THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Figuring out a better way to judge and develop prospects would save millions for the first few clubs that are innovative enough to invest in this area.  Watching an 18 year old in a few high school games where it is likely that there are no players on the opposition team that are major league prospects is not going to tell you much.  A team, or perhaps MLB as a whole, should be spending money to develop a battery of tests that will give an accurate picture of a prospect’s physical assets and weaknesses.  Including some genetic markers about how his body may develop in the future.  Workouts should be developed that can be video taped and studied to determine the current state of a prospect’s baseball abilities.  MLB should pay to install Pitch f/x equipment and operators at the site of the college world series and selected state high school finals.  Prospective draftees should have to attend a combine like tryout camp for a week where they could be fully evaluated. 

Once a player has been drafted and signed he should be a 12 month employee of the team.  His winters should be spent at a team run development camp where his physical conditioning, nutrition, and baseball skills development could be custom tailored and constantly monitored.  Recent ex major league and high minor league players could be hired to provide competition for game situational play.  Such a structured learning environment would be much more productive than sending young player’s off to play winter ball someplace or letting him have a 4 month holiday with no monitoring at all.

That doesn’t sound like something that would appeal to most players, from a quality of life issue.  I can understand a team saying a player needs to make greater commitments than the average person given that they are getting paid millions of dollars.

Most players these days do treat baseball as a 12 month job, though they don’t spend all 12 at a team facility.  I’m not sure how much those measures would improve performance, or allow teams to better project amateur players, but it sounds a little too much for me.  I like the world fine enough as it is, and welcome those players who turn out to surprise you.

The easiest way to change things would be to eliminate the anti-trust exemption that baseball has and make the minor-leagues truly independent. Most of the minor-league teams would fold, but those that remained would be truly independent, and they would be out there trying to sign the best talent that they could afford. If this happened, you wouldn’t be seeing very many high-schoolers signing with major-league clubs. Most of them would be playing in college or signing with minor-league teams in the hope of later moving up as their skills developed. Pro basketball and football would likely have as much trouble projecting young talent as baseball if they had a monopolistic minor-league set-up and were signing a lot of undeveloped players out of high school as well as college.

Just out of curiosity, is there data out there that show that baseball is full of more surprises than other sports?

As another reason for surprises in baseball that I’ve heard is the switch from aluminum to wooden bats (at least for hitters), does that really matter?

I think that Prior is a pretty bogus example of a supposedly failed prospect.  He was absolutely great and it was clear that his workload was extremely heavy.  Had he been drafted by Minnesota instead of the Cubs and given the Johan Santana treatment instead of the Kerry Wood treatment, Prior very likely wouldn’t have had as much trouble with injury and no one would mention him in the same breath as Sean Burroughs.

If prospects are more unpredictable than non-prospects, Prior is not a data point in support of that argument.

Barry, I don’t have the data, but I would say it’s pretty obvious (at least with hockey and basketball).

I don’t know what would happen if football signed players out of HS and put them into a development league.

But in basketball, we have seen that the top high school prospects can contribute right away, and some become superstars by their 2nd seasons.

Just out of curiosity, is there data out there that show that baseball is full of more surprises than other sports?

I would argue that the market says yes.  NFL draft lasts 7 rounds, the NBA lasts 2, and the MLB lasts for...a million rounds?  Even accounting for roster space, it seems to me that the MLB is tacitly admitting that even a very lowly-ranked player might become a contributor and so the draft continues for a long time.

Maybe baseball talent is harder to see right away.

Maybe it’s the just the size of the minor leagues. I wonder what would happen in the majors if they drafted about 5 rounds every year, and only maintained one minor league team per franchise.  What would happen to the players not drafted?  Maybe some of them who under the current system can show they can play would just have to find regular jobs, and never develop their skills.

Of the players who still get drafted, they would have an easier path to the majors - less competition.

Thanks for all the responses… I don’t follow the other sports as closely as baseball… So I wasn’t sure how representative my anecdotal info (e.g., undrafted FAs Ben Roethlisberger that succeed vs. highly draftedplayers like Ryan Leaf that don’t) is…

It’s interesting that Barry would point to NFL players (and Tango to NBA and NHL players).  I know football the best of the other sports and my feeling is that there is a pretty solid number of “surprise” players.

If you look at Pro Bowl rosters there does seem to be a pretty good chunk of undrafted players nevermind the afterthought second day of draft players.

And on the other end of the spectrum there are plenty of very highly scouted and drilled and combined quarterbacks (many of the things that Peter suggests in #1) who are busts at a cost of tens of millions of dollars (as opposed to the low 7 figure bonuses of MLB 1st rd picks).

I’ve heard this largely attributed to the importance of “schemes” in football.  Now I don’t know this may be some conventional wisdom that has been debunked by the Bill James of football whoever that is.  But like all CW it does make sense.  A great outside linebacker in a 3-4 system may be a guy who never quite fits in a 4-3 defense.  Late rd pick Tom Brady goes to a team that needs a big arm QB in a long pass offense and he never gets off the bench.

I would really like to hear the thoughts of an expert on anti-trust law on the real effects that removing the exemption would have on baseball.  When any issue involving the business of baseball is discussed, the anti-trust exemption is always brought up.  But it’s often brought up in relationship to things that the other major leagues do too.  The NBA has a developmental league, the NHL has minor leagues with affiliated clubs, and the first incarnation of NFL Europe had half of its teams in the USA.  So color me skeptical that a removal of the anti-trust exemption would automatically mean the end of the minors as we know them.

Also, I agree with Rally/2.  I would not be surprised if the long-term result of such a policy would be a lower quality of prospect as young men decided they had better things to do with their lives.

Also, re: #10, Roethlisberger was not an undrafted FA.  He was a top 15 pick, although he did go after Eli Manning and Phillip Rivers (who have been pretty good in their own right).  Perhaps you were thinking of Roethlisberger’s opposite number in the Super Bowl, Kurt Warner.

Peter/#1 (I’m late to the conversation!)

I think the CWS is plausible for MLB to pay for pitchF/X to be installed, but the problem at the HS level is that you’d miss many a top HS prospect simply because his team was beat in an earlier round by another top HS prospect and often times the state title game will move around to different sites.

#13

Obviously, you’re correct (and this is, of course, why I don’t trust my anecdotal evidence)…

It’s hardly suprising that you see more Undrafted Free Agents beeing contributors in the NFL compared to MLB. To some extent it is simply a numbers game.

While I haven’t studied this in detail a not unreasonable guess is that a typical NFL team will give some playing time to say ten times as many players each year than what they draft. Compare this to MLB where you draft 25 players each year, so I guess the corresponding factor is more like two times or so.