The twelve Mynci teams drafted 23 players each. Our opening day rosters, including 11 players on the DL, totaled 287 players. I’ll call these “value” players.
The table below shows the number of value players per major league team, the first player(s) taken and in which round.
The results are hardly surprising. The Red Sox, Angels, and Devil Rays should be quite good. The Blue Jays and Padres should be mediocre. However, there are some interesting stories within the data.
- The Angels are tied for second in total number of value players, but lack superstars, with the aging Vladimer Guerrero and John Lackey not taken until the 5th round. The Angels are the only team whose entire starting rotation was drafted or signed by opening day.
- In contrast, the Mets had only ten value players, but three first round draft picks.
- The World Champion Phillies had nine value players, and two first round draft picks. Notably, all but one of the nine players were taken by the end of the 10th round.
I will note that because we use keepers, the first player taken data is somewhat skewed by scarcity. Matt Holiday in Oakland would likely not be a first round pick in an actual draft; but was a keeper for a team with few better options. Except for Carlos Lee, Alfonso Soriano, and Justin Morneau, all the other 1st, 2nd, and 3rd picks listed below were keepers.
| Players by Team | # | First player(s) taken | Rnd |
| Boston Red Sox | 16 | Jonathan Papelbon | (2) |
| Los Angeles Angels | 15 | Vladimer Guerrero, John Lackey | (5) |
| Tampa Bay Devil Rays | 15 | Carlos Pena | (2) |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 13 | Brandon Webb | (1) |
| Chicago Cubs | 12 | Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez | (3) |
| New York Yankees | 12 | Alex Rodriguez | (1) |
| Chicago White Sox | 11 | Carlos Quentin | (2) |
| Cleveland Indians | 11 | Grady Sizemore | (1) |
| Detroit Tigers | 11 | Miguel Cabrera | (1) |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 11 | Prince Fielder | (2) |
| Atlanta Braves | 10 | Brian McCann | (4) |
| Cincinnati Reds | 10 | Brandon Phillips | (2) |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 10 | Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp | (4) |
| New York Mets | 10 | Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, David Wright | (1) |
| Baltimore Orioles | 9 | Nick Markakis, Brian Roberts | (4) |
| Florida Marlins | 9 | Hanley Ramirez | (1) |
| Minnesota Twins | 9 | Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau | (3) |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 9 | Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley | (1) |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 9 | Albert Pujols | (1) |
| Houston Astros | 8 | Carlos Lee, Lance Berkman | (2) |
| Kansas City Royals | 8 | Adam Dunn | (6) |
| Seattle Mariners | 8 | Ichiro Suzuki | (4) |
| Texas Rangers | 8 | Josh Hamilton | (2) |
| Colorado Rockies | 7 | Troy Tulowitzki | (6) |
| Oakland Athletics | 7 | Matt Holiday | (1) |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 7 | Nate McLouth | (6) |
| San Francisco Giants | 7 | Tim Lincecum | (3) |
| Washington Senators | 6 | Ryan Zimmerman | (8) |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 5 | Roy Halladay | (3) |
| San Diego Padres | 4 | Jake Peavy | (4) |
I like this metric. It’ll be interesting to see whether it pans out as any kind of predictor. I’m still going with Sabremetric defense, which correctly predicted a surge last season for the Rays. The Rays will be strong again, but I fear the Red Sox have taken a dip, while the Yanks got marginally better with Teixeira, Gardner, and, until Nady’s injury, Nady. Abreu is a terrible outfielder. The Angels will suffer greatly. Even Torii is overrated, according to metrics. Due to age, he has lost a step. I wish I could remember the particular stat (it’s related to VORP). It has to do with runs created versus runs saved defensively. It determines that David DeJesus is worth more runs to his team than Adam Dunn is to his. It is suggested that it is because many ML teams pay such close attention to related metrics that Dunn got such middling demand on the free agent market this past winter. Ostensibly, he would cost his team fewer runs at 1B? Soriano was huge for the Cubs, thanks mostly to his rocket arm in left field. He was a top outfielder, though I believe Alex Rios is still #1.
Posted by by Lehho Rebassoo on April 18, 2009 at 12:17 pm