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Additional (ie. later) installments will reflect some methodology changes I am intending but not yet finished with.\u00a0 First, I want to go deeper into assessing the development side of things and will incorporate some early career scouting projections and compare with actual results.\u00a0 It has been observed that these results probably reflect the drafting\/scouting side more than the development side. Will see if I can improve on that. I also want to update the methodology to segregate WAR received by the drafting team versus WAR received by other teams.\u00a0 For example, this will reduce the award given to the Cardinals for being smart enough to draft Max Scherzer, but not rich (or aggressive) enough to sign him.\u00a0 Will have to see how this goes.\u00a0 But that is for next time.\u00a0\u00a0 For today, here is the annual update using the same methodology.<\/p>\n
For this update, I am narrowing the scope of analysis to the last ten years.\u00a0 Years 2016-2025.\u00a0 I\u2019ve already published the last 25 years, and that won\u2019t change much with just one season piled on, so I wanted a more contemporary view, trading off depth of data for recency. Just for a different look.<\/p>\n
A couple of reminders<\/p>\n
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It is hard to evaluate drafts more recent than 7 years ago using actual player performance.\u00a0 If I can find a good data source, I want to add next 3 year projections for more recent draftees.\u00a0 I can see them on FanGraphs, but can I query them?\u00a0 Until I achieve that, remember that post 2020 drafts won\u2019t produce a lot of notable players yet.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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Notable players are those who accumulate 10 fWAR (5 for primary relievers).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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This analysis includes international free agents, both Caribbean and Asian, so it really isn\u2019t literally just \u201cdraft\u201d.\u00a0 The Japanese league players skew the results a bit, and are arguably not amateurs, but there aren\u2019t enough of them yet to push me to write code to eliminate them.\u00a0 Suffice to say, Ohtani makes the Angels look better than they really are.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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A good drafting team lands at least one \u201cnotable\u201d player every year on average, plus one IFA every fifth year.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Some noteworthy items from this update<\/p>\n
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The expected drop in Cardinal draft quality has not yet materialized<\/strong>.\u00a0 Would you be surprised that the Cardinal have drafted (since 2016) the second highest total of \u201cnotable\u201d player WAR in baseball?\u00a0 Total of 45 fWAR, a bit behind the #1 Mariners coming in at 51 fWAR.\u00a0 Given the current state of affairs with the Cardinals, I was anticipating a drop in the rankings, not a climb.\u00a0 I looked more closely and the Cardinals are resting their laurels on the nice 2016 draft (and international signing).\u00a0 If some more recent draftees (or IFAs) don\u2019t break out soon, the drop will come.\u00a0 On the other hand, if they do break out soon, they will be \u2026 right on time.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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2017 was a horrible draft year.\u00a0 For everyone. <\/strong>Across MLB, only two players from that draft have accumulated more than 10 fWAR (Hunter Greene, Daulton Varsho).\u00a0 By comparison, the 2018 draft has produced 10 \u201cnotable\u201d players, and the 2019 draft has produced 9 more.\u00a0 All nineteen players have more fWAR than any 2018 draftee. \u00a0Even the 2020 draft has produced as many notables as 2017, and it is way too soon to evaluate the 2020 draft class.\u00a0 After 8 years, it seems fair to say that it turns out that the Correa scandal draft penalties really didn\u2019t cost anything.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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We get impatient with prospects.<\/strong> \u00a0Walker is never going to make it (class of 2020).\u00a0 The Cardinals held McGreevy down too long (class of 2021).\u00a0 Burleson is at peak value so we should trade him (class of 2020).\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at the good young players who have emerged from this draft period and who have made notable status.\u00a0 Julio Rodriguez (class of 2018).\u00a0 Elly De La Cruz (class of 2017).\u00a0 Geraldo Perdomo (class of 2016). Cal Raleigh and Logan Gilbert (class of 2018).\u00a0 Notice anything? Is it possible that some of the Cardinal prospects drafted a fair bit later haven\u2019t arrived yet because \u2026 it\u2019s not time?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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The team rankings changed a fair bit.<\/strong>\u00a0 Only the Cardinals and Dodgers (shocking!) remained in the elite group (top 20%).\u00a0 The Angels, Yankees, Red Sox and Braves fell out (the Braves fell just outside at 7th).\u00a0 The Mariners moved up from just outside (7th) into the elite class.\u00a0 The Guardians, Blue Jays and Astros moved up, the Astros benefitting from a data range that omits their poor drafting before 2010 and includes their seminal draft year of 2016 (Bregman, et.al.).\u00a0 The Guardians move from 24th to 6th is very impressive.\u00a0 I could say their change in focus was a good gamble, but it\u2019s probably too soon for that sardonic quip.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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For the Cardinals, evaluation and development has probably been the downfall, more than poor drafting.<\/strong>\u00a0 The overall results here suggest the Cardinals have yet to (and may not) show signs of poor drafting.\u00a0 This tends to corroborate the view that development and evaluation has been the key issue; one they have acknowledged and are working to address.\u00a0 Through the 10-year period, the Cardinals match up with anyone on quality players selected.\u00a0 Yet almost all of them are playing elsewhere (Gallen, Arozarena, Edman, Garcia) and they almost certainly didn\u2019t get enough value back for players that have gone on to become notable.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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High picks only slightly improve drafting odds.\u00a0 <\/strong>Consistent with prior findings, only two of the ten top picks (1-1) from this time series have impacted MLB so far.\u00a0 Of the forty-three drafted notables in this class, more than 2\/3rds come from outside the first round.\u00a0 The 2\/3rds of first round draft picks who have achieved notable status come from outside the top ten picks.\u00a0 The Cardinals picking 13th isn\u2019t the end of the world.\u00a0 The worse teams pick higher (by rule).\u00a0 The better teams pick lower, and better (by results).\u00a0 2026 will be the draft year we see if excluding bad teams from multiple lottery picks changes this outcome.\u00a0 Of course, we won\u2019t know until about 2035.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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Predictions aren\u2019t my forte.\u00a0 <\/strong>But I will try these, even without benefit of the Zips 3-year projections.\u00a0 I\u2019d expect Masyn Winn and Ivan Herrera to cross into notable status, perhaps as early as next season.\u00a0 It would take a normal 3.7 fWAR season for Masyn and a healthy, great 5.2 fWAR season from Herrera.\u00a0 Lars Nootbaar will likely cross as well, as just a 1.1 fWar season will vault him into that threshold.\u00a0 So don\u2019t expect next year\u2019s numbers to show any cratering of the Cardinals pretty strong draft evaluations.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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For those that need a reminder of how rare a \u201cnotable\u201d player is, check out the following chart:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/a2de07d74b835d51c6fe58360ab98d70.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nNext up<\/strong><\/p>\n
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I continue to work to apply some draft methodology changes as described in this article.\u00a0 If anything interesting surfaces from that work, there will be another article or two.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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I also continue to generate data scrapes to support Solanus\u2019 data collection.\u00a0 He has some really interesting stuff going (all by hand tabulation).\u00a0 I can see an article or two coming out of that, but I will let him guide that.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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Off and on over the last year, I\u2019ve been trying to research the various tech that the Cardinals are acquiring and implementing throughout their system.\u00a0 I\u2019m kind of cyber-stalking Robert Butler, the Cardinals\u2019 Director of Performance.\u00a0 Boy, they have a lot of gadgets.\u00a0 Figuring out what to do with all the measurements must be an adventure unto itself.\u00a0 That should produce an article or two sometime\u2026<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
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Last, I\u2019m finalizing plans for the annual pilgrimage to Jupiter.\u00a0 That usually results in some good stuff to write.\u00a0 Warm up for in-season game recaps, if nothing else.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I am back with an annual update to my series on measuring how teams like the Cardinals do…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":441403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[7951,4711,119864,2442,95788,6367,14504,4251,219906,34549,76911,128058,20415,76910,5920,219907,1266,8328,3959,62,106713,67,132,68,2386],"class_list":{"0":"post-486981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-astros","9":"tag-cal-raleigh","10":"tag-daulton-varsho","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-edman","13":"tag-elly-de-la-cruz","14":"tag-geraldo-perdomo","15":"tag-hunter-greene","16":"tag-ivan-herrera","17":"tag-julio-rodriguez","18":"tag-lars-nootbaar","19":"tag-logan-gilbert","20":"tag-mariners","21":"tag-masyn-winn","22":"tag-max-scherzer","23":"tag-mcgreevy","24":"tag-mlb","25":"tag-ohtani","26":"tag-red-sox","27":"tag-sports","28":"tag-the-cardinals","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115825296396759607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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