Bleacher Bums Forum

Not really...

jes, there's no question but that the *best* guy among 4-6 will be much better, on average, than 7, once you know who's best among 4-6.  Absolutely, and that supports the argument that when you're picking at 7, you're selection pool will often be missing a good player.  But if you took the *best* of picks 8-10, that also works significantly better than 7, even though the best of the 8-10 guys were available at 7. 

Yes, maybe at 7 you'll miss out on a guy you wanted, and who'll turn out great.  And certainly your chances to get somebody really good will increase if you have 3 top-ten picks rather than just one, whether those 3 are 4-5-6 or are 8-9-10.  But I'm not sure there's strong evidence that success ratio picking one guy, at 4, without the benefit of retrospect, is lots higher than picking one guy at 5, or one guy at 6, or one guy at 7. 

If we had perfect prescient scouts who'd know exactly which guy on the board will work out best, it would be very helpful.  So would having three top-ten picks.  Unfortunately they'll only get one pick, and they won't know how the guy will do. 

It's not hard to look at just 7th picks and 4th picks, since I listed the 4th to 6th in order.

With those numbers you still get a cumulative WAR of 105.6, for an average WAR of 7.5.  For the 4th pick you have a cumulative WAR of 142.6, for an average WAR of 10.2.  But since Teixera and Drew both went with the 5th pick instead of the 4th largely because of signing concerns, both of them would more properly be considered as #4 picks (or perhaps even #3), which would increase the WAR margin quite a bit.

Samardzija finishes the year with a 4.33 ERA and 1.35 WHIP.

Pretty disappointing overall.

Samardzija finishes the year with a 4.33 ERA and 1.35 WHIP.

Pretty disappointing overall.

At least he made it through the season with his arm still attached to his body, which is no small thing nowadays.

Another poster noted earlier the difference between just the 4th and 5th slots is 700K. That's not chump change. Between the 4th and 7th slots its 1.3 million. The difference between second round slots adds another 100K. Given that the total pool for last year was 202 million, 1.4 million represents 21% of the average size draft pool. This is HUGE, and likely much greater significance than who is available at 4 vs 7.

You may be right, but I think I see it differently. 

I think it's the player and the spot that matters, and that the money will just follow the higher-picked player.  If they pick 4th rather than 5th or 6th, almost all of the extra money will go to the guy they pick at 4 rather than at 5 or 6.  For them, I expect that getting their BPA at 4, rather than settling for their 2nd or 3rd guys, will be their priority and will absorb the cash. 

We can say that the difference between 4 and the next one or two or three guys is meaningless.  But in each of the past two drafts, the Cubs have ID'd their BPA, and paid way extra compared to what other teams have been doing in order to secure him, and have pretty much burned their cash on their top guy. 

I expect it will be the same next summer.  They'll ID their top guy for their pick, they'll pay him a lot to get him because they'll want him above guy 6 or guy 7 because they do believe the difference matters, and they won't have much extra for any exciting serious superslots later. 

The #4 money matters, because it will enable them to get the guy they want at 4. 

But if Gregg loses us a game or two, for example, I don't think that will have any harmful impact.

Craig strikes again!

Too bad Rusin's magic didn't last two more starts.  Maybe they could've tricked someone into trading for him this offseason if his last two starts hadn't been awful.

Of course, from the perspective of the most effective way to manage a bullpen, he did bring Strop in the inning where the soon-to-be league MVP was due...so it's not a bad move from a baseball perspective.