What the "Change the draft" posters in this thread seem to want is 8th, 13th or lower round picks to be BL-quality.  To their credit, they are not asking that 300 BL-quality players be available in the draft.   So, in order to get a 10th round pick to be BL-quality, some of the earlier picks have to be busts.    As I've said repeatedly, having random busts in the first couple of rounds will destroy the future of a team.  They're envisioning drafting 1/3 of a BL team in one season.   Which would be great for that team.   However, it would be devastating to another.  And, as you know, the devastated team's owner can simply not renew and move on.

Are there any real-life examples where teams have hauled in eight eventual MLers in a single draft? That seems like an awfully high rate of success, even with 50-plus rounds. That seems ludicrous for 25 rounds, even with supplemental picks.

I like drafting players with ML potential as much as anyone, and take proactive steps (scouting budgets + manually ranking 150 or so prospects) to improve my odds of doing so, but I'm happy if I get a couple of likely starters and some potential role players/trade bait. After that first morning's perusal of my draft results, when I make my offers, I don't ever really think of which round they were selected. But I sure as hell would remember the time I'd invested my fake but limited budget and real but limited time to pick up a guy who randomly flamed out so someone could have the fun of randomly nabbing a starter in the eighth round.

Exactly, Also if you increase the number of big leaguers in the draft you are still left with the same amount of big leaguers in the draft. The only difference would be that the thresh hold for what is considered a future BLer is raised.

****Not sure if this makes any sense.****

It does in a weird, scary way.

There's just no system that will produce 13th round studs other than making the draft entirely random.   And, if that's what it came down to, I think most of us would invest 0/0 into scouting and pick based on age/current ratings.

After the players have been drafted and signed, the round in which they were acquired is nothing more than a trivial bit of information.

Some owners may try to use this info to their benefit in trade negotiations ("But he was a former first round pick!  I need more in return!"), but smart owners won't necessarily bite ("Yeah, but he's still a turd!").

So in the end, does it really matter in which round a potential major league is drafted? 

If you're hoping to get more than 3-4 BL players in a draft, yes it does.   Because you're not getting them in the 6th round(although I did have one 6th rounder have nice career as a LR).

So the question really is: unless you have a bunch of comp picks from departed Type A/B FA's, is getting more than 3-4 potential major leaguers in a single draft class a reasonable expectation for a franchise?

I'd say: it shouldn't be.

Posted by travisg on 7/21/2010 8:02:00 AM (view original):
I already get pretty excited about the draft. Is there a widespread problem of owners not getting excited "enough" by the current setup? Is that what this suggestion is intended to fix?

Mike made a point about how the scenario I proposed wouldn't make the draft any more fun for certain owners. I subbed in excited.

In my scenario, you would draft 8 or 9 guys who looked like potential big leaguers on draft day. But ultimately you'd only wind up with 2-3 major leaguers.

As is, you go into a draft knowing that the 1st and supplemental are the only rounds that count. There is low incentive to rank a lot of players. Some owners argue that they don't have to spend much on scouting, because they can guess based on current ratings and get an ok 1st rounder.

The alternate changes the way prospects grow, makes some things less certain, makes it possible to have mid-draft picks blossom, etc. It would be more realistic.
And in spite of Mike's protesting, I don't see how any legit owner would quit after one season of this kind of draft. There would be no way to know that his picks were busts that quickly. If someone were to quit and use that as an excuse, I have to figure he wasn't in it for the long haul anyway.

No, you could potentially wind up with 8 or 9 guys.   If you're only going to get 2 or 3, there's no point in crippling another franchise just so you can say "Look at this guy I got in the 9th round!!!!"

In your scenario, some teams could be big winners in the draft by hitting the "accelerated growth" jackpot.    And, for every winner, there is a loser.  And the losers need someone to rep them in this.   As I said, I'm picking bottom half of the draft almost every season.   I'd love to get some studs at 24th.  But, in order for that to happen, 23 other teams have to miss them or there has to be 24 studs.   As K26 pointed out, if there are 30 studs in every draft, the meaning of stud changes.

The thing about all this is that you already have players who stall and never come close to their projected ratings. You also have guys that get very close to their projected ratings. The makeup rating determines this. The difference between real life and HBD is that in HBD you know which players have a strong work(Makeup rating) ethic and you draft those guys in. In real life, scouts dpn't always know if a player works hard. All they really know is a players talent level. The only true way to make sanderbear's idea possible is to hide the makeup rating until after the draft.

I'll disagree that scouts are not going to know a player's work ethic.  Scouts talk to coaches, and scouts talk to each other.  Word gets around.

But if you're going to hide the makeup rating before the draft, you should also hide the health rating as well.  A poor health rating is potentially just as bad as a poor makeup rating, because a guy who is chronically getting injured is going to keep seeing his development getting knocked back a couple of notches at a time.

Make-up isn't the only thing.  I believed this for a very long time.   There is a built-in "potential" that we don't see.  Two examples(both drafted and developed by me):
http://www.whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=1660080
http://www.whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=2820167
13, 6, 4 with 90+ make-up
10, 7, 4 with 60 make-up

Both had similar AB in each of their seasons.   Davis had a big start(but he started at a lower overall).  Morgan had a bigger jump in his 2nd full season.  And they evened out in their 3rd full season.   By their 4th season, they're pretty much the same guy.    With a 30+ point difference in make-up.

"As is, you go into a draft knowing that the 1st and supplemental are the only rounds that count."

I just spent an hour ranking players for my Mays team, which doesn't have a pick until the end of Round 2 (and after a lengthy supplemental round). I'll probably spend another half hour on it this afternoon, if I've got time. I'm reasonably sure I'll draft at least one player who'll make a ML roster one day.

"There is low incentive to rank a lot of players."

One reasonably certain MLer isn't the best return on my 1.5-hour investment, but I also gave up my first-round pick for a SP who's helping my team right now. But maybe I'll get a DITR out of one of my guys, or maybe someone will slip due to signing demands. You never know.

"Some owners argue that they don't have to spend much on scouting, because they can guess based on current ratings and get an ok 1st rounder."

You can make those reasonable guesses, it's true, but you need to invest in scouting to see more players, right?

Posted by tecwrg on 7/21/2010 1:04:00 PM (view original):
I'll disagree that scouts are not going to know a player's work ethic.  Scouts talk to coaches, and scouts talk to each other.  Word gets around.

But if you're going to hide the makeup rating before the draft, you should also hide the health rating as well.  A poor health rating is potentially just as bad as a poor makeup rating, because a guy who is chronically getting injured is going to keep seeing his development getting knocked back a couple of notches at a time.

Yeah, I know that they talk to coaches and they find out all of the info that they can on a player. I was drafted a year ago. I went through the process. But, while he was a very hard worker, I bet scouts didnt really know that Tim Beckham was a huge party boy that lived a lifestyle that was not conducive to being a pro athlete. Last year in short season, there were older guys on the team wondering why they were still in A ball, while they went out and got hammered every night after the game.

All I am saying is that prospects in real life, unlike HBD, do not have a little number assigned next to them that tell scouts how they will develop.