A couple of months ago, Darren Shred was taken by the Cincinnati Reds in the 22nd round of
this year’s amateur draft, the 655th player selected overall. This is the first and last
time I’ll ever be able to say this: I coached Darren for three years at Huttonville P.S.,
the school I’ve been at since I started teaching full-time in 1998. By “coached,” I mean
that we picked him for the school team, got out of his way as quickly as possible, then
stood back and watched him launch baseballs over the far portables. There wasn’t a whole
lot that I or the other coaches could tell him. “Way to go, Darren--now don’t get hurt,
and don’t go on vacation.” In his final year in grade 8, we won our annual tournament for
the one and only time.
That’s about as much as I can or should write about Darren’s time at Huttonville--it’s
not something teachers should do, and on the thousand-to-one shot he ever stumbles over
this, I’m quite sure he doesn’t want to be reading a former grade-school-coach’s thoughts
online (least of all when the coach was also his grade 6 teacher). I have, though, become
very interested in what Darren’s chances of making it to the majors are from such a rela-
tively low perch in the draft. There were 40 rounds this year, with a total of 1215 play-
ers selected, putting him a little past the halfway mark. How often does a 22nd-round pick
go on to get in some time at the major-league level? Thanks to Baseball Reference.com,
where’s there’s an extensive year-by-year rundown of the draft going back to the begin-
ning, that’s something that can be researched and quantified very easily.
I went back and looked at all the 22nd-round picks since the very first one in 1965. I
used 2009’s draft as the cut-off mark--anyone drafted after 2009, especially a lower
pick, hasn’t really had a chance to find his way yet (although a couple of post-2009
picks have in fact reached the majors already). So that’s 45 years’ worth of data to go
by.
Short version: the chances of a 22nd-round pick reaching the majors are not great--not
hopeless, by any means, but Darren has an uphill slog ahead of him. Some numbers:
Total Players Drafted in the 22nd round: 1194
Total Players Who Reached the Majors: 92 (7.7%)
Position Players Who Reached the Majors: 43
Pitchers Who Reached the Majors: 49
That works out almost exactly to a one-in-thirteen shot. If you’re drafted as a pitcher,
as Darren was, your odds are a little better of making it to the majors--and, by a much
wider margin, of achieving some success when you get there.
Total WAR for the 92 22nd-round Picks Who Made the Majors: 360.1
Total WAR for Position Players: 70.1
Total WAR for Pitchers: 290.0
WAR, if you don’t know, is an approximation of how many wins a player is worth to his
team above and beyond what a replacement-level player might provide (i.e., somebody you
stick in there simply because you have nobody better). It’s a metric that has been de-
bated endlessly the past few years, but it’s gradually becoming less contentious--as an
easy summation of a player’s value, it’s useful.
Over 45 years of drafting, that’s not a lot of value coming from the 22nd round: about 4
career wins for the 92 players who made it to the majors, and only about a third of a
career win for the 1194 players drafted. Pitchers fare much better--their 290 WAR is four
times as great as the 70 generated by position players. Almost half of that belongs to
two pitchers, though, so that’s a bit misleading.
Most Successful Draft by Number of Players: 1975 (5)
Most Successful Draft by Total WAR: 1985 (69.6)
Least Successful Drafts: 1979, 1980, 1981, 2003, 2004 (135 players drafted, none made it
to majors)
Again, almost all of 1985’s 69.6 WAR is attributable to one player. The ’75 group in-
cluded only one player of any consequence. The five years that were complete washouts,
especially the three in a row...might have been a few scouts lose their jobs around that
time. (I wonder if the ’79-81 run had anything to do with the success of the ’77-78
Yankees, who won two World Series in a row and were the first example of a team in the
free-agency era that won by simply buying up everything in sight. Maybe there was a
momentarily declining belief in the draft as a gateway to success, especially via the
lower rounds.)
Getting down to specifics, here are the 10 best (as measured by career WAR) 22nd round
picks. I was originally going to list the 10 best position players and 10 best pitchers
separately, but these are the only 10 from either group who exceeded 10 WAR for their
careers, so I’ve combined them into one tidy group.
1. John Smoltz (69.5 career WAR; drafted 1985): the one 22nd-round pick in the HOF. How
was it that a player of such caliber was overlooked? I took a look at his minor-league
record, and it seems clear that he took a few years to develop into John Smoltz; his
strikeout rate was fairly low as a 19- and 20-year old, and it was only at 21 that he
exceeded 7.0 for the first time. Drafted by the Tigers (seemingly a favorite-son pick--
he attended Lansing High, about 100 miles northwest of Detroit), Smoltz was involved in
one of the most famous late-season trades ever, one that was brought up frequently when
the Jays recently acquired David Price for Daniel Norris. I can’t think of another trade
that resulted in such immediate and spectacular short-term success for one team--the
Tigers got Doyle Alexander, who proceeded to go 9-0 down the stretch with a 1.53 ERA,
leading them past the Jays and into the playoffs--while the other, the Braves, received
all the career value and then some. They got John Smoltz. The Tigers missed the World
Series in ’87, losing the ALCS to an inferior Twins team (the Jays, of course, were
better than both), and after a so-so year in ’88, Alexander would retire in 1989. (Up-
date: the explanation as to why he was drafted so low turns out to be very simple. From
the Cliff Corcoran piece linked to below: "Before the 1985 draft Smoltz signed a letter
of intent to play baseball [and try basketball] at Michigan State. Without it, Sickels
estimates that Smoltz would have gone in the first five rounds.")
2. Andy Pettitte (60.8, 1990): the borderline HOF case--he may get put in by one of the
veteran’s committees one day, but that won’t be for a while. Finished Top 10 in Cy Young
voting five times, and the key holdover starter for all four of the millennial Yankees
WS winners.
3. Jason Bay (24.3, 2000): Rookie of the Year in 2004, drew MVP votes three times, and the
one Canadian in the Top 10. Went to the Red Sox in a big three-way trade involving Manny
Ramirez in 2008, at a point where his career was in very good shape. Followed up with a
big year in 2009, and that was it--retired four years later at 34.
4. Freddie Patek (24.1, 1965): Key part--defensively, anyway--of the great Royals teams
of the ‘70s. Famously short (5’5”), 41 career HR, three of them improbably in one game.
Never won a Gold Glove--they all went to Belanger in the ‘70s.
5. Jeff Fassero (24.1, 1984): I remember him from his time as an Expo in the early-‘90s--
he was pretty great there his first four seasons--and he followed up with one strong year
in Seattle (9th–place in that year’s Cy Young voting). Like all left-handers, he then hung
around as a journeyman middle reliever until he was 67.
6. Bill Lee (22.2, 1968): I’m quite sure the Red Sox hadn’t the slightest clue what was in
store for them when they called his name. (Lee completely contradicts my statement about
left-handers: I’m surprised to see that he only played for two teams and was out of the
game at 35.)
7. Aaron Harang (20.4, 1996): Still at it, taking his regular turn in the rotation for the
awful Phillies, his eighth team. Finished fourth in Cy Young voting for the 2006 Reds.
8. Dave Rozema (15.9, 1974): I remembered that he was a Tiger, but I had the wrong era. I
thought he was part of the lousy run of mid-‘70s teams, the Fidrych and Wockenfuss and
LeFlore years, but in fact he came along a little later, just as the great ‘80s teams
were starting to be assembled. Top 10 Cy Young finisher in his rookie year, still hang-
ing on as the 5th starter for the ’84 team that won 104 games and the World Series.
9. Jeff Nelson (15.2, 1984): Also an important part of the millennial Yankees dynasty as
the right-handed set-up guy for Rivera. Not much control, but struck out more than a man-
per-inning from 1996-2000, when that wasn’t nearly as common as it is today.
10. Ron Hassey (14.7, 1975): Another Jays connection: it was Hassey who lofted the fly
ball that George Bell caught for the final out in the Jays’ first-ever division-clinching
game in 1985. Quite a good hitter at the time, but that only lasted for three or four
seasons.
A few other players of note:
Ron Bryant (drafted 1965): won 24 games for the Giants in ’73.
Ron Musselman (1975): part of that ’85 Jays team.
Chris Bando (1977): Salvatore’s brother.
Mark Davis (1978): one of the more dubious Cy Young winners ever (1989 with the Padres,
for a year that’s replicated by about six closers every season now).
Mike Fetters (1983): another middle reliever who pitched forever, right-handed version.
I vaguely remember that he looked like he should have been in the Little Rascals.
Kevin Maas (1986): Babe Ruth for a day. In 1990, Maas (then 25 years old) got called up
by the Yankees in June and proceeded to hit 21 HR in 254 AB; he was runner-up to Sandy
Alomar in ROY voting that year, and--during the heyday of card-collecting--his rookie
cards were bought and sold like they were IBM stock. (Partly a function of being with
the Yankees.) He hit 22 the next year, but in twice as many AB, and was finished by the
time he was 30.
Mike Glavine (1995): Tom’s brother.
Jaime Garcia (2005): still in the Cardinals' rotation--very good pitcher when he’s
healthy, never seems to be able to stay that way (starting with Tommy John surgery after
his rookie year).
Again: not hopeless, not easy. I’m quite sure Darren knows this. One in 13 gives you much
better odds than winning the lottery, and the payoff--at least if you’re John Smoltz (an
estimated $135 million in career earnings) or Andy Pettitte ($140 million); even Jaime
Garcia has earned over $25 million thus far, and he’s still only 30--can be almost as
lucrative.
Here’s a good rundown of the best low-round picks from any round (Glavine and Pettitte
both make the list):
The 10 Best Late-Round Draft Picks Ever, Led by Mike Piazza, and a New Way to Measure Them