A Better Amateur Draft (aka the Pujols Problem) Topic

sanderbear
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Posted by MikeT23 on 7/21/2010 4:53:00 PM (view original):
No they wouldn't.  The odds now are that you get a BL player with your first two picks.  The odds under your scenario are less.
I don't see how that's possible. Now, if you spend heavily on the draft, you might wind up with a 1st rounder and a supplemental and maybe a 2nd rounder who are solid major leaguers. If you don't spend heavily on the draft, you might wind up with a 1st rounder who's solid.

Under my scenario, on draft day, if you spend a lot on the draft, you'll get 8-9 guys who look like they have major-league talent. If you don't spend that much, you might wind up with half that amount.

So you have more chances for success in the draft. You'll probably still wind up with 2 or 3 quality major leaguers, but they will be spread among more rounds of the draft. Some teams might wind up with more, some less -- just like now. If you have quality minor league coaching and a large training budget, you might improve your chances of having your draftees hit their marks. If you trade for another team's busts, you might be able to turn them around because of your training and coaching.

Really, this isn't that difficult a concept.
7/21/2010 9:52 PM
sanderbear
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Posted by travisg on 7/21/2010 6:44:00 PM (view original):
Posted by sanderbear on 7/21/2010 4:51:00 PM (view original):
Posted by travisg on 7/21/2010 4:13:00 PM (view original):
Posted by sanderbear on 7/21/2010 3:57:00 PM (view original):
Then you should do that now, so that you can get a decent 1st rounder and not much more.

Whatever. I think random busts make for a more realistic game. Some owners would benefit one year, other owners would benefit another year. Just like real life. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't. As is, the draft is extremely predictable and of limited (albeit pretty consistent) value.
The draft really isn't predictable at all, since talent pools vary from year to year, but it does offer a consistent value. I like knowing that I'll land at least one or two ML prospects every season.

In my scenario, odds would favor you still landing 1-2 major league prospects every season.

Under your scenario, I'd have to rank twice as many players as I currently do to land the same number of ML prospects? No, thanks.
Under my scenario, you might wind up with 5 or 6 major leaguers. You might draft 8 or 9 guys who have major league potential. That's not the same as the current system.

Right now, you could rank 25 guys, and get your 1st rounder and 2nd rounder, and go home. The odds of you getting anything more of quality after round 2 is low, especially if you don't spend a ton on scouting for the draft.

By comparison, under my scenario, you rank 250 guys who look on draft day like they have major-league potential. You wind up with several of those guys. You have more potential guys to try to nurture -- it's just that the system would be set up so that some guys will be busts. So one season, you might wind up with just 1 or 2 our of your 8 or 9 who progress as planned. Another season, you might have 6 or 7 guys progress. Another season, you might have none. But you would have a lot more guys in your system that have potential -- and even if they don't progress with you, they'd be trade bait for another team that thinks that they can turn that prospect around.
7/21/2010 9:56 PM
tecwrg
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"Under my scenario, you might wind up with 5 or 6 major leaguers. You might draft 8 or 9 guys who have major league potential. That's not the same as the current system."  Or you might not get any, if the karma gods are working against you.  That is also not the same as the current system.

"Right now, you could rank 25 guys, and get your 1st rounder and 2nd rounder, and go home. The odds of you getting anything more of quality after round 2 is low, especially if you don't spend a ton on scouting for the draft." I would think that, by now, most veteran owners who pay attention to such things realize that the way to get an advantage via the draft is by doing the extra work to rank beyond the top 25 guys and find value in rounds 3-5.  If you know what you're looking for, you can do this today.
7/21/2010 10:04 PM
MikeT23
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Posted by sanderbear on 7/21/2010 9:52:00 PM (view original):
Posted by MikeT23 on 7/21/2010 4:53:00 PM (view original):
No they wouldn't.  The odds now are that you get a BL player with your first two picks.  The odds under your scenario are less.
I don't see how that's possible. Now, if you spend heavily on the draft, you might wind up with a 1st rounder and a supplemental and maybe a 2nd rounder who are solid major leaguers. If you don't spend heavily on the draft, you might wind up with a 1st rounder who's solid.

Under my scenario, on draft day, if you spend a lot on the draft, you'll get 8-9 guys who look like they have major-league talent. If you don't spend that much, you might wind up with half that amount.

So you have more chances for success in the draft. You'll probably still wind up with 2 or 3 quality major leaguers, but they will be spread among more rounds of the draft. Some teams might wind up with more, some less -- just like now. If you have quality minor league coaching and a large training budget, you might improve your chances of having your draftees hit their marks. If you trade for another team's busts, you might be able to turn them around because of your training and coaching.

Really, this isn't that difficult a concept.
Are you just pretending to be dense?    Per you, you're guaranteed that your first rounder and supplemental/early 2nd pick are BL players under the current system.   Under you plan, you might hit the randomized lotto and get 8-9 potential future BL players(although you keep insisting that some will bust).  So, if one might hit it big, one might not.    Do you understand the difference between "guaranteed" and "might"?    If you do, do you understand why the odds are less with a might?
7/22/2010 7:56 AM (edited)
MikeT23
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Anyway, at the end of the day, you keep insisting that everyone should get the same amount of BL players from the draft in the long run.   Let's say I buy into that.  So the point of this exercise is so you can get an 9th round All-Star/1st round bust instead of a 1st round All-Star/9th round nothing.    Is that worth changing the system?
7/22/2010 6:51 AM
travisg
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"So one season, you might wind up with just 1 or 2 our of your 8 or 9 who progress as planned. Another season, you might have 6 or 7 guys progress. Another season, you might have none. But you would have a lot more guys in your system that have potential -- and even if they don't progress with you, they'd be trade bait for another team that thinks that they can turn that prospect around."

Two things are going to happen under your proposal: Either worlds will become flooded with ML-caliber talent, which would warp the trade and FA markets, or there would need to be a significant amount of random busts to offset the number of potential MLers you're promising (6 or 7 one season, 8 or 9 in another, but sometimes just 1 or 2).

Neither scenario is desirable when compared to what we've got now.
7/22/2010 7:23 AM
travisg
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We just saw our draft results in Mays. As I mentioned earlier, my first pick was at the bottom of the second round (pick 103) in one of the worst draft pools I've ever seen. I grabbed a possible ML reliever with that pick, a potential 5th starter in the 3rd round and a couple of potential ML backup Cs and SS in rounds 9-13.

I really don't see a reason to introduce unintended consequences to this system via the changes you've proposed.
7/22/2010 7:24 AM
sanderbear
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Posted by tecwrg on 7/21/2010 10:04:00 PM (view original):
"Under my scenario, you might wind up with 5 or 6 major leaguers. You might draft 8 or 9 guys who have major league potential. That's not the same as the current system."  Or you might not get any, if the karma gods are working against you.  That is also not the same as the current system.

"Right now, you could rank 25 guys, and get your 1st rounder and 2nd rounder, and go home. The odds of you getting anything more of quality after round 2 is low, especially if you don't spend a ton on scouting for the draft." I would think that, by now, most veteran owners who pay attention to such things realize that the way to get an advantage via the draft is by doing the extra work to rank beyond the top 25 guys and find value in rounds 3-5.  If you know what you're looking for, you can do this today.
"or you might not get any ... that is also not the same as the current system." 

What would the odds be of an owner going 0 for 8 on two or three consecutive drafts? Pretty bad, right? What are the odds now that someone who doesn't have a huge scouting budget winds up with a 1st round pick who is a AAAA guy at best, and not much else to show for the draft? I'm thinking that happens quite a bit. I know every draft, there are 3-4 teams in our world who fail to land any promising prospects.
7/23/2010 2:00 PM
sanderbear
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What I said: "IF you spend heavily on the draft, you MIGHT wind up with a 1st rounder and a supplemental and maybe a 2nd rounder who are solid major leaguers."

How Mike misquoted me: "Per you, you're GUARANTEED that your first rounder and supplemental/early 2nd pick are BL players under the current system." 

Mike understand that when you misquote someone and then argue against that misquote, you can make your argument look much better. Straw man arguments are always easier to win. Yay, Mike! 
7/23/2010 2:04 PM
tecwrg
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Posted by sanderbear on 7/23/2010 2:00:00 PM (view original):
Posted by tecwrg on 7/21/2010 10:04:00 PM (view original):
"Under my scenario, you might wind up with 5 or 6 major leaguers. You might draft 8 or 9 guys who have major league potential. That's not the same as the current system."  Or you might not get any, if the karma gods are working against you.  That is also not the same as the current system.

"Right now, you could rank 25 guys, and get your 1st rounder and 2nd rounder, and go home. The odds of you getting anything more of quality after round 2 is low, especially if you don't spend a ton on scouting for the draft." I would think that, by now, most veteran owners who pay attention to such things realize that the way to get an advantage via the draft is by doing the extra work to rank beyond the top 25 guys and find value in rounds 3-5.  If you know what you're looking for, you can do this today.
"or you might not get any ... that is also not the same as the current system." 

What would the odds be of an owner going 0 for 8 on two or three consecutive drafts? Pretty bad, right? What are the odds now that someone who doesn't have a huge scouting budget winds up with a 1st round pick who is a AAAA guy at best, and not much else to show for the draft? I'm thinking that happens quite a bit. I know every draft, there are 3-4 teams in our world who fail to land any promising prospects.
"What are the odds now that someone who doesn't have a huge scouting budget winds up with a 1st round pick who is a AAAA guy at best, and not much else to show for the draft?"

There are no "odds" involved if that happens today, because if somebody is going low on scouting budget then they are accepting the risk that they might get crap from their first round pick; that's the current cost of budgeting low.  It's a conscious choice of an owner to budget low on draft scouting.  Under your proposal, it still becomes a random hit/miss no matter how high you budget.  Budgeting high moves the odds more to your favor, but it's still possible to strike out.  I don't think that many owners would be too happy if they pour a lot of money into draft scouting and end up with nothing to show for it.
7/23/2010 2:47 PM
MikeT23
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So now you're saying that some teams are not GUARANTEED BL players in the first/supplemental round?    Wouldn't that qualify them as "busts"?    And, if I miss early, doesn't someone else benefit later?  

What is it you want again?

7/23/2010 2:59 PM
sanderbear
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Mike, you clearly don't like my idea. That's fine. But why do you have to mischaracterize it? I see you didn't respond to my calling you out for misquoting.

...

Spend $20M/$20M, and you'll likely wind up with 8 or 9 draft picks (depending on supplementals) who on draft day look like major leaguers. If you have money in training, and pick excellent minor league coaches, you can improve the chances of the 8 or 9 picks living up to expectations. It's possible that some will not work out. In a given draft, yes, you might wind up with 0 -- although that would be as likely as winding up with 8 or 9.

My system would have to incorporate an exaggeration of the current ratings growth model -- so that some prospects would grow very fast, and some would grow very slow (some would grow normally).

Under my system, you would have a lot more trading options. You would also have a lot more interesting/deep draft.

For the team that spends $0M/$0M on scouting, they'd see only a fraction of the deeper draft-day talent pool. Maybe they wind up with 2 or 3 guys who like major leaguers on draft day. Maybe one of them works out, maybe not. People who don't much effort/money into their draft or their minors are going to not see much difference in their drafts or development.

If it's done right, my scenario would benefit teams who work hard on the draft and player development -- which conceivably would include teams that are rebuilding and lining up lots of supplemental 1st round picks. It could also benefit teams that look to trade for prospects.

All of the above more closely mirrors real baseball than the current system.
7/23/2010 3:16 PM
MikeT23
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You didn't answer my question.   If owners AREN'T getting BL players in the first round, aren't they "busts"?    And, since they missed, isn't someone else benefitting later? 

I didn't misquote you because I no longer have any idea what you want.  I thought you were bothered because there were no first round busts.  Now it appears that you think there are. You're still talking about the possibility of some owners getting 8-9 BL players in a draft and other owners getting none.   Which is utterly stupid.  Will you at least recognize that if it's a possibility that an owner will miss on an entire draft that it's possible he could do it several seasons in a row?
7/23/2010 3:25 PM
deathinahole
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To recap;

sandy doesn't want all 1st rounders to be ML players
nor does he want most 2nd rounders
but, by the way of some magic, some players who shouldn't have been ML quality suddenly become major league quality.

Done.
Done.
It's called "DITR"

Yay! It exists! Let's go home!
7/23/2010 3:41 PM
sanderbear
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Mike, you misquoted me. I cited the exact quote and your exact misquote. Own up to it. Have an honest discussion.
7/23/2010 3:43 PM
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