Quote: Originally Posted By nfet on 2/09/2010I don't think this is quite the same thing. I'm talking about guys who bust without indication.

I don't know so much about the real MLs, so maybe someone who knows more can make the connection better, but in real life when a team drafts a player with a high pick and that guy never pans out, is there usually anything that makes people say something like "well, they took a risk drafting that lazy work ethic/bad attitude/often injured guy, and it didn't work."

I would guess that there isn't such an explanation most of the time.


No, usually injury or lack of development are the problem. Guys are dominating against his peers. But, when the step up a level against better competition, they fail to get better. Essentially they peaked early. The scouts are just projecting what they think he can be 4-5 years down the road. Conversely, the 27th round pick is a guy who was just average against his peers. But, once he started facing better competition, his game stepped up. Could be coaching, could be desire or maybe he just developed later.

But, with HBD, we get little numbers attached to players. So we know, roughly, what he is now and what he can be.

The MLB draft just doesn't translate well to HBD. Having first round busts(which we do have) and 19th round finds isn't the answer.

Quote: Originally posted by travisg on 2/09/2010To have a good draft, you have to spend some time ranking players that you could have otherwise spent working, hanging out with your family, cutting the grass, etc. There's your realism.

Randomizing busts punishes owners who spend that time and essentially rewards owners who don't.

Quote: Originally Posted By nfet on 2/09/2010ok, i gotcha.

But, the statement "they fail to get better" is the core of it here. why? Do you mean because a fault of how the team developed them? or because of an unknown


It's hard to say. Like I said, some kids develop earlier. Some are late bloomers. If a scout is looking at an 18 year old kid who's a little wild but throws 94, he's projected to have a career in baseball. They believe they can teach him control. Sometimes they can't. Or maybe he has to dial it back to 86 to keep it in the strike zone. 86 is nothing special. So the kid who averaged 16/K9 his senior season in HS is never going to get out of LoA.

We can't duplicate that in HBD.

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 2/09/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By nfet on 2/09/2010
I don't think this is quite the same thing. I'm talking about guys who bust without indication.

I don't know so much about the real MLs, so maybe someone who knows more can make the connection better, but in real life when a team drafts a player with a high pick and that guy never pans out, is there usually anything that makes people say something like "well, they took a risk drafting that lazy work ethic/bad attitude/often injured guy, and it didn't work."

I would guess that there isn't such an explanation most of the time.



No, usually injury or lack of development are the problem. Guys are dominating against his peers. But, when the step up a level against better competition, they fail to get better. Essentially they peaked early. The scouts are just projecting what they think he can be 4-5 years down the road. Conversely, the 27th round pick is a guy who was just average against his peers. But, once he started facing better competition, his game stepped up. Could be coaching, could be desire or maybe he just developed later.

But, with HBD, we get little numbers attached to players. So we know, roughly, what he is now and what he can be.

The MLB draft just doesn't translate well to HBD. Having first round busts(which we do have) and 19th round finds isn't the answer.

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 2/09/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By nfet on 2/09/2010
ok, i gotcha.

But, the statement "they fail to get better" is the core of it here. why? Do you mean because a fault of how the team developed them? or because of an unknown?



It's hard to say. Like I said, some kids develop earlier. Some are late bloomers. If a scout is looking at an 18 year old kid who's a little wild but throws 94, he's projected to have a career in baseball. They believe they can teach him control. Sometimes they can't. Or maybe he has to dial it back to 86 to keep it in the strike zone. 86 is nothing special. So the kid who averaged 16/K9 his senior season in HS is never going to get out of LoA.

We can't duplicate that in HBD.

Quote: Originally Posted By strikeout26 on 2/09/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 2/09/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By nfet on 2/09/2010
I don't think this is quite the same thing. I'm talking about guys who bust without indication.

I don't know so much about the real MLs, so maybe someone who knows more can make the connection better, but in real life when a team drafts a player with a high pick and that guy never pans out, is there usually anything that makes people say something like "well, they took a risk drafting that lazy work ethic/bad attitude/often injured guy, and it didn't work."

I would guess that there isn't such an explanation most of the time.



No, usually injury or lack of development are the problem. Guys are dominating against his peers. But, when the step up a level against better competition, they fail to get better. Essentially they peaked early. The scouts are just projecting what they think he can be 4-5 years down the road. Conversely, the 27th round pick is a guy who was just average against his peers. But, once he started facing better competition, his game stepped up. Could be coaching, could be desire or maybe he just developed later.

But, with HBD, we get little numbers attached to players. So we know, roughly, what he is now and what he can be.

The MLB draft just doesn't translate well to HBD. Having first round busts(which we do have) and 19th round finds isn't the answer.

Sorry Mike. I usually agree with you, but you are wrong here. You are right that organizations attempt to project how you will do against better competition, but how players do in high school and college does not really matter to them. Check out the stats of two of my college teammates last seasons: Kyle Heckathorn and Chad Jenkins. Both were first rounders and neither pitched very well in college. Heckathorn throws 98 and Jenkins commands 3 pitches.


Tell that to Billy Beane.

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 2/07/2010
Of course there are.

Do you think Baseball America lists the 367th best player in America in the top 50?

We can dance around this all day(I won't, there's a game I want to watch) and we're going to end up in the same spot. Every MLB team knows the top players. They may have #10 rated #3 or #46 at #18 but they know the names. But HBD isn't the same as MLB. If a player has 78 power and is project to 99 with your 3m budget, you know he is somewhere between 78 and 99. Real players don't come with little numbers like that.

The only obvious fix, without a complete overhaul(and even this is huge), is to change current to nothing better than 50. Then the players would have to make HUGE improvements to become BL players. Your budget would give you more accurate projected ratings. So instead of 6-10 points in the first year, they'd be making 18-20 point improvments in their first season.

If they did this, letting everyone see every player wouldn't be so bad. Except for the collusion aspect.