This week the Mariners drafted Taijuan Walker, a high school pitcher, with their first pick, despite the volume of evidence that shows such a move rarely pays off.
High school pitchers are much riskier picks than college pitchers for a few reasons:
- The level of competition they face is so varied, their statistics mean nothing.
- Their bodies haven’t fully matured, which can lead to injuries down the road.
- College pitchers have 3-4 years of extra experience and coaching, accumulating possibly hundreds of innings against better quality hitters. In general this means they are better educated in the game and more mature physically and emotionally.
That’s not to say that a high school pitcher never works out, sometimes they make it big. But it’s risk and reward. In recent years, high school pitchers have narrowed the “value gap” between their college counterparts. Check out this chart from Basement-Dwellers.com that shows, despite their recent gains, high school pitchers chosen in early rounds still, on average, had the lowest long-term value of any category of player (as measured by Wins Above Replacement Player).
The past few years the M’s top draft picks have been pretty crappy. Adams Jones was good. And Morrow has been OK, but knowing that Lincecum was still on the board hurts. Who knows, maybe Walker will work out. But the odds are stacked against him. And with all the data available to a major league team, you’d think they would know better.
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Tags: baseball
Plus we can’t even lose correctly. See the sweep of the Angels at the end of the the 2008 season to guarentee NOT to get Stephen Strasburg.
Seriously! He showed he was legit yesterday too.