I tend to think of this as a scouting/drafting failure, rather than a development failure. Although I suppose they don’t need to be exclusive. But to my mind, if you draft a bunch of guys with ERAs in the 5s in college, you shouldn’t be surprised when you end up with a bunch of guys with ERAs in the 5s in the minors. This was an entirely foreseeable outcome of a poor drafting strategy.
Now, it’s possible for the 2023 draftees to still turn things around - arguably you need more than a few months to execute whatever changes the Pirates have been working on. But the lack of success of the ‘22 draftees doesn’t give a lot of hope in that respect.
If we give them the minimum amount of credit in that they have agency over their decisions and a general goal of doing better, then wouldn't we have to assume THEY didn't believe this was expected?
These drafts were so oddly lopsided towards college pitching that there had to be SOME plan behind it, right?
Otherwise wouldn't we have to believe the "best player on the board" just happened to be a milquetoast college relief pitcher, THAT many times?
Were most underslot? I'm just looking for perspective of what the expectations on drafting college arms in the mid rounds where most teams are going underslot in order to sign overslot prep arms.
What's the hit rate league wide on arms like these? <3%? <10%?
Landon Tompkins is the only one of 33 non-first round college pitchers signed in the last three drafts to be clearly underslot at $15k. Some others were under by trivial amount but nothing close to being intentional for the sake of draft strategy.
And again, nobody is arguing with you about historic success rates! Historically, these absolutely are exceptionally low probability draft picks.
It's that very fact, though, that implies they're either utterly retarded and have based their overarching draft approaches on the dumbest possible strategy OR they've been intentional about taking dudes they believed they could make better yet have completely failed to do so.
Thus the title and topic for which Wilbur has chosen to report.
By this logic, every team that has taken mid round college arms are either utterly retarded or believed they could make them better.
With the historic fail rate of these guys, it not just a Pirate issue, it's league wide, brother.
But to your point the volume of drafting this amount of college arms is odd, but then again, I think they knew they had to fill out pitching staffs in the minors and that was the plan.
That’s kind of my thinking here too. If you end up with say, 10 college arms picked in middle rounds (say 4-8 round), over two or three drafts, a bunch of them will never see the light of day for reasons in the article. That’s a relatively normal return, right? If they get a couple of relievers out of that group, that’s a good return I’d say.
Having said all that, I think the biggest question is maybe they’re going about it backwards in drafting big stuff, no control guys like this years crop. The common wisdom for a long time was either you have velocity or you don’t. But some teams have shown they can add velocity and stuff with arms (LA, Cleveland) to guys with good control, and they spin (pun intended) straw into gold. In short, it looks like it’s easier to teach/train stuff into a guy instead of control. But these guys are all such long shots it’s tough to say if they’d make it anyway.
Mike Kennedy was definitely in the CLE mold and seems to be doing alright so far, not a failure by any means. I thought his selection might signal a shift in that direction but this year seemed to go opposite.
Could be developmental issues, poor scouting, or possibly a mixture of both along with college pitchers we sometimes draft who can be secured underslot, thereby saving dollars to be used for overslot signings - usually HS pitchers/players.
The Pirates are extremely deep in young pitching at the upper 3 levels, led by HS Draftee's Quinn Priester, Mike Burrows, Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler, Anthony Solometo, and I am also going with Braxton Ashcraft coming back from TJ. Throw in a few college arms like Paul Skenes, Thomas Harrington, a healthy Hunter Barco, etc., and then add the arms provided through International Free Agency and it is a very bright future for Pirate Pitching.
You keep saying they’re extremely deep. They’re not, and a lot of it has to do with attrition and injury. Look at this season. Ro and Ortiz went backwards, and Priester has sucked. Some of those guys will get hurt, some should be shuffled to the bullpen. It won’t be all sunshine and rainbows.
Also upper three levels? What is that? If a guy makes it to Bradenton, will that be the upper four levels?
Another thought feeding off of Wilburs comment and data on lack of control. Would it actually help in the development of your non-pitchers to have guys (likely college pitchers) who are polished but whose stuff give them basically zero chance of making the majors. At least once or twice a week your position players would actually not be struggling focusing because the pitchers can't throw anything close. This reminds of my days years ago of coaching somewhat younger aged girls softball. You had to juggle the kid who couldn't throw straight but could throw hard and was working hard on developing vs. a kid who maybe wasn't planning on pitching long term but could at least help the game resemble an actual game and allow your fielders to you know... field vs. pick daisies or sleep.
I think I was surprised how MANY pitchers they drafted as much as the fact they were all college pitchers. At some point not too deep into the draft there just are not high school pitchers wiling too sign for the slot or near slot value so by default they are not an option for any team. Once you get to about the 5th round(and realistically sooner) the odds are pretty low that anybody will actually make the majors so why not spread the odds some and draft some hitters (who may have just as many warts or just one redeeming quality).
I tend to think of this as a scouting/drafting failure, rather than a development failure. Although I suppose they don’t need to be exclusive. But to my mind, if you draft a bunch of guys with ERAs in the 5s in college, you shouldn’t be surprised when you end up with a bunch of guys with ERAs in the 5s in the minors. This was an entirely foreseeable outcome of a poor drafting strategy.
Now, it’s possible for the 2023 draftees to still turn things around - arguably you need more than a few months to execute whatever changes the Pirates have been working on. But the lack of success of the ‘22 draftees doesn’t give a lot of hope in that respect.
Are any of these guys high draft picks? Relative to where these dudes are drafted, isn't this expected?
If we give them the minimum amount of credit in that they have agency over their decisions and a general goal of doing better, then wouldn't we have to assume THEY didn't believe this was expected?
These drafts were so oddly lopsided towards college pitching that there had to be SOME plan behind it, right?
Otherwise wouldn't we have to believe the "best player on the board" just happened to be a milquetoast college relief pitcher, THAT many times?
I'm guessing (could be wrong) these guys are under slot senior arms that were drafted to fill holes in minor league pitching staffs.
Sometimes you get lucky an unearth a JT Brubaker
Most were not seniors.
Were most underslot? I'm just looking for perspective of what the expectations on drafting college arms in the mid rounds where most teams are going underslot in order to sign overslot prep arms.
What's the hit rate league wide on arms like these? <3%? <10%?
Landon Tompkins is the only one of 33 non-first round college pitchers signed in the last three drafts to be clearly underslot at $15k. Some others were under by trivial amount but nothing close to being intentional for the sake of draft strategy.
And again, nobody is arguing with you about historic success rates! Historically, these absolutely are exceptionally low probability draft picks.
It's that very fact, though, that implies they're either utterly retarded and have based their overarching draft approaches on the dumbest possible strategy OR they've been intentional about taking dudes they believed they could make better yet have completely failed to do so.
Thus the title and topic for which Wilbur has chosen to report.
I mean what are we talking about here?
By this logic, every team that has taken mid round college arms are either utterly retarded or believed they could make them better.
With the historic fail rate of these guys, it not just a Pirate issue, it's league wide, brother.
But to your point the volume of drafting this amount of college arms is odd, but then again, I think they knew they had to fill out pitching staffs in the minors and that was the plan.
That’s kind of my thinking here too. If you end up with say, 10 college arms picked in middle rounds (say 4-8 round), over two or three drafts, a bunch of them will never see the light of day for reasons in the article. That’s a relatively normal return, right? If they get a couple of relievers out of that group, that’s a good return I’d say.
Having said all that, I think the biggest question is maybe they’re going about it backwards in drafting big stuff, no control guys like this years crop. The common wisdom for a long time was either you have velocity or you don’t. But some teams have shown they can add velocity and stuff with arms (LA, Cleveland) to guys with good control, and they spin (pun intended) straw into gold. In short, it looks like it’s easier to teach/train stuff into a guy instead of control. But these guys are all such long shots it’s tough to say if they’d make it anyway.
To their credit, they have failed at both lol
Mike Kennedy was definitely in the CLE mold and seems to be doing alright so far, not a failure by any means. I thought his selection might signal a shift in that direction but this year seemed to go opposite.
Could be developmental issues, poor scouting, or possibly a mixture of both along with college pitchers we sometimes draft who can be secured underslot, thereby saving dollars to be used for overslot signings - usually HS pitchers/players.
The Pirates are extremely deep in young pitching at the upper 3 levels, led by HS Draftee's Quinn Priester, Mike Burrows, Jared Jones, Bubba Chandler, Anthony Solometo, and I am also going with Braxton Ashcraft coming back from TJ. Throw in a few college arms like Paul Skenes, Thomas Harrington, a healthy Hunter Barco, etc., and then add the arms provided through International Free Agency and it is a very bright future for Pirate Pitching.
You keep saying they’re extremely deep. They’re not, and a lot of it has to do with attrition and injury. Look at this season. Ro and Ortiz went backwards, and Priester has sucked. Some of those guys will get hurt, some should be shuffled to the bullpen. It won’t be all sunshine and rainbows.
Also upper three levels? What is that? If a guy makes it to Bradenton, will that be the upper four levels?
Another thought feeding off of Wilburs comment and data on lack of control. Would it actually help in the development of your non-pitchers to have guys (likely college pitchers) who are polished but whose stuff give them basically zero chance of making the majors. At least once or twice a week your position players would actually not be struggling focusing because the pitchers can't throw anything close. This reminds of my days years ago of coaching somewhat younger aged girls softball. You had to juggle the kid who couldn't throw straight but could throw hard and was working hard on developing vs. a kid who maybe wasn't planning on pitching long term but could at least help the game resemble an actual game and allow your fielders to you know... field vs. pick daisies or sleep.
I think I was surprised how MANY pitchers they drafted as much as the fact they were all college pitchers. At some point not too deep into the draft there just are not high school pitchers wiling too sign for the slot or near slot value so by default they are not an option for any team. Once you get to about the 5th round(and realistically sooner) the odds are pretty low that anybody will actually make the majors so why not spread the odds some and draft some hitters (who may have just as many warts or just one redeeming quality).
The Pirates and pitchers may not be a good match
How did those guys pitch in college?
I’d assume they are drafting for arm talent and trying to develop the command as they go
That's true of a few guys and it's not working.
We should buy out tread for the offseason and just send our org's pitchers in droves
Ouch