With several months still until the pitchers and catchers report, it’s probably a good time to see how the Cardinals got to where they are now in their farm system. And since their International operations have not yet born fruit for the big club, let’s take a look back at the MLB drafts. Obviously, the MLB draft is not as crucial for development of a team as the NFL draft is for NFL teams, but it is still informative to see what decisions the Cardinals made in the draft process. All stats are courtesy of Baseball Cube. Players with an ** before their name did not sign with the Cardinals after this draft.
After the disasters that were the 2001 and 2002 drafts, the Cardinals made some improvements in the 2003 draft, getting some good talent and it would have been a lot better if they were able to sign two high school arms they drafted later in the draft. Let’s take a look.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
1 28 Daric Barton C 17 MLB Marina (CA) $975,000
The Cardinals picked up the slugging high school catcher in the first round. However, after 2 seasons at catcher with the Cardinals, he was moved to Oakland in the Mark Mulder deal and the A’s used him at first after that. Barton is a three true outcomes player, he either walks, strikes out or hits a home run. He fit in well with the Jack Cust-led A’s. However, looking back at older drafts made me appreciate this pick even more. The Cardinals were able to grab a high school player who played well in his first 2 seasons in the minors with the Cardinals and developed into a MLB-caliber player. However, that being said, the pick still opens itself up to criticism as Adam Jones and Carlos Quentin were picked after Barton.
The rest of the 2003 draft by the Cardinals after the jump!
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
2 65 Stuart Pomeranz P 18 AA Houston (TN) $570,000
The Cardinals drafted Pomeranz over high school arm Andrew Miller and Missouri State pitcher Shawn Marcum. Pomeranz reached AA in 2006 and never reached those highs again and was released after the 2007 season. Pomeranz never put up big strikeout numbers and when he got much more hittable in the low minors, he was expendable. A lot of his problems can be attributed to a shoulder injury that he never fully recovered from.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
3 95 Dennis Dove P 21 MLB Georgia Southern U $400,000
Dove was a great story in the 2007 season when he made his MLB debut, but a shoulder injury and the surgery that followed effectively ended his career. He has resurfaced as an assistant coach with the baseball team for Georgia Southern U, his alma mater. Dove and Pomeranz are both more cautionary tales as the Cardinals were able to draft and develop both to a point, but injuries permanently derailed their careers. The path of a prospect is fraught with peril and a sudden injury can stop all progress and end careers. Such is why the drafting process in Major League Baseball is so risky.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
4 125 Mark Michael P 20 A+ U of Delaware $220,000
5 155 Brandon Yarbrough C 18 AAA Richmond (NC) $175,000
6 185 Matt Weagle P 20 Ind Franklin Pierce U $128,000
Brandon Yarbrough was a good organizational player who had stuck around the Cardinals system until 2009 when he was let go as a minor league free agent and signed by the Reds. Matt Weagle was out after 44 innings in the minors in 2003 and 2005 missing all of 2004. Mark Michael was out after the 2006 season, but the Cardinals surely drafted him after his stellar performance in the Cape Cod League in 2001. Michael could not come close to recreating those numbers in the minors.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
7 215 Brendan Ryan SS 21 MLB Lewis-Clark $100,000
8 245 Matt Pagnozzi C 20 MLB Central Arizona $105,000
Brendan Ryan? Hmm, he plays for the Mariners. Guess I seem to remember something being said about him recently. Can’t place it. Solid pick for the 7th round. Matt Pagnozzi never swung the bat well enough to be a defense-first catcher and was released this offseason.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From Bonus
9 275 Justin Garza P 20 AA Seminole State $80,000
10 305 Tom Blair P 21 AA U of Oklahoma $45,000
11 335 Nate Kopszywa P 21 Rookie Crichton College
12 365** Calvin Beamon OF 19 A College of Southern Nevada
13 395 Kainoa Obrey 3B 22 A- Brigham Young University
Garza out after 2006. Blair out after 2004. Kopszywa out after rookie ball in 2003. Same for Obrey. Instead of Garza, the Cards could have taken power hitting 3B Casey McGehee and instead of Kopszywa, CC catcher John Jaso and instead of Obrey, HS catcher Matt LaPorta.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
14 425** Ian Kennedy P 18 MLB La Quinta (Westminster,CA)
15 455 Anthony Reyes P 21 MLB USC
Ian Kennedy would have been a very nice player for the Cardinals to sign to a big contract considering they did not dole out a single bonus over a million in this draft. The story of Antony Reyes has been told and retold, but for this exercise, this was a quality pick in the 15th round.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
16 485 Omar Pena SS 21 A+ Northeastern University
17 515 Kevin House OF 20 A- University of Memphis
18 545 Jose Virgil OF 22 A- Oklahoma State University
19 575 Jason Motte C 21 MLB Iona College
Jason Motte, the cather turned flame-throwing reliever obviously is the leader in this group. Pena was out after 2004, as was House. Virgil was out after 2003 rookie ball.
Rnd Ovl Player Name Pos Age HL Drafted From
20 605 Jordan Pals P 22 AA Eastern Illinois University
21 635 Jason Burch P 20 AA University of Nebraska
22 665** Derik Drewett P 18 College Watson Chapel (AR)
23 695 Matt Blanton P 22 A- Hendrix College
24 725 Tee Thomas 2B 22 A- Mississippi Valley State U
25 755 Tavaris Gary OF 21 Rookie Cumberland University
26 785 Levi Webber OF 21 A- Oregon State University
27 815 Jason John P 21 A- Grayson County College
28 845 Tanner Wootan 2B 20 A- Chandler-Gilbert CC
29 875 Brantley Jordan P 22 AA University of Texas
30 905** Matt Lane P 18 A Iowa Western CC
31 935 Mike Tamulionis P 22 College St. John’s University
32 965 Derek Roper P 22 A University of Missouri
33 995 Casey Grimm OF 22 A- Seton Hall University
34 1025** Kevin Mulvey P 18 MLB Bishop Ahr (Edison,NJ)
35 1055 Peter Eberhardt P 21 A- Cerritos College
36 1085 John Powell P 18 Rookie Carl Albert State College
37 1115 Sal Frisella OF 22 A Southern Illinois University
38 1145** Brett Sinkbeil P 18 MLB Page (Sand Springs,OK)
39 1175 T.J. Brewer P 18 AAA Bloomington South (IN)
40 1205 Peter Soteropoulos P 21 A University of Connecticut
41 1234** Ryan Castellanos 3B 18 College Silverado (Las Vegas,NV)
42 1263** Roydrick Merritt OF 17 AAA Nimitz (Houston,TX)
43 1291** Max Scherzer P 18 MLB Parkway Central (MO)
44 1319 Ryan Reichelderfer1B 19 - University of Arkansas-Fort Smith
45 1346 Josh Markham P 18 Rookie Riverdale (Murfreesboro,TN)
46 1373** Kam MickolioP 19 MLB College of Eastern Utah
47 1400 Tobirus Bell OF 19 - John Wood Community College
Local prospect Max Scherzer is obviously the other fish that got away in the last 27 rounds. It probably grows a little tiresome to see how quickly these prospects were out of the Cardinals system, but I think it demonstrates a lot about the Cardinals drafts, especially around the early middle rounds. These are valuable rounds to get some talented players, especially as some players fall with contract demands. The Cardinals as of late have been doing a much better job of scouting and drafting players to help the depth in the system. Consider the 10-13 rounds in the 2007 draft – Beau Riportella, Adam Reifer, Brett Zawacki and Steven Hill, all still active in the Cards system after 3 years. One would not think that is a huge accomplishment, but looking back at the early 2000s drafts, the Cardinals have come a long way from getting nothing for their draft picks.
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What do you mean, Barton is a TTO guy? Far from it. His major-league career slugging average is below .400 (just barely, but still), while his batting average is .260. Compare Jack Cust, at .472 and .245, respectively. Now THAT’s a TTO guy. In fact the concern with Barton was always whether his limited power would allow him to be effective at a corner position, if he couldn’t stick at catcher (as he didn’t). He also doesn’t strike out exceptionally often (about one time per 6.5 PA). The only TTO component that he does well is walk, and it is not obvious to me that he would continue to do so if Oakland had more offense behind him.
Agree Mr. Grunt! Not sure what Jeff was thinking or looking at.
That was a pretty darn good draft. Barton has been solid and netted a big (at the time) fish in Mulder. Dove and Pomeranz both had the injuries. Ryan was the starter at SS for 2 years and Pags was a steady organizational player. Reyes was at one time the best the system had to offer. Sinkbeil, Kennedy, and Sherzer would have been nice signings….you gotta appreciate the shots the Cards took. Oh and Jason Motte!
Thanks, Jeff, for the copious research! Makes me sad to see exactly how far from panning out some of the higher picks turned out. How soon can we talk about 2005? ;)
I have to take gentle issue, though, with the concluding Daric Barton comment. Per Baseball-Reference, Carlos Quentin has been worth 5.6 WAR so far in his MLB career. Barton, fully three years his junior, has been worth 6.7; Adam Jones checks in at 7.7 (same age as Barton). No meaningful evidence, then, that either of the other two woulda been better picks–and I’m not really sure it’s fair to criticize ANY draft pick (beyond the top few guys, maybe) if you do take “only” the 3rd-best eventual MLB player at that slot.
Furthermore, given Barton’s extraordinary plate discipline (he led the A.L. in free passes with 110), he projects better than the other two going forward–in my opinion. I mean, last season the guy had a solid OPS+ of 119…with just 10 homers. What happens when he pops 20-25 longballs? Maybe a 140-150? (That’s a preview of 2013-2018. Mark it down.)
I’m no guru, but I am not as sold on Barton as some. In terms of max upside, he strikes me as the second coming of Lyle Overbay (with better plate discipline). Overbay was a decent player, but his lack of power and a position crimped his value.
I agree. At age 24, Barton still has a ton of time to become a solid 1B. Jones hasn’t really had enough time to prove himself and Quentin is not living up to the hype, but Barton still has a chance to be pretty good and, with all the experience he’s acquired, he should only get better if healthy.
Now that I’m looking closer at the Athletics, they once again have a fairly decent team for cheap next year. Many critics of the Billy Beane tactics, but he fields an exciting team year in and year out. Yes, he missed out on Cargo and the Wallace/Holliday trade was atricous; however, lots of talent still on that team.
Well, after reading this entry I clicked through all the teams for the 2003 draft. I was curious to see how many players from each teams 2003 draft had actually made it to the majors in any capacity. There was a low of 1 and a high of 9 (by the Dodgers, including Kemp and Billingsley). Most teams fell in the 3-4 range. The Cardinals had 6, although that counts Dove’s brief career. It also hard for me to count Motte unless you would like me to believe the Cardinals actually drafted him with the idea that he might be able to be a pitcher if he flamed out as a catcher. Still, even if I only counted it as four the Cardinals draft would be slightly above average for the 2003.
Anyone no what the average career WAR for a major league draft is? Would certainly give us a std to better judge these drafts with.
I’ve done a bit of looking at this, and while I’m not yet organized enough to put up the results here (VC5 may beat me to it), it has made me somewhat skittish about providing the exact number you are asking for. The problem (#5) is that individual drafts (#5) are strongly biased (#5) by the selection or non-selection (#5) of one individual player (#5) who generates once-a-generation value (#5). Let’s face it: while one may argue that the 1999 draft was unbelievably, unprecedentedly brilliant for landing Pujols in the 13th round, one could also argue that it was unbelievably, stupidly risky for letting other teams have almost 400 shots at him first. In this regard the 95 WAR generated by the Cardinals’ 1999 draft is largely a matter of pure, dumb luck, since almost 80 of those wins were generated by one extraordinary 13th-round choice. (Incidentally, most of the rest come from Coco Crisp.) The Giants’ 1982 and Pirates’ 1985 drafts are even more strongly biased by having included Barry Bonds, looking like massive wins from a WAR perspective even though almost nobody else in those two drafts contributed major-league value at all.
If there’s interest, I’ll try to get the results organized to put up later today, but I suspect there is a better way of doing what you’re looking for than just looking at aggregate WAR.
Perhaps the key is not to look at the draft in its entirety, as probably every year there is a lightning in a bottle type of player, but rather to look at only the first _ (4 or 5?) rounds and then look at players outside of those rounds whose bonus falls in the top ___ (100?) of all bonuses for that draft. If a player doesn’t meet either of these criteria, the pick was probably just a shot in the dark, and any WAR’s accomplished by that player are likely just dumb luck.
P.S. I have no idea if those limitations are too high or not high enough.
Well, median’s are designed to somewhat negate the affect outliers have on the averages so maybe you should go that way.
Here’s an article on average WAR of first rounders during the 90′s. Not exactly what you were asking for, and methods are a little iffy, but interesting, nonetheless.
http://www.realclearsports.com/blognetwork/mlb_insights/2010/05/how-well-did-your-favourite-team-draft-in-the-90s.html
Unless someone finds what cairocacardinal is asking for, I’m going to undertake the task and calculate the average total WAR of different teams total drafts from 1995-2005. Let me know if it’s already out there so I can avoid reinventing the wheel
You can get this directly at baseball-reference.com. Go to their draft pages and use the sort-by-team function.
Beat me to it. B-R says the Cards got 7.3 WAR out of the ’03 draft, vs. 0.6 in ’02 and -1.8 in ’04. It credits the ’01 draft with 30.1 WAR, but most of those are by Dan Haren, and some are misattributed to a guy with the same name as our 28th-round pick.
The ’00 draft yielded 7.4 WAR — 7.8 by Yadi, and net-negative production by everyone else.
And ’99 was otherworldly: 94.8 WAR, including 76.4 by AP and 14.9 by Coco Crisp.
One problem w. using B-R for WAR is that it misattributes a lot of production. You really have to look carefully at each player on each list, which would be a monumental time suck.
For example, it says the Cards have gotten 263.8 total WAR from all active players originally drafted by the org. But it gives the Cards credit for 8.1 WAR for Jason Michaels, who was drafted 4 times before he signed with Philly. The Cards were the 3rd org to draft but fail to sign him.
Mistakes aside, what jumps out at me is the fact that the Cards’ biggest producers from the draft produced almost all their WAR for other orgs, following trades: Drew, Polanco, Haren, Kennedy, Crisp, Jack Wilson …
Of course, some of those trades brought a lot more back in return: Wainwright, Rolen, and Edmonds, for starters. But then you have Wilson for Jason Christiansen, Crisp for Chuck Finley, and Haren for … well, let’s not go there.
IMO, it is still to the team’s credit that they draft guys like Michaels who sign later with someone else; it says they are at least recognizing, and TRYING to acquire, talent. That isn’t a “mistake” as much as it is a recognition that recognizing the talent isn’t the only thing involved in the development process.
Actually, the root of my question came from thinking about how Barton’s WAR will come from another team (and we didn’t get much WAR out of Mulder) and how Ryan’s might (if it exists). But that got me thinking about what the norm should be in the first place.
Thanks. Very consistent with my reply to CC in #5 above (appropriately enough).
As noted there, I don’t think the 1999 draft WAR says anything about how clever the team was in drafting and developing talent that year, merely that we were unbelievably fortunate — which we all knew already. That is one reason why I prefer to look at the number of guys drafted each year who reach the Show at all. A baseball player skilled enough to reach the majors at even a bare replacement level is better at baseball than most of us will ever be at ANYTHING, a fact we often forget when we look at the Chris Narvesons and John Galls of the world. Recognizing and drafting that talent level is a non-trivial accomplishment, and one that the Cardinals generally outperform other teams in doing — I did look at raw numbers of draftees reaching the bigs, and the Cardinals have been in the upper tier of MLB in that department for quite some time. If some of those guys then turn into superstars, all the better, but there appears to be a significant component of plain dumb luck in that.
I’m afraid I couldn’t disagree more strongly with the common perception of the Pujols drafting as “lucky.”
The Cardinals saw something in Pujols that no one else did. That’s the definition of skill.
The Twins, on the other hand, happened to have the #1 pick when Joe Mauer was available. Therefore, they were lucky to get him.
When the 49ers drafted Joe Mantana in the third round, were they “stupidly risky” for allowing every other team to have multiple shots at him? Of course not. Just as with Pujols, Montana was drafted by a team that was simply smarter than everyone else.
I’ve started the process of calculating total WAR for drafts. Br’s draft section is not updated to 2010 WAR numbers. I’m pasting out those who did not sign as well.
Agreed on one player dramatically changing how a draft looks. Still want to compare us to other orgs.