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THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Billy Beane

By Tangotiger, 07:13 AM

Rally points out from Moneyball:

“Scott Kazmir is yet another high school pitcher in whom the A’s haven’t the slightest interest. Billy’s so excited he doesn’t even bother to say how foolish it is to take a high school pitcher with a first round pick.”

Drafting one spot after the A’s, another team was foolish enough to waste a first round pick on a high school lefthander, and Cole Hamels went to Philadelphia.

Intentionally never drafting a high school pitcher in the first round is as foolish as intentionally never sac bunting.  If you have 1000 American 18 year olds on one hand, and 1000 Canadian 18 year olds on the other hand, you are naturally NOT going to select 15 Americans and 15 Canadians in the first round.  But, is it possible that the correct balance is 29 and 1?

As this old Keith Scherer article noted with an assist from me:

Our conclusion is that from 1985-1991, teams’ scouting philosophies and expectations regarding high school and college pitchers were in line with what actually transpired. We had equilibrium.

(16) Comments • 2008/10/24 • SabermetricsMinors_College
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October 22, 2008
Billy Beane