2010 MLB Draft by the numbers
For most fans, it’s easy to lose interest in the draft after the few couple of rounds. For the geekier of us, there are 1500 new players to analyze!
A good starting point is to look at the overall trends of the draft. Not every team takes the same approach. Even the same front office might go in a radically different direction than they did the previous year. To start with, here’s a look at how each team balanced their draft between pitchers and hitters, and which talent pools they drew from:
TEAM Bat Pitch 4YR JC HS
ARI 24 25 32 6 11
ATL 31 20 23 15 13
BAL 27 21 25 9 14
BOS 26 26 16 3 33
CHC 19 31 21 14 15
CHW 24 27 28 8 15
CIN 23 27 30 6 14
CLE 22 28 23 11 16
COL 24 27 25 7 19
DET 26 25 31 6 14
TEAM Bat Pitch 4YR JC HS
FLA 22 28 29 11 10
HOU 26 26 24 3 25
KC 23 27 35 6 9
LAA 30 24 31 7 16
LAD 27 23 21 11 18
MIL 22 28 31 5 14
MIN 20 30 28 9 13
NYM 20 29 34 4 11
NYY 22 28 24 7 19
OAK 26 24 31 4 15
TEAM Bat Pitch 4YR JC HS
PHI 21 29 27 8 15
PIT 18 32 17 7 26
SDP 26 24 27 8 15
SEA 20 28 29 3 16
SF 25 25 33 8 9
STL 26 26 35 6 11
TB 25 28 23 10 20
TEX 22 31 25 3 25
TOR 24 32 14 7 35
WAS 27 23 24 14 12
TEAM Bat Pitch 4YR JC HS
Total 718 802 796 226 498
Average 23.9 26.7 26.5 7.5 16.6
The average team picked a few more pitchers than hitters, and got a little more than half of their new players from four-year colleges. The most noteworthy standouts are the Blue Jays and Pirates, two teams that went very pitching-heavy, and the Braves and Dodgers, who picked the most hitters.
In the type-of-school breakdown, what strikes me is the huge number of high schoolers selected by the Red Sox (33) and Blue Jays (35). No one else picked more than 26! On the flip side, the Royals went very college-heavy, choosing only nine prep players.
Batters and pitchers by type of school
Here’s a more detailed breakdown using the same parameters as the previous table:
TEAM 4Y-Bat 4Y-Pit JC-Bat JC-Pit HS-Bat HS-Pit
ARI 18 14 2 4 4 7
ATL 11 12 9 6 11 2
BAL 15 10 6 3 6 8
BOS 7 9 1 2 18 15
CHC 10 11 3 11 6 9
CHW 10 18 4 4 10 5
CIN 15 15 1 5 7 7
CLE 9 14 5 6 8 8
COL 12 13 3 4 9 10
DET 16 15 1 5 9 5
TEAM 4Y-Bat 4Y-Pit JC-Bat JC-Pit HS-Bat HS-Pit
FLA 10 19 7 4 5 5
HOU 11 13 1 2 14 11
KC 16 19 2 4 5 4
LAA 15 16 4 3 11 5
LAD 12 9 7 4 8 10
MIL 15 16 1 4 6 8
MIN 7 21 3 6 10 3
NYM 13 21 1 3 6 5
NYY 9 15 1 6 12 7
OAK 12 19 3 1 11 4
TEAM 4Y-Bat 4Y-Pit JC-Bat JC-Pit HS-Bat HS-Pit
PHI 11 16 2 6 8 7
PIT 11 6 1 6 6 20
SDP 16 11 3 5 7 8
SEA 12 17 1 2 7 9
SF 19 14 3 5 3 6
STL 17 18 4 2 5 6
TB 11 12 3 7 11 9
TEX 13 12 0 3 9 16
TOR 5 9 3 4 16 19
WAS 14 10 8 6 5 7
TEAM 4Y-Bat 4Y-Pit JC-Bat JC-Pit HS-Bat HS-Pit
Total 372 424 93 133 253 245
Average 12.4 14.1 3.1 4.4 8.4 8.2
The Pirates didn’t select nearly as many high schoolers as did the Jays or Red Sox, but man oh man, did they take some young pitching. Their draft suggests they are willing to take chances on raw arms—in addition to all the prep pitchers, in later rounds they chose Kelson Brown, a shortstop from Division 3 Linfield with limited pitching experience, and Stephen Lumpkins, a 6’8″ lefty from American University, where he played basketball. (They don’t have a baseball team there.) It’s not India, but it’s about as close as you can get in the Rule 4.
Position by position
Here’s one more look at the draft as a whole. This time we break it down by position, as well as type of school. (I won’t clog up THT Live with 30 posts doing this for every team, but you can find those starting today at the College Splits blog, where we’re recapping the draft in a truly inappropriate amount of detail.)
Pos 4YR JC HS Total
RHP 296 98 187 581
LHP 128 35 58 221
C 81 9 45 135
1B 42 11 18 71
2B 38 6 11 55
3B 35 6 20 61
SS 54 10 62 126
IF 2 1 1 4
LF 29 9 4 42
CF 47 19 58 124
RF 23 10 22 55
OF 17 11 12 40
UTL 3 1 0 4
DH 1 0 0 1
Total 796 226 498
You’re wondering about that lone designated hitter, right? It’s Russell Moldenhauer, drafted 716th overall by the Nationals, a big lefty bat from the University of Texas and owner of a .503 adjusted wOBA this year. I wish him the best, but suspect that he probably isn’t Washington’s designated hitter of the future.
Very nice work.
Is it possible on the site to get a summary count by position for the past 5 years for all of MLB?
Interested in seeing how the position demand shifts over time; For example, are teams drafting more positions associated with stronger defense rather than offense – especially now that MLB has transitioned into the post steroid era.
Others have done similar stuff in the past; I don’t have the breakdowns handy myself.
Teams have always drafted heavily from defense-first positions, because (in general) that’s where the talented guys are. Just about every MLB second baseman was a SS at some point, many 3B were SS’s, and a lot of corner outfielders were CFs when they were drafted.
Very interesting list, I would be interested in seeing the trends the way Jeff presented it.
Not all believe that the steroid era is responsible for the higher level of offense of the past nearly 20 years. Eric Walker, in his High Boskage House website (and of The Sinister Firstbaseman and Oakland A’s bible fame), disputes this take on baseball history, instead calling it the Silly Ball era, and I find it persuasive: http://highboskage.com/juiced-ball.shtml
He also provides his take on steroids: http://steroids-and-baseball.com/