THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Draft Picks or Young Players?

Dave at USSM looks at what to do with Ichiro: trade him for current players, or wait to claim draft picks?  He rolls up his sleeves, does all the great dirty work that we hope for, and finds this:

Out of the 41 players received in return for the 16 traded all-stars, two have turned into all-stars (Grady Sizemore and Aaron Harang), several more are good everyday players or mid-rotation starters (Mark Teahen, John Buck, Brandon Phillips, Placido Polanco, Cliff Lee, Jake Westbrook), and the other 33 aren’t in baseball anymore or have little to no value…
Of the 42 compensation selections on the list, three have become all-stars - David Wright, Nick Swisher, and Huston Street. Several more have become solid contributors - Joe Blanton, Mark Teahen, David Aardsma, and Aaron Heilman. And, a few others have become the elite prospects in baseball today - Philip Hughes, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Adam Miller, while JoJo Reyes is just a good pitching prospect instead of an elite one, and ‘07 draft picks Beaven, Borbon, Smoker, and Zimmerman are far too young to determine their value at this point.  27 of the picks could be labeled as busts, even though a couple still have a shot to turn into major league role players down the road.

I don’t like the “aren’t in baseball anymore” provision, since they could have certainly done something from then through 2006 (Bobby Kielty for one).  However, Dave does give you the list of names, so you are free to make up your own conditions.

At the very least, the “get something for him now” crowd clearly aren’t thinking about the opportunity cost.  There’s this thinking that if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.  And draft picks are treated as some distant possible hope, a lottery, by this group.  On the flip side, even if the draft picks return better players than the “get something for him now” players, you still have to wait a bit to get those players.  You need to apply some discount value to that.

In the end, dropping Ichiro means that you lose him for two months and you lose the two draft picks (one a bust, and one who may be ok), in return for three players, two of which will be a bust, and one of which may turn out ok. 

Pick your poison.