Photo by Craig Nedrow for TalkNats
Don: Joseph Goebbels is quoted for saying
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
And there are claims made and repeated often enough that they come to be accepted as the truth regardless of whether they have ever been fact checked. So this exchange between you two (Steve and Andrew)
One thing in common, no pitching stars turned yet.
That is a Nats system development issue.
in The international signings period begins in a dozen days! #Nats could add some key prospects to the farm like Armando Cruz! caught my eye.
If the Nats are so much worse than every other team as a very significant number of TalkNats commenters seem to agree on, then you should be able to easily name 15 (or more teams) that are better – with data/examples to demonstrate it. And let me clarify that what you both said is true. It just triggered me to think that perhaps it is something that could be looked at analytically.
Now, before you reply with the Dodgers or the Mets or one or two other teams, that does not support the claim. Just because a couple of other teams are better, does not mean that the Nats are bad. It means they are not the best.
Andrew: I don’t see that as a “lie” or even a fabrication of the truth. It goes a step further because you have to take out Stephen Strasburg obviously as he was a 1 of 1 and came to the Nats developed. Jordan Zimmermann was developed under the Bowden group and drafted in 2007. Lucas Giolito was developed by the White Sox and Robbie Ray by the Diamondbacks. I guess the Nats get credit for Tanner Roark. I think he would be it.
Don: You are replying with anecdotal examples – they don’t prove your point. That is my point. You claim that the Nats are worse that average. So you need to show that other teams are better.
I do agree that Giolito was brought up too soon. But that was by necessity; not by plan. It is not necessarily an example of a failure of the Nats to develop him. And Robbie Ray was traded as a minor leaguer. He does not count.
Before we continue down a path of a list of anecdotal examples, can we agree on an objective criteria to evaluate this claim. In a comment on Pick ’em from the discount aisle; Shopping with the #Nats from Casali to Eugenio Suarez! I pointed out that the 1st round draft history for 2014 and 2017 did not demonstrate that the Nats were worse. I did not include 15 and 16 because the Nats did not have a 1st round choice.
So what objective criteria do we want to use to evaluate this claim? 1st/2nd round picks? Picks in later rounds?
Andrew: Sure, the key is looking at drafted players who starred with that team and I would remove the Top-10 picks who were expected to be stars like Gerrit Cole, Strasburg, and Trevor Bauer. Additionally you can look at minor league trades of pitchers who became stars like Giolito. I’d just look all players chosen in the first two rounds (including competitive balance and QO compensation) from pick 11 on since 2010 when Rizzo was fully in charge.
Steve: I think we throw-out Top-10 picks from each draft as the Nats didn’t have any so not fair to compare plus those pitchers are supposed to be top of the rotation.
Don: No we don’t throw them out. The fact that a top 10 guy failed to make it is a failure for that team. The point is that the Nats have to be compared to other teams. And a team that fails to develop a pitcher drafted in the top 10 is evidence.
Steve: That is fine for another table of just 1-10’s.
Don: So I think we have a plan. We look at the first two rounds for 2010 thru 2018 (2019 is too recent, and 2018 might be as well) broken into two groups: a top 10 pick vs. everyone else.
Andrew: This could be really revealing to how you draft, where you draft, and how you develop. Luck and injuries are big factors. I can think of Seattle choosing Danny Hultzen who blew out his shoulder. If he is healthy, maybe he succeeds. We will probably find that the Nats are middle of the pack if you add back in Strasburg because his WAR is strong.
Don: So lets looks at the top 10 picks first as that should be the shorter and easier list to deal with.
Steve: I appreciate this but still stand by what I wrote, “One thing in common, no pitching stars turned yet.” To expand on that, my point is that since Stephen Strasburg, the Nats have not developed any minor leaguers who have pitched for the Nats and have ranked as even a Top-100 pitcher unless you can somehow say that Tanner Roark was a Top-100.
Yes, they have traded some good pitching prospects and there was value to Lucas Giolito, Dane Dunning, Reynaldo Lopez, Jesus Luzardo, Eddy Yean, Robbie Ray, Alex Meyer and Nick Pivetta. But the Nats minor league system didn’t develop those pitchers. Credit to Rizzo and staff on signing good pitchers though.
Andrew: I don’t want words put in my mouth also. I can look around the NL East and see that the Braves got Max Fried (2012 pick 7) and Mike Soroka (2015 pick 28) just to name two. The Mets have Zack Wheeler (2009 pick 6), Jacob deGrom (2010 pick 272) and Noah Syndergaard (2010 pick 38). The Phillies have Aaron Nola (2014 pick 7). Yes, Top-10 picks are supposed to be frontline pitchers and there are plenty of failures on Top-10s throughout the Majors, but also successes. Unfortunately the Nats with their Winning record aren’t exactly picking up at the top of the rounds and that is one major reason, but there are successes on picks other than Top-10 too.
Steve: the Braves also have an incredible record of developing good pitchers and burning them out like Sean Newcomb and Mike Foltynewicz. and Julio Teheran and Alex Wood were also developed in Atlanta. The Mets did the same with Steven Matz and don’t ever forget Matt Harvey.
Don: No words were put in either of your mouths. Both of you have said, repeatedly, that the Nats are much worse than other teams in developing pitchers. And with regard to your anecdotal comments about what other teams have done, can we agree to the objective criteria we agreed to above?
So lets start with looking at pitchers that were Top 10 picks between 2010 and 2019. The list includes 22 teams that had such a pick (the Nationals are not one of those 22 teams) . And, of course, the names you listed as well as a bunch of players most folks have never heard of or are not exactly setting the world on fire. So are those teams bad at developing pitchers? Or is it that drafting pitchers in a crap shoot. Remember these are just top 10 picks – they were all supposed to be aces.
Andrew: here’s the deal, Strasburg was the #1 overall pick and was MLB ready the day he was drafted. The Nats had to pay Max Scherzer a record free agent deal (at the time) 6 years ago to join the rotation and they paid Patrick Corbin a huge deal to join the rotation. The fill-ins for the last 10 years from the Nats minor leagues has been spotty. Tanner Roark was the best example of a successful Nats pitcher developed. Maybe this will be the year for Joe Ross. Maybe Erick Fedde or Austin Voth will step up this year.
So, who have the Nats developed from the pitching ranks since Strasburg who became even a Top-100 pitcher? That is the objective question. The only one that we could force into that is Tanner Roark. Baseball since the 2010 draft. I look at that 2010 draft and the 13th pick was Chris Sale by the White Sox. One of the best pitchers of that decade. The following year was the Cole and Bauer draft that also produced Blake Snell, Jose Fernandez, Sonny Gray, Dylan Bundy and of course Alex Meyer and Joe Ross in that first round. Snell was the 52nd pick taken. The 4th round produced Mike Clevinger as the 135th pick overall and Tyler Glasnow in the 5th round at pick 152.
Honestly, we could do this in every round and find the Top-100 pitchers. They aren’t all 1 of 1’s like Strasburg and Cole. Some teams are developing these studs like the White Sox, A’s and Indians and Rays and Braves have had their share of successes. Even the Marlins had Jose Fernandez.
Steve: Those are a lot of facts. One thing on that Top-10 list of draft picks are a whole lot of busts. Actually kind of like batting averages, the draft is full of busts and if you’re batting .333 in the first round of finding stars you are doing great. Baseball America just did a decade’s analysis of Top WAR draft picks. Nats ranked high having Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, and Robbie Ray all drafted in that decade.
All teams have failures and some have a lot more than others. Fact or fiction and somewhere in-between and all of the rest of it got me thinking that after all of the trades, the only 1st round pitchers the Nats still have with MLB pedigree are Joe Ross and Erick Fedde. The rest have all been traded. The good news to me is that I do believe that the changes made on the development side will come through for the Nats. Jackson Rutledge and Cade Cavalli are both 4-pitch starters. That to me is big in the development is creating starters with 4-pitch repertoires instead of what we saw with Joe Ross who graduated with a fastball and a slider and the last year has added a curveball and this off-season is working on a changeup.
Don: Those are all good points about top 10 picks. But can we get back to the criteria we discussed above and look at the drafted pitchers in the first two rounds that were not Not Top 10 picks. That list includes 302 names – far too many to go thru name by name.
So I gave some thought to different ways to summarize the data. I decided to download just the player tables from the Game Day data for 2012 thru 2020 so I could see how long it took for a draftee to make a major league roster. But first, a disclaimer. Since I had to match based on the player name, there is always the chances that some of the matches are to the wrong player. I did some quick QC checks and I believe the data is probably mostly correct. I did notice an issue with one draftee who has the same name as an MLB active player: Logan Gilbert. Hopefully there are not too many like that.
So this first table shows for each team how many draftees made it to the majors in 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 or more years. The values in each cell are the number of players and the percentage of the total for that team. The Not Yet column is how many did not appear on an MLB roster as of the end of the 2020 season. The number of years was determined by simply subtracting the year they were drafted from the year of their first game on an MLB roster. I did make one adjustment to allow me to combine High School (HS) and College draftees. In order to adjust for College vs. HS I adjusted the HS calculation by adding 2 to the difference. So, for example, a player drafted in 2015 and made it to the big leagues in 2019:
– If college they were categorized as 2019-2015 = 4 years
– If HS they were categorized as 2019-2015+2 = 2 years
I did not want to break it down by college vs HS and figured that crediting 2 years in the minors was a reasonable approximation for 3+ in college.
So, first do you agree that this adjustment is a reasonable approximation?
Years to MLB
| Rank | Drafted By | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | Not Yet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle Mariners | 1 50.0% |
1 50.0% |
||||||
| 1 | Oakland Athletics | 1 16.7% |
4 66.7% |
1 16.7% |
||||
| 2 | Atlanta Braves | 2 33.3% |
1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
||
| 2 | New York Mets | 3 50.0% |
1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
|||
| 4 | Arizona Diamondbacks | 3 37.5% |
2 25.0% |
1 12.5% |
2 25.0% |
|||
| 4 | Chicago White Sox | 3 37.5% |
1 12.5% |
1 12.5% |
2 25.0% |
1 12.5% |
||
| 6 | Los Angeles Dodgers | 1 7.69% |
1 7.69% |
1 7.69% |
2 15.4% |
3 23.1% |
5 38.5% |
|
| 7 | Detroit Tigers | 1 10.0% |
1 10.0% |
2 20.0% |
2 20.0% |
2 20.0% |
2 20.0% |
|
| 8 | Miami Marlins | 1 14.3% |
1 14.3% |
2 28.6% |
1 14.3% |
2 28.6% |
||
| 9 | Milwaukee Brewers | 2 22.2% |
1 11.1% |
2 22.2% |
3 33.3% |
1 11.1% |
||
| 10 | Boston Red Sox | 4 36.4% |
2 18.2% |
4 36.4% |
1 9.09% |
|||
| 11 | San Francisco Giants | 1 16.7% |
2 33.3% |
2 33.3% |
1 16.7% |
|||
| 11 | St. Louis Cardinals | 2 16.7% |
3 25.0% |
1 8.33% |
2 16.7% |
4 33.3% |
||
| 11 | Washington Nationals | 3 37.5% |
1 12.5% |
3 37.5% |
1 12.5% |
|||
| 14 | Colorado Rockies | 2 22.2% |
2 22.2% |
2 22.2% |
3 33.3% |
|||
| 15 | Los Angeles Angels | 2 28.6% |
1 14.3% |
2 28.6% |
2 28.6% |
|||
| 16 | Cincinnati Reds | 1 20.0% |
1 20.0% |
1 20.0% |
2 40.0% |
|||
| 17 | Kansas City Royals | 1 12.5% |
1 12.5% |
1 12.5% |
3 37.5% |
2 25.0% |
||
| 18 | Chicago Cubs | 1 11.1% |
2 22.2% |
2 22.2% |
4 44.4% |
|||
| 19 | Tampa Bay Rays | 1 10.0% |
2 20.0% |
3 30.0% |
4 40.0% |
|||
| 20 | New York Yankees | 1 14.3% |
1 14.3% |
2 28.6% |
3 42.9% |
|||
| 21 | Houston Astros | 2 25.0% |
3 37.5% |
3 37.5% |
||||
| 22 | Toronto Blue Jays | 2 10.5% |
2 10.5% |
8 42.1% |
7 36.8% |
|||
| 23 | Baltimore Orioles | 1 20.0% |
2 40.0% |
2 40.0% |
||||
| 23 | San Diego Padres | 1 20.0% |
3 60.0% |
1 20.0% |
||||
| 25 | Philadelphia Phillies | 1 14.3% |
2 28.6% |
4 57.1% |
||||
| 26 | Texas Rangers | 1 12.5% |
3 37.5% |
4 50.0% |
||||
| 27 | Minnesota Twins | 1 10.0% |
5 50.0% |
4 40.0% |
||||
| 28 | Cleveland Indians | 1 25.0% |
3 75.0% |
|||||
| 28 | Pittsburgh Pirates | 4 100% |
I also decided to rank the teams by adding the percentages together for 5+ years and Not Yet. My thinking was that for teams who had more players who have not yet made it to MLB, or took much longer might indicated development issues.
This is far from an ideal metric, but I think it has some validity. Interestingly, some of the teams that Steve you’ve said are among the best (e.g., the Braves, Mets and Dodgers) rank highly. The Nats tied for 11th – which is not even close to among the worst.
The main critique I have of this metric is that it will penalize teams if they are far more patient in deciding to promote pitchers.
Steve: First, I agree with your 2 year adjust for high school draftees. That looks like a good chart. 11th best sounds aggressive but there sure are a lot of teams much worse.
Andrew: Based on just going through players for the last 10 years, Rizzo has drafted well in the first round and he didn’t miss on many in the first round and that is good news. If Alex Meyer was the biggest bust, he turned into Denard Span so that worked out well for the Nats. We will have to see how Mason Denaburg and Seth Romero turn out and if Erick Fedde steps up.
The bad news is that the Nats have not been able to put any stars in the top of the rotation from the draft since Strasburg and have had to rely on expensive free agents via Scherzer and Corbin. I feel strongly that Jackson Rutledge and Cade Cavalli will be top of the rotation starters for the Nats.
I appreciate all the hard work you did Don and if your numbers say the Nats are the 11th best from the draft on the pitchers than that would put them ahead of 19 other teams.
Don: This next table summarizes the count and the percent of draftees into quartiles (i.e., the fastest 25% to make MLB; the second fastest; third fastest; and fourth fastest). What I did was to calculate the number of days from a base date (August 1 of the year they were drafted) to when they appeared on an MLB roster. As an aside, I would have used any date as the assignment of a player to a quartile would be the same.
I did this separately for college and HS draftees. Here are the cutoff values for College:
- 25%: 641
- 50%: 1048
- 75%: 1355
In other words half the college draftees make MLB in around 3 years and 75% make it in around 4 years.
And for High School:
- 25%: 1333
- 50%: 1511
- 75%: 1858
All three of these are 2-2.5 years longer than it takes college draftees.
I then assigned each draftee to one of these buckets, as well as a Not Yet for players who have not yet made it. I did filter the results for more recent draftees so as to not bias the results to the Not Yet Bucket. For college draftees, I only included those players drafted in 2017 or before; for HS only those players drafted in 2015 or before. Those values roughly correspond to the median time (50th percentile) for each. I did not attempt to come up with a ranking.
By Quartiles
| Drafted By | 1st Quartile | 2nd Quartile | 3rd Quartile | 4th Quartile | Not Yet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 1 12.5% |
2 25.0% |
3 37.5% |
2 25.0% |
|
| Atlanta Braves | 4 50.0% |
1 12.5% |
2 25.0% |
1 12.5% |
|
| Baltimore Orioles | 1 16.7% |
2 33.3% |
3 50.0% |
||
| Boston Red Sox | 4 36.4% |
4 36.4% |
2 18.2% |
1 9.09% |
|
| Chicago Cubs | 2 22.2% |
2 22.2% |
1 11.1% |
4 44.4% |
|
| Chicago White Sox | 3 37.5% |
3 37.5% |
1 12.5% |
1 12.5% |
|
| Cincinnati Reds | 1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
3 50.0% |
|
| Cleveland Indians | 1 14.3% |
1 14.3% |
5 71.4% |
||
| Colorado Rockies | 2 18.2% |
2 18.2% |
1 9.09% |
2 18.2% |
4 36.4% |
| Detroit Tigers | 2 18.2% |
1 9.09% |
4 36.4% |
2 18.2% |
2 18.2% |
| Houston Astros | 3 37.5% |
2 25.0% |
3 37.5% |
||
| Kansas City Royals | 1 10.0% |
1 10.0% |
4 40.0% |
4 40.0% |
|
| Los Angeles Angels | 3 42.9% |
2 28.6% |
2 28.6% |
||
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 3 23.1% |
3 23.1% |
2 15.4% |
5 38.5% |
|
| Miami Marlins | 2 28.6% |
1 14.3% |
2 28.6% |
2 28.6% |
|
| Milwaukee Brewers | 2 22.2% |
1 11.1% |
3 33.3% |
2 22.2% |
1 11.1% |
| Minnesota Twins | 1 10.0% |
5 50.0% |
4 40.0% |
||
| New York Mets | 1 16.7% |
3 50.0% |
1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
|
| New York Yankees | 1 14.3% |
1 14.3% |
2 28.6% |
3 42.9% |
|
| Oakland Athletics | 1 16.7% |
4 66.7% |
1 16.7% |
||
| Philadelphia Phillies | 1 14.3% |
2 28.6% |
4 57.1% |
||
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 1 25.0% |
3 75.0% |
|||
| San Diego Padres | 2 33.3% |
1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
2 33.3% |
|
| San Francisco Giants | 1 16.7% |
1 16.7% |
3 50.0% |
1 16.7% |
|
| Seattle Mariners | 1 33.3% |
1 33.3% |
1 33.3% |
||
| St. Louis Cardinals | 5 38.5% |
2 15.4% |
1 7.69% |
1 7.69% |
4 30.8% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 3 30.0% |
3 30.0% |
4 40.0% |
||
| Texas Rangers | 2 25.0% |
1 12.5% |
1 12.5% |
4 50.0% |
|
| Toronto Blue Jays | 3 15.8% |
3 15.8% |
4 21.1% |
2 10.5% |
7 36.8% |
| Washington Nationals | 2 25.0% |
3 37.5% |
2 25.0% |
1 12.5% |
As I expected these results are comparable to the above results. The Nats are not the best; but they are not even close to among the worst.
Admittedly this approach is far from ideal. But I think it supports a few conclusions:
- Some teams are better, perhaps even much better.
- The Nats are far from the worst.
- There is certainly a lot of room for the Nats to improve.
Hopefully the TalkNats folks can make some suggestions of other approaches to address this question.
