I am back with an annual update to my series on measuring how teams like the Cardinals do at draft-and-development. This will be a multi-part series. This first installment will essentially add the 2025
season to the numbers and comb out some interesting tidbits, focusing more on the Cardinals than the rest of the league.
Last year’s update is here …. You can follow the chain back from there, if you have spare time.
Additional (ie. later) installments will reflect some methodology changes I am intending but not yet finished with. 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. 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. 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. Will have to see how this goes. But that is for next time. For today, here is the annual update using the same methodology.
For this update, I am narrowing the scope of analysis to the last ten years. Years 2016-2025. I’ve already published the last 25 years, and that won’t 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.
A couple of reminders
- It is hard to evaluate drafts more recent than 7 years ago using actual player performance. If I can find a good data source, I want to add next 3 year projections for more recent draftees. I can see them on FanGraphs, but can I query them? Until I achieve that, remember that post 2020 drafts won’t produce a lot of notable players yet.
- Notable players are those who accumulate 10 fWAR (5 for primary relievers).
- This analysis includes international free agents, both Caribbean and Asian, so it really isn’t literally just “draft”. The Japanese league players skew the results a bit, and are arguably not amateurs, but there aren’t enough of them yet to push me to write code to eliminate them. Suffice to say, Ohtani makes the Angels look better than they really are.
- A good drafting team lands at least one “notable” player every year on average, plus one IFA every fifth year.
Some noteworthy items from this update
- The expected drop in Cardinal draft quality has not yet materialized. Would you be surprised that the Cardinal have drafted (since 2016) the second highest total of “notable” player WAR in baseball? Total of 45 fWAR, a bit behind the #1 Mariners coming in at 51 fWAR. Given the current state of affairs with the Cardinals, I was anticipating a drop in the rankings, not a climb. I looked more closely and the Cardinals are resting their laurels on the nice 2016 draft (and international signing). If some more recent draftees (or IFAs) don’t break out soon, the drop will come. On the other hand, if they do break out soon, they will be … right on time.
- 2017 was a horrible draft year. For everyone. Across MLB, only two players from that draft have accumulated more than 10 fWAR (Hunter Greene, Daulton Varsho). By comparison, the 2018 draft has produced 10 “notable” players, and the 2019 draft has produced 9 more. All nineteen players have more fWAR than any 2018 draftee. Even the 2020 draft has produced as many notables as 2017, and it is way too soon to evaluate the 2020 draft class. After 8 years, it seems fair to say that it turns out that the Correa scandal draft penalties really didn’t cost anything.
- We get impatient with prospects. Walker is never going to make it (class of 2020). The Cardinals held McGreevy down too long (class of 2021). Burleson is at peak value so we should trade him (class of 2020). Let’s look at the good young players who have emerged from this draft period and who have made notable status. Julio Rodriguez (class of 2018). Elly De La Cruz (class of 2017). Geraldo Perdomo (class of 2016). Cal Raleigh and Logan Gilbert (class of 2018). Notice anything? Is it possible that some of the Cardinal prospects drafted a fair bit later haven’t arrived yet because … it’s not time?
- The team rankings changed a fair bit. Only the Cardinals and Dodgers (shocking!) remained in the elite group (top 20%). The Angels, Yankees, Red Sox and Braves fell out (the Braves fell just outside at 7th). The Mariners moved up from just outside (7th) into the elite class. 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.). The Guardians move from 24th to 6th is very impressive. I could say their change in focus was a good gamble, but it’s probably too soon for that sardonic quip.
- For the Cardinals, evaluation and development has probably been the downfall, more than poor drafting. The overall results here suggest the Cardinals have yet to (and may not) show signs of poor drafting. This tends to corroborate the view that development and evaluation has been the key issue; one they have acknowledged and are working to address. Through the 10-year period, the Cardinals match up with anyone on quality players selected. Yet almost all of them are playing elsewhere (Gallen, Arozarena, Edman, Garcia) and they almost certainly didn’t get enough value back for players that have gone on to become notable.
- High picks only slightly improve drafting odds. Consistent with prior findings, only two of the ten top picks (1-1) from this time series have impacted MLB so far. Of the forty-three drafted notables in this class, more than 2/3rds come from outside the first round. The 2/3rds of first round draft picks who have achieved notable status come from outside the top ten picks. The Cardinals picking 13th isn’t the end of the world. The worse teams pick higher (by rule). The better teams pick lower, and better (by results). 2026 will be the draft year we see if excluding bad teams from multiple lottery picks changes this outcome. Of course, we won’t know until about 2035.
- Predictions aren’t my forte. But I will try these, even without benefit of the Zips 3-year projections. I’d expect Masyn Winn and Ivan Herrera to cross into notable status, perhaps as early as next season. It would take a normal 3.7 fWAR season for Masyn and a healthy, great 5.2 fWAR season from Herrera. Lars Nootbaar will likely cross as well, as just a 1.1 fWar season will vault him into that threshold. So don’t expect next year’s numbers to show any cratering of the Cardinals pretty strong draft evaluations.
For those that need a reminder of how rare a “notable” player is, check out the following chart:
Next up
- I continue to work to apply some draft methodology changes as described in this article. If anything interesting surfaces from that work, there will be another article or two.
- I also continue to generate data scrapes to support Solanus’ data collection. He has some really interesting stuff going (all by hand tabulation). I can see an article or two coming out of that, but I will let him guide that.
- Off and on over the last year, I’ve been trying to research the various tech that the Cardinals are acquiring and implementing throughout their system. I’m kind of cyber-stalking Robert Butler, the Cardinals’ Director of Performance. Boy, they have a lot of gadgets. Figuring out what to do with all the measurements must be an adventure unto itself. That should produce an article or two sometime…
- Last, I’m finalizing plans for the annual pilgrimage to Jupiter. That usually results in some good stuff to write. Warm up for in-season game recaps, if nothing else.
