Baseball first conducted a draft of amateur players in 1965 and has done so each year ever since. Annual drafts from 1965 through 2011 add up to 47 years of drafting to date, and thus there have been 47 number-one overall picks, from Rick Monday in 1965 to Gerrit Cole in 2011. Baseball-Reference makes it easy to check the career Wins Above Replacement level (WAR) total for each of these 47 guys — those totals run from a high of 104.6 for Alex Rodriguez (the number one pick in 1993) to sub-zero totals for guys such as Shawn Abner (first pick of 1984) and Matt Anderson (first pick of 1997). If you simply calculate the average career WAR produced by all 47 of these guys to date, you get a 17.0 career WAR for the average overall number-one pick.
A 17 WAR career guy is generally a guy who had a serious career as a starter in the majors, and some good years, but a guy who is unlikely to make even a “Hall of the Very Good”. Hitters with exactly a 17.0 career WAR include Bill Melton and Steve Kemp. Aaron Sele is an example of a 17.1 career WAR pitcher.
But you might justifiably argue that taking the average of all 47 number-one pick career WARs isn’t really a fair way to get a useful career average for number-one picks. That’s because such an approach undervalues all the more recent picks whose major league careers are not over, and in the most recent cases have barely or not even begun. Bryce Harper is still a teenager, but this averaging method treats his current zero career WAR to date as the equal of guys who played out their entire careers and produced zero WAR (such as Steve Chilcott, 1966). Some of the most recent overall first picks may turn out to be busts, but surely not all of them will. Treating them all as zeroes merely because they are still very young surely can’t be a correct method for this sort of calculation of average performance by a number one overall pick. Also, number-one picks such as A-Rod and Chipper Jones are still adding to their career WAR totals, as are younger, more recent picks such as Justin Upton and David Price, and their potential future added WAR should be accounted for, too.
So as a more sensible test, let’s restrict our averaging to just the overall number-ones selected from 1965 through 1989. That way we limit ourselves to only those players whose careers are fully complete (Chipper was drafted number one overall in 1990), while also giving us a sample of twenty-five selections, which is small but represents more than half the group. What’s the average career WAR for guys who were selected number one overall if we only look at the years from 1965 through 1989? Surprise — it’s 17.0 again! Which reminds us that while yes, some of the recent number-one overall picks will turn out to be great players, and many will add to their current totals (in some cases will add a large number of WAR over thier future careers), some will also turn out to be duds, and that the 17 WAR average that we get looking at all 47 guys is perhaps not as far off from a realistic average as we thought it might be.
After the jump, I take a WAR-oriented historical look at the number-one overall picks from the 1960s, and the top alternatives that were missed in those years. And perhaps in future posts, perhaps I ‘ll carry the process further into later decades.
In 1965, Major League Baseball conducted its first draft of amateur players. Rick Monday was the very first player chosen, by the Kansas City Athletics, in the very first round of that very first draft (Monday seems a pretty good name for a pioneer selection; at least better than Wednesday or Thursday would have been). Rick turned out to be a fine ballplayer, collecting 32.7 WAR over 19 seasons in the majors. No team did better with their pick in that first round. On the other hand however, Nolan Ryan (84.8 WAR) and Johnny Bench (64.8 WAR) were selected in later rounds that year.
In 1966, the Mets took high school catcher Steve Chilcott with the first pick. He never made it past AAA. The very next pick was Reggie Jackson (74.6 WAR).
In 1967, the Yankees had the first pick after their 10th place finish in 1966 — the only other first pick overall the Yanks have had was in 1991, when they picked the hauntingly ill-fated Brien Taylor. With that 1967 firs pick, the Yanks selected Ron Blomberg, who became the first DH ever but totaled only 8.7 WAR in his career. Bobby Grich (67.6 WAR, the 19th overall selection) and Ted Simmons (50.4 WAR, the 10th overall selection) were the most productive picks of the 1967 June draft, based on WAR career totals.
In 1968, the Mets selected Tim Foli with the overall number-one pick. Foli became a long-time major leaguer, and aparently a long-time replacment level player, as he accumulated a total career WAR of only 1.2. The best WAR pick in the primary phase of that 1968 draft was taken by the Yankees with the fourth overall pick: Thurman Munson, 43.4 WAR before his tragic death.
In 1969, the Senators (soon to become the Rangers) chose Jeff Burroughs with the number-one pick. Jeff was the classic average-value, number-one overall pick, with a career WAR total of 17.2, which as we’ve seen is right around average production for an overall number one. Burroughs was a good player, who even won an MVP award, but in terms of overall career achievement level, the best you can say is, well, he was a good player. On the other hand, the first round in 1969 didn’t produce much more WAR value from anyone else either. J.R. Richard, picked immediately after Burroughs, might have been a great one, and he did produce more career WAR (21.7) than anyone else selected in the 1969 first round, but his career was another that was sadly truncated. Buddy Bell, taken all the way down in the 16th round in 1969, racked up 60.8 WAR by Baseball-Reference’s formula.
That covers the first overall picks from the 1960’s — enough for now. If there’s interest I’ll cover later decades in future posts –unless others beat me to it.
Poor Bill Almon, facing the Phil Niekro knuckleball in his major league debut. Number One overall or not, that has got to mess with a guy’s head.
“the 17 WAR average that we get looking at all 47 guys is perhaps not as far off from a realistic average as we thought it might be.”
For the 10 year period from 1990-1999, the average is 28.0. I believe 3 players are still active – Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones and Josh Hamilton – so the average will undoubtedly increase. While a small sample size, I believe that it’s indicative of better drafting.
A-Rod’s enormous number may be throwing things off in the 1990-99 sample. The median career WAR, as opposed to the average, for 1990-99, is 17.3 (compared to a median for 1965-1989 of 14.7). Using the median instead of the average can be useful to minimize the effect of a single outlier distorting anlysis of a relatively small sample. That median also will not change even as A-Rod, Chipper and Hamilton add to their career totals.
That being said, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that over time teams have gotten better at selecting those first overall picks. On the other hand, I think the stats still do suggest, at the very least, that when we drool over those top picks we should continue to keep in mind that even the seemingly sure things, the Ben McDonalds and the Delmon Youngs, often don’t live up to expectations.
I agree. I think the median is a better stat for this sort of analysis. On the other hand, the first 22 #1 picks yielded 0 HOFers. Since then we’ve had Griffey, Jones and Rodriguez who will definitely make the Hall of Fame. Mauer certainly has a very good chance though he has some work to do. Guys like Hamilton, Adrian Gonzalez, Upton, Price, Strasburg and Harper are much further off but it wouldn’t surprise me if at least one of them puts together a HOF career. So after an 0-22 start, we’ll likely get about 4-5 out of the next 20 or so.
Ed, that gets back to my initial questiont, which is have teams teams gotten better at identifying the true top talent?
There is luck, too. The Nats, for example, will benefit greatly by timing. The timing of being the worst team for two years running and having the #1 pick when perhaps a once-in-a-generation talent as a pitcher, and a once-in-a-generation talent as a hitter, both came up for drafting in back-to-back years. That’s just luck. The Houston Astros are even worse than the Nats were a few years ago, but they won’t have the same luck, because Strasburg and Harper aren’t aren’t available, and indeed the upcoming draft in June is kind of weak.
You’d probably have to look at the top 10 or top 20 picks to get a better sense of that.
My gut feeling is teams over the years have gotten better at identifying the top talent. I’d be interested to see if there’s a way of rating the bust factor today compared to a generation back.
There are different kinds of busts. Some are simply bad choices; some are questionable choices; some are just bad luck. The Mets picking Steve Chilcott when Reggie Jackson was the clear #1 is as much a head scratcher today as it was back then, and that falls under the simply bad choice category. The Padres selection of Matt Bush when Justin Verlander, Stephen Drew and Jered Weaver (all recognized as better prospects at the time) were available falls under the bad choice category since they made it to basically save a few hundred thousand dollars. The Yankees selection of Brien Taylor is another one of the all-time busts on value delivered (zero). The acknowledged top two choices were Taylor and Arizona State OFer Mike Kelly, who was selected #2 by the Braves. Kelly never amounted to much either, but Taylor was on track towards the Majors before destroying his left shoulder in a bar fight, so that falls under the bad luck category.
I remember looking at a list of #1 picks over the years and it seemed that the further I looked back, the worse some of the choices appeared to be. Maybe it’s because I’m more familiar with some of the recent onces, and the book hasn’t been closed on all of them yet.
The Padres selection of Matt Bush falls under the “questionable” category.
As for why Steve Chilcott was chosen over Reggie Jackson – if you had read Reggie’s autobiography(s), it would be crystal-clear. It involved racial issues; the Met’s were “concerned” because Reggie had openly dated white women (remember, this was 1966).
Even so, it’s stunning that the #1 overall pick in the 1966 MLB draft never reached the major leagues, and hardly even played at AAA (22 games).
I am familar with Reggie’s accusations against the Mets, although I don’t necessarily accept it as gospel as the reason they didn’t draft him. Chilcott was the wrong pick for a number of reasons, and even if they had some issue with Reggie because of the color of his skin, or because he was dating a white girl, then that still doesn’t explain Chilcott.
Reggie was a man who grew up dealing with much racism, and that no doubt shaped who he is. Yet he has also been called into question for fabricating stories to advance the cause. He once claimed that while in the minors he was refused treatment at a hospital in the south because of the color of his skin. A reporter went back, investigated the story and found out it was false. The hospital records show he was admitted, treated over night, and released the next day.
The day prior to the draft it appeared the Mets were going to take Jackson, noting that he was better than Rick Monday, who was the #1 pick the prior year. Something happened.
Chicago Tribune June 7, 1966
DRAFT TODAY; METS LEANING TO ARIZONAN
Jackson Called Better than Rick Monday
“Outfielder Reggie Jackson of Arizona State, probably the most sought-after college player in the country, is expected to be the first choice of the New York Mets tomorrow in a general draft of 700 free agents by the 20 major league clubs.
A total of 850 free agents was selected in last year’s draft, but major league officials gathered here for the purpose of picking the players indicated this year’s total number would be somewhat lower.
Outfielder Rick Monday, also of Arizona State, was the first free agent selected last year by the Kansas City Athletics, who paid him a bonus of $104,000. Monday is with Mobile of the Southern league.
Rated Above Monday
Jackson, a 20-year-old left. handed center fielder, is regarded an even finer prospect than Monday.
“He can run, throw and hit with power,” said one major league executive. ‘The ball club which gets him will be lucky, and since the Mets have first choice, I think it’ll be them.’
The Athletics have second choice and are expected to go for Tom Grieve, an 18-year-old catcher from Pittsfield, Mass. Grieve is a 6 foot-2 inch 200- pound right-banded hitter who is an A student in high school. ”
As it turned out the Mets took catcher Steve Chilcott number 1.
Great post!
1) The A’s did great during the early part of the draft. A great “What-IF?” would be if you reverse the #1 and #2 picks by the Mets and A’s in 1966. I wonder what happens in 1969…also I wonder how the 1973 World Series turns out.
2) Obviously you can make a case for the Yankees making a big mistake in 1967 taking Blomberg. BUT…they remedied the Ted Simmons miss by taking Munson the next year…AND regarding Grich, does anyone really want to lose “The Horace Clarke Years” from Yankee history?
3) I think Monday, Blomberg, Foli, and Burroughs were all solid MLB players (even if their WAR sometimes suggests otherwise). I feel that is pretty good considering the draft was in it’s very early stages. As the Trident dentists say, “4 out of 5 is not bad at all” (paraphrase).
4) I think the WAR should go up as the decades roll along (especially in the future) as there is much better statitical/scout analysis of all players now. Plus a team invests so much in a #1 pick that they NEED to give him a better shot at the majors than any other prospect. Unrelated, I was watching Bryce Harper on TV this weekend and he reminds me of Will Clark when he swings the bat.
…but would Reggie have made the great Ron Swoboda catch?!
Actually, he might have. Jackson was a good defender in RF up until the mid ’70s, rating at +48 in RF through ’76, and then he became quite poor.
Worst first round ever has to be 1975. 24 players drafted, only twelve made the majors, total WAR was 5.5 led by Rick Cerone with 5.7. The second round that year wasn’t much better as the only player of significance was Lee Smith.
It does seem a little incredible that despite almost 50 years of evidence of what a crap shoot the first pick/first round of the draft has been, that there are still teams that are using exactly the same methods to figure out who to pick that they did in 1965.
I haven’t heard of anyone doing this but if I were a GM I would give all of my scouts some sort of numeric evaluation sheet for them to grade every prospect they see. I would then load all those numbers in a program that would have all the performance metrics of the players both at the Minor League level as well as the Major Leagues and compare. I can’t help but think that in a few years time it would start to become obvious who knew what they were talking about and who didn’t.
I think most fans would be shocked to find out how few first round picks make it in the majors. Every year, at least half of the 1st rounders either never make the bigs or end their career with a negative WAR.
A lot of fuss over Danny Goodwin (the #1 overall pick in 1971 AND 1975) considering he has the worst WAR -1.4 of all #1 overall selections (tied with Matt Anderson).
You know what, if you are drafted #1 overall…sign with the team!!!
Another “What If?” – what if Danny Goodwin signed with the White Sox after being selected #1 in 1971? Would his career have been different?
Question: is Danny Goodwin’s -1.4 counted twice in the Average calculation (not that the avg WAR would change much if one of them were switched to 0)?
Yes, after a bit of consideration, I did include Goodwin’s negative WAR twice. After all, he was picked by two different teams as the best talent in the draft, and they both got it wrong, so it
seemed appropriate to include his actual WAR twice. I also thought about using zero for all the negative WAR guys. The theory would be that playing a sub-replacement level guy is really a roster or field manager decision more than a draft day decision. From a draft day point of view, all guys who are replacement level or below are essentially of zero WAR value to the major league club. Ultimately I decided it didn’t change the numbers enough to bother zeroing out the negative numbers.
Well, consider that in the NFL, the players are 21/22 years old, and they have been playing 3/4 years at one level below the NFL – it’s still far from an exact science, and many of the picks are well-known “busts”.
In MLB, the players are from 18/22 years old and also two to four levels below major-league level:
– Rookie ball
– A
– AA
– AAA
Sure, some college players start at AA or AAA, but there’s no such thing as a “major-league ready” drafted player, as in football (exceptions of Winfield and Olerud noted); they have to progress 2/3/4 levels merely to get to the bigs. You’re picking from a pool of players where almost ALL OF THEM were the best players on their team. No wonder choosing players in the MLB draft is such an inexact science.
Lawrence has a very good point. The average college player already has four years of unpaid minor league service in programs that are largely designed to meet their athletic (and not necessarily academic) needs. That can include year round training, great facilities, and a very structured existence. A scout now looks at not a kid, but a pretty full-sized man who has been playing against other high performing programs.
I (mostly agree). On the other hand, there are still plenty of players who make Baseball America’s top 10 prospect list who flop. This is after they’ve played in the minors and have more of a track record.
Football, by the way, has the added challenge of needing to coordinate your actions with those of your teammates plus fit into changing offensive or defensive schemes. Which is probably a factor in why some players flop.
Drafting players in any sport is never going to be anything approaching an exact science; we’re dealing with human beings, not robots (for now).
True. Greg Easterbrook of ESPN likes to point out that something like 30-50% of the players on Super Bowl teams were undrafted.
Thanks, MikeL. As you said, Division 1-A college football and basketball programs serve as de facto “minor leagues” for the NFL and the NBA.
College baseball programs get players closer to being ready ,but most of them still need a decent amount of minor league experience before they are ready to play in the Big Show..
I agree with Lawrence’s point also. I think it’s a lot harder in baseball to make the first pick than in basketball and football. Although we don’t know if he’ll be great, it seems almost a certainty that Andrew Luck isn’t going to be a complete bust in the NFL.
Re: #14, I think that is one reason why we are seeing fewer out and out busts early in the draft. In 1965, 6 of the 20 players drafted in the 1st round had attended a 4 year college. However, only 1 of those 6 had reached his 20th birthday, so they were no more than 2 years out of high school – the first 19 picks (and 27 of the first 28) were still teenagers. In 2011, 13 of the first 20 picks were at least 3 years out of HS. That makes a huge difference in evaluating where a player may end up.
LJF, I think that could be part of it, but let’s not underestimate the advances in technology allowing for hand-held radar guns; increased use of video allowing for a much wider audience to review the top prospects, reducing bias in the decision-making process; and, oh yes, let’s not underestimate money.
If I’m going to pay out millions of dollars for a first-round pick, my level of due diligence is going to be much higher. So either directly or indirectly, the increase in costs associated with draft picks might be leading to a much better process. And, yes, it could even be indirectly. In 1966, the owner of the Mets might be looking across the table at his GM wondering just why he wants to select Steve Chilcott as the #1 pick as opposed to five-tool OFer from Arizona who seems to be regarded as a generational talent. Errors get made, but if the GM thinks it’s based in racism, then the GM loses his GM.
One way or the other, money may be improving the overall process by professionalizing the entire process.
…if the *owner* thinks it’s based in rasicm.
One player who doesn’t get a lot of mention is BJ Surhoff, who was the first pick in 1985, and actually had a perfectly fine, if unspectacular career (34.4 WAR).
Surhoff was a nice player. On the other hand, Will Clark (57.6 WAR) went 2nd, Barry Larkin (68.9 WAR) went 4th, and some guy named Barry Bonds went 6th. So they definitely could have done better.