44 thoughts on “Phillies and Cardinals Drafting over the Years”

1. Excellent analysis. This should be required reading for all of the fandom who complain about the Phillies farm system.

   LikeLike

   1. Oh really, because our farm system is good as a whole? Come on man.

      LikeLike

      1. If you strip out the farm system in trades and then give away your picks it is near impossible to rebuild it. Right now with other team graduations and the system’s growth this year, I would say the farm is firmly in the Top 15 and will only continue to rise (thank you Crawford)

         LikeLike

         1. Let’s remember this in the winter when guys on here are screaming for the Phils to sign an average player (Bourn, Swisher, etc) but lose their 1st rd pick. You need to keep the pick unless that one guy gets you over the top or is a legit star talent like a Lee.

            LikeLike

         2. why no mention of taveras?? a stud

            LikeLike

            1. Latin American free agent signee………you know, the type the Phillies use to be very frugal with before the Tocci signing

               LikeLike

      2. No because the complaints I hear (outside of the internet) are of uninformed people. This gives more context to certain arguments. Has nothing to do with being good or bad or mediocre. It has everything to do with context of arguments.

         LikeLike

2. Why not invest more on the International market if you’re giving up your 1st round picks for a FA?

   Matt, not that you do it, but for the life of me I can not understand how some people attempt to make arguments for Amaro being a good or adequate GM. Quite frankly, he is the worst. It is BRUTAL to sit and watch this team play, and I often can not do it. I will be tuning in tonight, however, to see if I can hear the chants from “Fire Ruben night”.

   LikeLike

   1. I think Amaro has been bad, I do think he has been better of late given the other considerations and realistic expectations of where the team is (I thought he had a pretty good offseason this year). I think more than Amaro there are large institutional problems with the organization above Amaro and those have caused problems that are much more harmful long term (pushing for Pence trade, lack of amatuer spending). I don’t think Amaro is the worst GM in baseball, but he is certainly in the bottom group.

      LikeLike

      1. I can agree with your opinion about this past offseason. However, Amaro was limited with the moves he could make because of this poisition in which he put the team in.

         There’s no question he’s been making horrendous decisions for the past 3 years or so.

         LikeLike

      2. I think this is a pretty accurate analysis of Amaro. He’s not good, but he’s also not the worst. I think one of his biggest problems is not knowing how to judge a buyers/sellers market, but as you allude to, that also is a push from the top. I realize the Phillies aren’t good now, but Amaro SHOULD get credit for not mortgaging the future to be an average team this year. Bringing in Byrd and Burnett will help them win a few more games and be slightly more watchable and it doesn’t hurt them down the road (and could bring back a half decent prospect if they choose to trade). However, if Amaro had tried to win big and traded the farm, it would’ve been worse in a few years. Or even signed Nelson Cruz, who maybe gets us a wildcard but we lose a high 2nd round pick for. He should get credit for resisting those temptations

         LikeLike

      3. I agree with you on the input of the owners. That is vintage Giles. I think RAJ is better of late, because the rule changes for draft and international give less room for the Phillies self-destructive philosophy. Unfortunately, they still follow what they see as the ‘spirit’ rather than the letter of the Selig rules, so the possibility of the later round $100K bonus or the international $50K bonus just doesn’t make it into their internal signing budgets. That’s relatively small potatoes, compared to how they use to short themselves.

         LikeLike

3. The baseball draft has variables that make this more difficult, IMO, than the NFL draft. You have different levels of play (big time college to small college to 2 year programs, high-level high school play to middle of high school nowhere play), different age levels (18 – 22), etc.

   In the first round, the Phillies did well (WAR wise) from 1998 – 2002 (Burrell, Myers, Utley, Floyd, Hamels). However, since then, their first round picks (including supplemental), have returned a combined -2.1 WAR. This is one of the contributing factors to the struggles of the team today. Some of the lack of success can be attributed to drafting towards the end of the round, but some is attributes to simply bad decisions.

   You can also look at 1975 – 1996, and with one exception (Lieberthal), there was not much production.

   http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?query_type=franch_round&team_ID=PHI&draft_round=1&draft_type=junreg

   On a separate note: With the excess of Cardinals outfields, I would think the Cards would be open to trading someone like a James Ramsey. He is stuck in AA now, trapped behind a gaggle of higher-upside prospects.

   LikeLike

4. For the Cardinals, when it comes to the first round picks, they are not really spectacular.
   Between 2003 and 2012, they had 18 first round picks and came out above average successful, imo, with three and three are marginal players.

   LikeLike

   1. Their picks put the Phillies to shame. we do not have a single prospect ready to contribute in the bigs. Oh I forgot, the savior himself Ken Giles will be here soon to save our season!

      LikeLike

5. The results have been so much worse that you can argue (I think correctly) that it’s both – trading away prospects and losing picks on the one hand, AND worse drafting/development. I think the latter has CERTAINLY been a factor, not so much in the current state of the farm, but in the currrent lack of young talent at the major league level, and the obviously related failure to produce much in the way of major league talent for the past 8 years.

   That said, the real question is whether the problem is drafting or development or some combination thereof. And if the former in part or whole, is it really a matter of drafting collge versus High School kids? I’m skeptical of Murphy’s thesis. I’m inclined to think that the real St. Louis advantage is developmental – and that may be more of a case of St. Louis being particularly good at development, rather than the Phillies being particularly bad.

   I’m cautiously optimistic that the drafting has improved. Not that it was ever horrible, but I think it’s improved. Whether the development problems have been solved – and I DO think they had such problems, notwithstanding what I said above – we won’t know for at least a couple more years.

   LikeLike

   1. My sense has been that traditionally the Phils organization has been a fairly decent scouting organization, it’s everything that happens after, from player development on up through management and ownership that is the problem. Not to mention that the org. culture as a whole have always been sluggish to respond to change rather than innovators.

      LikeLike

6. thank you for writing this. i had a similar reaction to Murphy’s piece. its simplicity was idiotic.

   i would add to the argument that flipping draft picks for Cliff Lee, Halladay, Oswalt and an All Star RF in his prime (Pence) is not worthless. Regardless of how the players involved ended up in the majors. completely ignoring that is agenda driven idiocy.

   LikeLike

   1. I don’t have a problem with the strategy of drafting High School kids over College kids.

      My bigger problem is in player development as Larry eluded to above. In addition, I have a serious problem with them not investing through other means even when forfeiting their 1st round picks.

      My Biggest problem is with the organization as a whole, and the moves that the GM has made. Are you referring to the same Hunter Pence that they traded Singleton, Cosart, and a “throw in” scrap player in Santana for, only to then trade him a year later for NOTHING in comparison to what they traded for him?

      LikeLike

      1. Just because I need to say it every time. Santana was not a “throw in” int he Pence trade. All reports at the time is that the Astros had a list to choose from of essentially every A-ball hitter not named Sebastian Valle, I also remember that the Leandro Castro injury affected it as well.

         Santana was a legitimate major piece of the deal.

         LikeLike

      2. There’s no problem with HS kids, but the really long-shot boom/bust guys in the first round have been killers over the years. A guy like Hamels, where we struck gold, was not a raw toolsy guy. He was an injury/personality risk, but the pitches were all there when we took him. Crawford is also a guy with already demonstrated baseball skills. Contrast these picks to guys like the batting practice wonder LGJ, the over-aged cold-weather HS with the bad D Hewitt, the runs fast and fields great but can’t hit Hudson, the very raw and kinda small Golson, and the raw and small Collier.

         LikeLike

   2. By the way, you don’t need to trade for Pence if you dont let Werth walk and think that you can replace him with JMJ.

      LikeLike

      1. You also don’t sign Jayson Werth to that deal he got with the Nats. So you’re stuck in a Catch-22.

         LikeLike

      2. Dec 2008…Rube decides he will only go two years with Werth vs spending more $$$$ to entice Werth to go for that third year.

         LikeLike

         1. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, but that was a fantastic 2 year deal for a guy who was a platoon player for the first half of 2008.

            LikeLike

7. Honestly I have to strongly disagree. Yes, you can count chips used as trades as a “positive” in a draft, but if you look at pure ML players in terms of the draft (regardless of who they play for) the Cards strategy plays out. The biggest issue with the Phillies is the MO of looking for raw athleticism that they think can turn into a baseball player. That mightve been a good philosophy pre 1995, but with the advent of kids playing all year long, travel ball etc those raw athletes are just too far behind the curve.

   LikeLike

   1. Why can’t you call trade chips as positives. The minute you hand them to another team you lose developmental control. It is quite possible the Blue Jays “broke” Drabek and d’Arnaud, that is not the Phillies responsibility. Part of a prospect’s value is what they can be traded for. Do the Cardinals get no credit for Adam Wainwright, should that all go to the Braves. What about Edwin Encarnacion in Toronto, he is a much different player than when he was a Reds prospect. You can’t blame a lack of development on the Phillies for players they don’t control, because they have no say in the outcome.

      LikeLike

      1. I can see both sides of the argument here. You’re right, once you trade a prospect, you’ve gotten your “value” from them, so it should be factored in when you’re doing draft evaluation. The problem with that analysis is that it probably overvalues prospects that you’ve traded.

         The majority of prospects fail. So when you cash out and trade a guy who goes onto fail, he’s given you more value than a guy you didn’t trade who still failed. The problem with this accounting is that you have 2 failed prospects, but one looks like the more successful prospect (from the drafting organization’s standpoint) simply because they decided to trade him (aka a factor that’s exogenous to player drafting/developing). From an organizational standpoint, should a traded player’s draft year be credited for creating value when the value was only created because of an outside force?

         For example, looking back, was Jason Knapp a more successful draft pick than Brody Colvin simply because the Phillies decided to trade one and hold onto the other? On one hand, Knapp helped the Phillies get Cliff Lee, but on the other hand, both players are on the fast track towards 0 war careers. What if Colvin had been part of the package for Lee instead of Knapp? Would/should that change the analysis? (Hypothetically speaking, I realize that Colvin couldn’t be traded that year since he had just been drafted).

         Its a tricky question to answer.

         LikeLike

8. The Phils are about 15 in the list of farm team prospects? Really?
   I rank them in the last 4-5.
   And that only because of Crawford, alone.
   There are zero exciting prospect starting pitchers in the whole system; Biddle seems to have hit a wall or other barrier that he isn’t getting over…leaving us to wonder if this local “gem”, one time thought of as maybe a # 1 or #2..,.now seems like he may never reach the consistency needed.
   Other than his possibilities, which grow less and less, the whole system is bereft of starters who show promise of great rewards.
   This condition surely demands answers of WHY? Likely it is some combination of poor evaluations during drafts AND poor coaching within the system. As to the poor evaluations, look at the NON-use of Sabremetrics in selecting draftees. It has been only reluctantly that they have just added such expertise to their personnel..while other MLB teams, led by the Red Sox, have added that to scouts’ own views. Behind the times.

   The FO showed contempt for their fans by taking a back seat to these game advances because of the monies rolling in during their winning times for several years that has come to a sad end. Though they gave up draft choices to add special pitchers to their roster, the Latin players who were seriously scouted/signed were largely ignored even though the only restrictions on signing them was a matter of money…that the Phils were swimming in during those wonder years.
   With lousy draft positions, the answer HAD to be in Latin America IF you were willing to spend more $$$s. The money was there; the willingness was not!

   Wouldn’t it seem that those “evaluators” have been at fault? Results of prospect signings have been poor, whether via draft or in LA. Personnel remain in place; WHY?

   Poor mngmnt allowed Joyner, Brown’s hitting coach, to escape to elserwhere…because it was seemingly a matter of how much the Phils would pay. Brown? Take a look now.

   Yes…I have been advocating for drafting a damn good cOLLEGE pitchers at our #1…for many months now. One of the best should be available at #7. And good ones thereafter from the college ranks also in succeeding picks…thereby allowing the hope to gain a few of them at MLB level in 2-3 years.
   Hoping for 7 out of the first 10 as pitchers largely from college with a few HS guys, too.

   To those who proffer the “best player available” bromide, stand back. This MLB team is lost in the mists on pitching. This draft MUST answer that crying need; else we can expect a multitude of ill-watched games from this franchise for years to come!

   LikeLike

   1. Wow. This is a rant about something totally different.

      LikeLike

   2. ‘Tis a rant worthy of me, but there is more than a shadow of truth in it. I don’t know that we MUST go pitcher heavy. Thus far, the Phillies have done ok buying/trading guys that didn’t make it for pitching. That might change, but top pitchers on big contracts have been more available than one might expect. The Phillies have done less well trading for and signing FA hitters. Yes, the MLB offense is better than our pitching and yes the farm is very weak in pitching (I disagree with you on Biddle, I think he can be a solid #3), but we have so many really elderly hitters to replace at the MLB level and not much that appears comparable quality on the farm. Franco replaces Howard. I don’t see much assurance of the next Ruiz, although I suppose Grullon has a small chance. Crawford plausibly replaces Rollins. Utley? That’s the really hard nut. Byrd has actually been good this year. Not an equally good minor leaguer on the horizon.

      LikeLike

   3. “To those who proffer the “best player available” bromide, stand back. This MLB team is lost in the mists on pitching. This draft MUST answer that crying need; else we can expect a multitude of ill-watched games from this franchise for years to come!”

      It has been fairly obvious last year and this that we are already in the midst of losing seasons and the only hope we have is for the team to be especially lucky with health and pulling out close games late to even be in the picture for the 2nd WC spot. Knowing that you CAN’T pick for need as it only causes you to miss on the talent available. Say Aiken or Kolek is sitting there are you really advocating taking a Nola or Beede over them for 1-2 yrs quicker turn around. Reality is the next 2-3 yrs are already lost and nothing short of a miracle will change that outcome. And you know what it is a good thing.

      Because of the strip mining of the farm for trades we NEED to replenish with as much talent as possible. Let us all remember Baseball is a game of patience and development and progression throughout your career. Successes and failures are measured in years and not games/weeks/months. Those splits are great for those of us following the system but we too often overreact to them.

      And i feel your frustration where this team spends sooooooo much $$$ on the ML roster but it is the other areas where they pinch pennies that frustrate me. We all know that they missed the boat on the international signings and that has changed with the new system that has been put in place. But we are getting close to 5 yrs since that was an issue so can we please stop griping about it every time. We all agree that they should have supplemented their loss of 1st rd picks with talent from Latin America but they didn’t back then at some point we have to move on as they have seemed to rectify this issue the last couple of years.

      LikeLike

9. Let’s not forget that the Phils’ 2012 draft should have been better were it not for Amaro’s blunder in signing Papelbon a few days too early.

   LikeLike

   1. That’s not a blunder. They do it by design to avoid having a first round draft bonus. They did the same thing back in the day when they signed Mesa and Cormier. It makes no sense that they do it, but they do. As RAJ has said, they view the draft as a poor bargain. I think they have always participated to the minimum necessary to avoid a PR hit. Losing a draft pick to sign a vet fits with the owners’ philosophy and avoids a PR hit as they sell it as wanting to win right now. In 2012 the win RIGHT NOW was still plausible. Now most of them seem to know that they have to build through the farm, but after all the shirking on amateur talent, it is going to take quite a while to undo the damage. Basically need to get a Crawford plus a lesser major leaguer every near for the next 4 years and wait for them to mature.

      LikeLike

      1. They are too cheap to pay for a first rounder in the draft but they are willing to maintain the 3rd highest payroll in the majors and also sign a FA closer for $40 million early specifically so they don’t have to pay for a draft pick?

         Sorry but that just doesn’t make any sense.

         LikeLike

         1. It’s a matter of philosophy. They don’t believe draftees are worth the going rate and would rather spend on vets. I’m sorry that doesn’t make sense to you, but the Phillies really have been behaving like this for quite some time. It’s sort of a twisted philosophical approach.

            LikeLike

            1. It’s true that we’re left to speculate regarding the reason for the team’s conservative approach to spending on amateur talent. But of the two possible explanations on offer, yours is IMO far and away the less likely.

               Possibility #1 – the owners wish to support the commissioner’s efforts to limit spending on amateur talent.

               Possibility #2 – the owners honestly believe that “draftees are worth [not] the going rate and would rather spend on vets.”

               Nobody holds the view ascribed to the owners in #2. Nobody could rationally hold that view. I think that the ownership makes a lot of poor decisions, and has some dubious beliefs about building a winning team, but no one is that stupid..

               The reality of the current economic structure of the game is such that teams pay market prices for veteran talent, but the market for amateur talent is very much constrained by the rules. If one looks at the few cases where amateur talent is purchased on an open market, I think it’s fair to estimate that the draft depresses the cost of the best amateur drafted players by AT LEAST a factor of 10, maybe much much more. This is not seriously disputable.

               The Phillies’ owners are businessmen. Poor businessmen maybe, though even that is a tad uncharitable, but certainly with the above understanding of baseball economics.

               Given that almost certain fact, the first option – desire to support the commissioner’s efforts to limit the prices paid for amateur talent – seems an infinitely more plausible explanation than yours.

               LikeLike

            2. agree allentown….since the JD Drew/Scott Boras event in ’97, and perhaps further back in history, the organization’s philosophical approach has been one of frugality when it comes to untested draftees, preferring to lay out the money for the proven vet.

               LikeLike

   2. My memory was that they might have gotten away without losing the pick, because per the rules at the time the red sox were not untitled to a first round pick because they did not make Papelbon a qualifying offer. However, after the fact MLB decided that the Sox would have made a qualifying offer and awarded them the Phillies first round pick anyway. OK, not relevant to this, but the Werth loss would have been even more acceptable if it wasn’t for the bad “luck” that the team that took him had a protected first-round pick, making the Phils compensation much less. There enough legitimate to criticize Amaro for but unless my memory is wrong this could have been a very good move on his part, vs. for example, having had Madson instead of Papelbon as closer the past couple of years.

      LikeLike

10. obvious here as cards have picked earlier for the most part. there is a huge difference in the first round between top 15 and after. huge

    LikeLike

11. Matt: I would like to thank you for a very through and well-thought out article. From my vantage point, there have been 2 factors that have caused the state of affairs in the Phillies system:

    1) A flawed drafting philosophy-For way too long, the Phillies subscribed to the theory that a team could draft pure athletes and make them into start baseball players. This list includes Hewitt, Collier, Jiwan James and Kyrell Hudson. If you want, you can include Tyson Gillies on that list because this was the philosophy that made him a trade target. The only “hit” if you will is Dom Brown. That isn’t a very high rate of success and the team is paying for it now. John Mayberry and Tony Gwynn are on the roster because none of the aforementioned is pushing them for job.
    2) A flawed trading philosophy- If the team had kept Cosart, Singleton and Santana, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. We’d be taking about how these players, along with Biddle, Franco and some sleepers (Ruf, Asche and Hollands) have given the Phillies a nice core for the future and how well they have done despite being in such poor position. I have more of a problem wit the Phillies taken assessment at the major league level than I do at the amateur level

    LikeLike

    1. I think that is two very good points. I do want to point out that the Phillies actually like Jiwan James more as a pitcher, injuries forced him off the mound in his second year

       LikeLike

    2. Although I live in the north SF bay area and am still attached to my original baseball passion, the Phils, I DO take note of the local teams…SF & Oakld.

       Oakland in particular. “Moneyball” includes drafting players with BASEBALL skills shown in their HS and College free agents’ records based on stats and attitude. They have continued to get and stay competitive “on the cheap” by relying on smart drafting AND a tactic of signing a star player at a high salary and trading him mid-season for GOOD prospects.

       And, they are always looking for trades, small though they may be, for people who have the stat make-up to fill a particular need.
       The players we have received in the last several trades have all been inconsequential with little promise. Horrendous trades…along with terrible timing. I.E.,waiting until everybody KNOWS that you are desperate to trade and make it a buyer’s game.

       It is time for a change of basic MLB strategy with fresh approaches similar to Oakland’s or others of the same ilk. Otherwise, this franchise will have a long time before being competitive again.

       LikeLike

12. I slightly agree with the point that Murphy makes, that college players are probably the way to go. I just agree with him for different reasons.

    College players have one distinct advantage over HS guys; proximity. When the model outcome is failure, seems to me the best strategy is to get the guys most likely to make it to the big leagues in some capacity. In most cases, that’s college players. I’ve never done a study or anything, but I’d be shocked if the “miss” rate of college players was anywhere near that of HS players.

    Of course, you would hope that logic is already factored into the Phillies’ draft strategy, but maybe they’re underrating it.

    LikeLike

Comments are closed.