With the First-Year Player Draft going on as we speak in baseball, I read an interesting tweet from Jay Jaffe a little while ago. Jay tweeted:
last time Astros had 1st pick, they passed on Derek Jeter, took Phil Nevin. Scout/HOF P Hal Newhouser quit in disgust nyti.ms/Ks4x9M.
— Jay Jaffe (@jay_jaffe) June 4, 2012
It got me interested, and it turns out Jeter fell to the Yankees with the sixth pick in 1992. The Astros deserve some slack. The teams that drafted second through fifth picked far worse than they did.
Baseball’s draft is a notorious crap shoot. I looked into it a couple of years ago, and top ten picks in baseball are about 20 percent less likely to play at least five years in the majors than similar picks for the NBA or NFL.
The discrepancy is due in part to different drafting philosophies between sports. Baseball teams are generally less likely to draft pro-ready players, and Jeter’s an example of this. He was 17 and a recent graduate of Central High School in Kalamazoo, Michigan when the Yankees selected him, and he needed almost three years to reach the majors.
Other teams may have been scared off by Jeter’s reported demands for a $1 million signing bonus, which was then unheard of. The five teams in front also opted for college players. Here’s how it came out:
| Year | Rnd | OvPck | Tm | Pos | WAR | Drafted Out of | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 1 | 1 | Astros | Phil Nevin (minors) | 3B | 14.0 | California State University Fullerton (Fullerton, CA) |
| 1992 | 1 | 2 | Indians | Paul Shuey (minors) | RHP | 6.1 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC) |
| 1992 | 1 | 3 | Expos | B.J. Wallace (minors) | LHP | Mississippi State University (Mississippi State, MS) | |
| 1992 | 1 | 4 | Orioles | Jeffrey Hammonds (minors) | OF | 7.3 | Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) |
| 1992 | 1 | 5 | Reds | Chad Mottola (minors) | OF | -1.0 | University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL) |
| 1992 | 1 | 6 | Yankees | Derek Jeter (minors) | SS | 68.1 | Central HS (Kalamazoo, MI) |
Granted, hindsight is 20-20, as the proverbial saying goes. Still, just think if any of those teams had opted for Jeter instead. I’ll give the Reds a pass since they had Barry Larkin, 28 at the time of the draft and just entering the prime of his career. I’m less sympathetic to the other clubs.
The Indians were 18 months off from trading for Omar Vizquel and were establishing the young core that made them one of the best teams in baseball later in the decade. The Astros and the Expos were in a similar spot. The Orioles could have groomed Jeter as a successor to Cal Ripken and eventually moved their legend to third base when the time was right.
We’ll never know, of course. It will be interesting to see if any players tonight follow Jeter’s course.
I get that line of thinking that people occasionally put forth about Jeter, but it seems like nonsense, honestly.
Jeter has the most WAR of any shortstop of his generation besides Alex Rodriguez. Troy Tulowitzki and Hanley Ramirez are the only current shortstops who match or exceed Jeter’s OPS+ of 118. And Honus Wagner is the only other shortstop in baseball history with at least 3,000 hits and a .300 batting average.
Yes, but let’s not get too hung up in numbers when it interferes with the narrative.
Perhaps. I certainly doubt the majority of Jeter’s fans are tossing around WAR and OPS+ comps in his defense.
I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if Jeter’s looks are part of what get him slammed unduly. Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio face similarly intense criticism as actors, and I’ve long wondered if their looks were part of the reason people don’t take them seriously.
There were a few other players of note from 1992. Among them: Johnny Damon was a supplemental first round pick, and Jason Giambi and Todd Helton each went in the second round. It’s worth noting that Helton didn’t sign and went instead to University of Tennessee where he played baseball and football.
If we were to examine a draft (or a 1st round), I think we’d have to consider only the players who were actually singed to contracts, so that players like Helton aren’t counted twice.
Hard to argue with how his career with the Rockies has worked out, but I bet Padres fans wonder how things might have played out had he signed after the 1992 draft.
Also, did you know that in addition to playing 1B (and on the football team) at Tennessee, Helton was also the team’s closer? Quite an athlete.
That’s a heck of an arm. I wonder why Helton wound up at first base in the majors. I’m guessing it’s some combination of size and being a lefty, though I’d think he might have made a good outfielder.
I’ll be interested to see how his Hall of Fame candidacy plays out when the time comes. Coors stigma and wealth of quality 1B in recent years would seem to hurt him, but “clean” reputation in “dirty” era could help, and he’ll have some nice counting numbers.
Helton and Jeter are linked in an odd way. Both have played their entire careers for one team, and where they played has very much affected public perception and even actual production. In Jeter’s case, playing for the Yankees gave him the large market+playoff visibility to showcase his skills (including intangibles) that raise his profile (and drive his detractors nuts). So, the “Jeter’s overhyped because he plays in New York” trope has some truth, but ignores his actual and very considerable accomplishments, Helton, by contrast, has put up some remarkable numbers, but, once you get past a peak of five… Read more »
Mike L:
You have to be my age to remember that people said Mantle was over-hyped because he played for the Yankees. Jackie Jensen! Jim Piersall! Rocky Colavito! Jim Landis—now there was a center fielder! Kaline, of course, was better, but that went without saying.
And Mays, well, he was in another class.
Luke — Did you overlook Johnny Damon, opt not to include the supplemental 1st rounders, or do you really think Stewart or Johnson had a better career?
I was not including the supplemental 1st rounders. He would slot comfortably ahead of Stewart and Johnson otherwise, and ahead of Kendall too.
I often about the people who claim that Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” approach to the draft was a total failure and how they look back and justify a 40 years of what was little more than a crapshoot. If I were an owner any General Manager I hired would be told up front that if he’s still here 4 or 5 years from now we’re going to sit down and look at exactly how players were ranked each year prior to the draft and if it isn’t better than the normal complete scattershot results he’s unemployed no matter how the team… Read more »
I like the drafting approach Beane took in “Moneyball” more than I like the idea of drafting a player with a high pick based on his tools and potential and expecting him to develop into a star.
Even assuming the it is possible to identify players based on how they “project” for the future, surely not all scouts are equally adept at doing so. There must be some way to track how scouts ranked players, how often they saw each player, what their injury potential was (especially for pitchers), how they projected their future performance, etc. It’s not reasonable to think they because they were the first to find one or two players that they’re all that great at evaluating talent. But clear documentation over a 4 or 5 year period would be an entirely different story.
1985’s 1st round (Surhoff, W. Clark, Larkin, Bonds, Palmeiro) stands way out, although there wasn’t a single consolidated draft until 1987. More recently, 2005 appears likely to be very notable.
Braun, Tulowitzki, Zimmerman, Ellsbury, and McCutchen all in that first round, among others.
Graham –
The Indians had Mark Lewis who was the #2 pick in 1988 out of high school. So he was still only 22 when Jeter was drafted. Granted, his MLB career wasn’t off to a very good start but I’m sure the team still had high hopes for him. He was, at one point, listed as the 9th best prospect in baseball. Also, in 1990 they drafted Tim Costo #8 overall as a SS (though I’m not sure he ever projected at that position).
That’s a good point. For all the Indians knew in 1992, Lewis and Costo still had a chance to make it big in the majors.
Four years is by no means a long apprenticeship for a high pick. Calvin Murray needed seven years to make the majors after the Giants selected him seventh overall in 1999.
Course, I’m probably being too lenient on the Indians. They used the #2 pick on Paul Shuey because they thought he could be their future closer. Seriously??? The #2 pick in the entire draft on a potential closer????
I’m with you on that. Passing on Jeter, Helton, Giambi, Damon, Kendall, et all for a closer baffles reason.
Shuey had a really nice career. Plenty of teams take a chance on a live arm early in the draft. Cleveland made out alright.
And they traded him for Ricardo Rodriguez, who is now Alberto Del Rio’s personal ring announcer.
If I’m a GM, I mix and match relievers off the scrap heap and late months of free agency. Under no circumstances do I use the second pick in the draft on one.
BTW, here’s an interesting article on the 5 guys taken before Jeter. It’s more of a “Where are they now” article, rather than a “Why were they taken before Jeter” article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/sports/baseball/06jeter.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
I came across that article this evening after I posted this piece, and it’s definitely worth a read. It offers the biggest reason, perhaps, that Jeter wasn’t selected higher– the amount he wanted for his signing bonus and the fact that guys drafted before him were willing to take less.
Jeffrey Hammonds was very dynamic. I enjoyed watching him play early on. I don’t think it was a bad pick for the Orioles. Nevin was a monster. You could definitely make a case for him being worthy of #1 overall. The Reds had a future HOF SS in his prime. The Indians had 2 #1 SS picks in the system. Even if they felt neither was going to work out, I don’t think they could choose a 3rd one in 5 year span. That leaves the Expos. It was not draft philosophy, because from 1990-93, 6 of 8 first rounders… Read more »
I forgot about Cordero. I remember in the early ’90s, he was an up-and-comer. How time changes perspective.
#22/ Graham –
my #21 was kind of tongue-in-check, I’ve seen that line used before so I thought I’d lighten up the mood a little, so to speak.
Jeter doesn’t need any of the many intangibles his fans attribute to him to be ranked as a no-doubt HOFer. He is cetainly one of the six/seven greatest shortstops ever (probably higher), but he’s just as certainly NOT the greatest shortstop ever, Honus Wagner is just so much better (unless you use a really severe timeline adjustment on Wagner).
The truth, as they say, lies somewhere in the middle.
I agree. I’d vote for Wagner or Alex Rodriguez as the greatest shortstop of all-time before Jeter, maybe Cal Ripken or 1950s Ernie Banks as well.
All-time greatest shortstops: Since some shortstops spend a good part of their career at another position, I feel that if the best part of their career was as a SS, I’d call them that. My subjective list of the top ones: 1) HONUS WAGNER – a clear #1, unless you just flat-out don’t consider pre-1920 MLB players at all. A great fielder as well as one of the greatest hitters and basestealers at any position, he was the greatest player before Ruth (Cobb close). 2) Alex Rodriguez – on peak (unless you take the caveat from above and call him… Read more »
No Alan Trammell?!!?
Gak! GAK! thud jd[aj wejsd (sound of me having a coronary and landing face first on the keyboard)
Joe Cronin? 61.9 WAR (even though he stopped playing regularly at age 35), 119 OPS+.
I did consider Cronin, also Bill Dahlen, Pee Wee Reese, Lou Boudreau, Allan Trammell (hello, Hartvig in #49). See my #12.
After #8 there’s no clear order to me, I could easily have swapped Cronin for Appling or Davis.
Good question, maybe best suited for someone else here. I’ll hazard a guess that Jeter’s lackluster power numbers– 162-game average of 16 home runs and .449 slugging– might hurt his WAR at a corner outfield spot. I’m not sure if it’d be as big of an issue in center field, where I assume WAR is slightly more forgiving for top of the order hitters.
I’m not sure but I think all you have to do is to check for positional adjustment runs. Based on data I retrieved from BR the adjustment for a SS during the years that Jeter played varied from +7 to +8.5 runs. For a corner outfielder it was -7 runs. For Jeter playing as a corner outfielder he would lose something like 15 runs a season (going from say +7.75 to -7). Based on 10 runs/win he would lose 1.5 in WAR. The positional adjustment for a CF varied from +4.5 to +6, meaning that Jeter would lose 2.5 runs… Read more »
You’d also have to consider what the Yankees roster was like in 1995 and 1996:
1995 OF: Luis Polonia/ Bernie Williams/ Paul O’Neill
1996 OF: Gerald Williams/ Bernie Williams/ Paul O’Neill
I can see Jeter displacing Gerald Williams in 1996, but neither of the other two; they both were well-established veterans having excellent years.
I think that the Yankees made the right decision playing him at shortstop.
This also assumes that Jeter would be the equivalent defensive level LF (as compared to defensive level SS). If he was a better fielding LF then the WAR would go up (and down if he was worse).
Tmckelv: You’re right about that. There is a separate parameter, Rfield, which accounts for a player’s actual level of performance at a particular position.
And I have to believe Jeter would be a better LF than SS…..CF? I dunno
A friend of mine is a Reds fan and we’ve discussed the Reds drafting Chad Mottola ahead of Jeter more than once. I started checking out Mottola’s minor league numbers during those discussions – he put up a 30/30 season at age 28 in AAA. He hit 249 minor league HRs, 193 of those in AAA. He scored over 1000 runs in the minors and drove in over 1000 as well. He was a .280 hitter, although his OBP was only .338. He didn’t start off particularly slowly (which might explain why it took him a while to find traction)… Read more »
Looking at Mottola’s Triple-A numbers and the fact that he got brief shots over five seasons in the majors, my guess is that he might have been a 4-A player: someone who was too good for Triple-A but not good enough for the majors.
I looked at the other drafts of the Yankees for the 1990’s to give the selection of Jeter some context. 1990 is a good place to start because it is the start of when the franchise resumed having regular 1st round picks after the free agent excesses of the 80’s. It includes Pettitte and Posada and is thus a reasonable starting point for players who seeded the championship run. It also avoids double counting Posada who was also drafted in 1989, but didn’t sign. I’ve listed below the total WAR (per BBRef) for each Yankee draft class, the top 5… Read more »
I’m sure thuis thread will be closed or ignored shortly. Per the Bill James method (w/o Win Shares, using WAR):
5 Best Consecutive:
Vaughn 35.8
Ripken 34
Ozzie S. 31
Trammell 29.8
Jeter 29.2
Larkin 27.4
3 Best random Years
Ripken 29.1
Vaughn 24.5
Jeter 21.5
Trammell 21
Larkin 19.6]
Ozzie 19.6
10 Consecutive
Ripken 67.4
Vaughn 61.7
Trammell 52.6
Ozzie 52.5
Larkin 50.9
Jeter 48.2
“Based on the information rec’d”, Alan Trammell is a Hall of Famer and Ripken is probably the 2nd greatest SS of all-time
Thanks for providing this, Paul. I’m guessing Trammell will be an eventual Veterans Committee selection. He got 36.8 percent of the writers vote for Cooperstown in January; with four years of eligibility remaining and a crush of good candidates due to hit the ballot, it seems highly unlikely he’ll get to the needed 75 percent to be inducted through the BBWAA. That said, Trammell seems like the kind of consistent, conservative candidate the Vets historically have loved. And a number of players have gotten in via the Veterans Committee after topping out in the 30-40 percent range with the writers.… Read more »
Paul E, is there any reason you didn’t include Yount? By my calculations he had 34.8 WAR for five best consecutive seasons (and most likely would have had at least two more if it weren’t for the strike-shortened 1981)and 24.4 for his best random three and a tad over 58 for his 10 consecutive.
tag: No. I was originally intending to see how Jeter compared to two relatively under rated SS’s in Larkin and Trammell. Then I decided to add a few others (Ozzie, Ripken, Fregosi, Vaughn). I may have used a qualifier as high as 70% of games at SS ? So, without regard to era, deadballs lively balls, or steroids, I guess we have something on the order of: 1) Wwagner (Honus ) 2) Ripken 3) Vaughn 4) Yount 5) Larkin 6) Jeter 7) Trammell 8) Ozzie 9) Banks But i believe it’s kind of foolish to even try to rank them… Read more »
Always nice to have more facts in my argument for Trammell for the Hall of Fame. I’ve been endlessly amazed that when Ripken & Ozzie went in on their first try and then Larkin made it on his third that he hasn’t gotten more recognition that he has so far. Just curious, Paul- did you figure the time that ARod spent at shortstop? I know eventually he will have more games at 3rd but he doesn’t yet. If you count his first 2 partial seasons, his first 10 years in the league were spent entirely at short except for a… Read more »
I just figured, in light of his contract and the years remaining, A-Rod figures to play more games at 3B and didn’t include him in the discussion. I guess even Wagner would have moved to 3B for $270,000,000. I considered those six names plus Fregosi; however, Fregosi didn’t fare so well in comparison to the six cited. He would have been 7th in “5 Consecutive”, 5th in “3 Best”, and 7th in “10 Consecutive”. Also, Fregosi would have been 7th among the seven in “Career WAR”. Just did the exercise in the interest of seeing how badly Jeter got penalized… Read more »
Circling back on this since I missed it. It’s understandable to think Jeter slipping to 6th might have been about the money. Yet I think it’s more about the poor decision-making process many teams use while drafting, especially twenty years back, with money being the easy excuse. If a team’s concern is saving $50K or 100K, and ignoring the advice of its talent evaluators, then they have failed. The Astros owner John McMullen had a self-imposed cap of 700K, because that’s what you do when you have the #1 pick in the nation. You handicap yourself by letting the better… Read more »