11 thoughts on “2008 Draft Picks”

1. I’m wondering how many of these guys that are still left will be protected for the 2011 Rule 5 draft?

2. Well the HS guys, with the exception of Anthony Hewitt and Tyler Cloyd who are born past the cut-off date would not be eligible until the 2012 draft. Many out of organization. Leaving out those already on 40 man roster, other possibilities are: Colby Shreve, Cody Overbeck, Brian Rosenberg, Troy Hanzawa, James Murphy, Steve Susdorf, and Michael Cisco. Pick ’em. Also the HS guys from the 2007 draft will come due, which may add some more interesting choices and lots of foreigners.

   1. Thanks Marfis for your reply. I looked at the 2007 HS players drafted to see who else might need to be added to the 40 man this offseason, and I saw the name Jiwan James. I would imagine he’ll be protected? or else some CF starved team might take him in the Rule 5?

3. Cisco has so outperformed his college stats. Although they have been careful with him this year, he has stayed healthy. I wonder what his future will be.

4. If only every draft would yield these kinds of results. Unless I am wrong a lot of people running this draft are gone and it shows.

   1. If I remember correctly we had several sandwich picks plus a first round pick in 2008. It is much easier to draft when you get several picks in the top 100; just ask the Nationals.

   2. I hope, in the future, we take ‘toolsy’ OF-type guys in rounds 3/4 and lower. Seems drafting them in the first round does not pan out as hoped—-though Hewitt still can have his day. Still in a quandry whether or not Billy Beane’s theory on college guys is the best way to go. The A’s have not been any shakes lately—though they have no money to keep their young guys long term.

      1. Drafting college players mitigates risk. You have a higher payoff rate, but often lower ceilings. Just to drag a couple examples, do you want a 10:1 chance the pitcher turns into Josh Beckett, or a 3:1 shot at Joe Blanton? And a bit of that depends on where you are on your development cycle. If you are thin in the upper levels, you want players who can fill AA and AAA spots quickly. If there are a lot of players at high levels, you want to draft players who will take more time to develop.

      2. Seen alot of stuff recently about the 2002 draft which was supposedly the first “moneyball” draft of the genius Billy Beane. Beane deliberately took College players with good stats over promising HS players. Making it simple, the 1st 2 picks, the only ones who really had success for the A’s or in MLB they picked College players Nick Swisher and Joe Blanton.. It just so happens there were 2 promising HS players taken immeadiately after them: Cole Hamels and Matt Cain. So, if you like Nick Swisher and Joe Blanton better than Cole Hamels and Matt Cain, you’re probably a moneyball guy. Beane is said to have remarked that the selection of Hamels was a foolish pick.
         The A’s had around 7 or 8 other 1st and “sandwich” round picks which were either marginal MLB appearees or didn’t make MLB. Now apologists like Garrioch with the
         draft wannabe website he hijacked from Andy somebody, tried to obfuscate the issue with re-doing the draft according to A’s taking the next highest rated player on BA’s list, and saying it was not that bad. It was that bad.

         1. It’s amazing to me how many people completely miss the point of Moneyball. It is not “draft college players because they are more predictable!” The point of Moneyball is to “Find value where others don’t see it.” In other words, OBP and college draftees were undervalued at the time of the book and the A’s properly valued them and were able to take advantage of market inadequacies. Those two items are now properly (if not over-)valued now, so teams have moved on to other things are their new Moneyball. Go back and read the book!

         2. What’s also hilarious is that statistical denialists cite the recent lack of success of the As as somehow refuting the value of statistical analysis. In reality, the opposite is the case – Beane was very successful exploiting some market inefficiencies, which were mostly identified using statistical analysis. Those inefficiencies are gone, as the basic insights of advanced statistical analysis have been internalized by every baseball organization. Even the Phillies, famously one of the only, if not the only, franchise that does not explicitly rely upon modern statistical analysis, have internalized the basic lessons.

            Market inefficiencies remain, but they are harder to identify and exploit as teams have gotten smarter.

            What cracks me up about Marfis in particular, is that, despite his comically bad predictive skills, he isn’t stupid or unknowledgable about baseball. He just resolutely refuses to even try to understand modern statistical analysis, instead forming an absurd straw man version of same, and then attacking the straw man.

            As to the specific draft in question, it wasn’t particularly bad or good. The failure rate of even first round and sandwich picks is high, whatever draft strategy one uses. But more to the point, it’s silly to judge a strategy just on one draft (though for the record the early 2000 As probably did err a little in the direction of ignoring traditional scouting – but then again the book exagerates this from what I’ve read). The bottom line wins and losses are what you judge a team on, and, given his budget, Beane was incredibly successful in that regard until the rest of baseball caught up to him.

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