotta give up something to get something.

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    2. Not to mention that since the Duvall/Leaketrade, Leake has been worth double what Duvall has been, in fWAR. Unfortunately, those WAR haven’t been as a Giant; but that isn’t relevant to evaluating the trade itself. As to Peavy, he was worth more fWAR every single year as a Giant, seriatim, than the total fWAR that Hembree has generated over his career so far as a Red Soxer.






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    3. OK, so, looking up seriatim...definition only helping me marginally...LOL

      Campanari, c'mon. Leake was about to be a free agent at the end of 2015. What the Giants traded for was exactly what the Giants got: 2 months of average Mike Leake, good for 0.6 bWAR. Paying him roughly $3,000,000 to do it.

      The Reds got Duvall, completely cost controlled for 3 years. Total bWAR, 5.9. Total cost, $2,000,000.

      At the end of two months, the Giants received nothing after Leake went Free Agent.

      After 3 years, the Reds traded Duvall to the Braves for SP Lucas Sims. Former late 1st-Rounder who has a far better chance of making it as an MLB back end rotation starter than Beede or Stratton.

      It doesn't really matter how Leake performed after he was no longer controlled by the Giants.

      (Anyway, How off are bWAR and fWAR? Because Campanari, you say that Leake Doubled Duvall's fWAR since the trade?

      bWAR has Duvall at 5.3 (with his poor showing in ATL.)
      bWAR has Leake at 4.6

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    4. I admitted that the trades made sense when the Giants made them and that Peavy got his ring. Some individual performances were fine. I think we are just drawing the line for good/bad at a different level of the half-full glass.

      I think my main takeaway from looking at this 2010 draft was how little came out of this draft (not really unexpected with the poor draft slot and maybe depth of draft just in terms of the lack of stars as DrB mentions), but even with nothing out of the draft the Giants spun it into two of three middle rotation starter trades. ATM, I can't think of another mid-rotation trade since 2010, but I'm probably missing something obvious.

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  2. This draft is tough in hindsight as Yelich went 23rd, just in front of Brown. (To your point, not available to the Giants).

    But yeah, really only Thor was hanging around in the Supplemental.

    Marlins had a hell of draft in 2010 with Yelich in the low 1st & Realmuto in the 3rd. Both out of HS. Not to mention Blake Treinen in the 23rd (who didn't sign).

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    1. I keep wondering what the Marlins would have done this year had the management not blown the team up.

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    2. With a mediocre pitching staff in 2012, the Blue Jays traded away the future ACE for CY winner R A Dickey. The Jays dropped from 4th to last with Dickey! They also sent some very good prospects. What did the Mets know about Dickey?

      Isn't trading away Thor even worse than not drafting him?

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    3. Think about this - Mets acquire Wheeler and Thor in mid-season trades to desperate pennant chasers.
      Pretty savvy trades, that pair!

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    4. Savvy maybe, but the Mets acquired Thor, Travis d'Arnaud, John Buck plus 1 for Cy Young Winner R.A. Dickey in December, 2012!
      2012 was Dickey's ultimate year, he was sub .500 the rest of his career. Blue Jays, after finishing way out of the race in 2012, wanted Dickey and met the Mets' price.

      Wheeler certainly had a good year in 2018, but the Giants were trying to repeat, needed a bat, and wanted Beltran. Improbable as it seems (without Posey), the Giants were in first place -- if they had held on, the post season critics might not be so smug. If SF had done nothing (and failed even worse), many of the critics would say they should have done something!
      Lose-Lose.

      In both cases, the Mets had someone that someone else (really) wanted.

      Too bad they pitched Matt Harvey's arm off and failed in the 2015 WS to KC.

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  3. Mets not only ended up with Thor from the 2010 draft, they also drafted Matt Harvey (1st round) and Jacob deGrom (9th round) that year.

    Doc: Do you think that using Harvey for 189.1 regular season innings plus 26.2 innings post season including 2 high leverage WS starts the year following his TJ surgery had anything/everything to do with his subsequent failure?

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    1. who is the man behind the curtain for the Mets who had an eagle eye to judging pitching talent that year
      to acquire (and develop) four arms like that is not a fluke

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    2. I wonder, who did orchestrate the rise and fall of the New Yourk MetsMets have done so well beginning in 2012:
      4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st (lost WS), 2nd (lost WC), 4th, 4th.
      Short dynasty: 4th to 1st to 4th.
      Like the Giants, the Mets are lucky to have someone really bad to finish 5th in their division.

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    3. Rise: Sandy Anderson. Fall: Fred Wilpon.

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