Hultzen's Chances = 80% (draft review 2)
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Draft review, continued
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2002: The laughingstock Pirates took Bryan Bullington 1-1, Bullington signed for a discounted bonus, and then the next several pitchers taken were HS kids -- no other college pitcher could even argue to be a 1-1.
It's hard to say whether to dismiss Pirate picks... it was a tricky draft. All of the first 5 picks disappointed.
Still, Bullington was a (RHP) 3-pitch guy with a great K/BB in college. We'll include him, since he was fairly comparable then to where Hultzen is now.
For those who just joined us, Bullington injured his shoulder and, like Brad Lincoln, is pretty much a "Wish we knew what he'd been if he'd stayed healthy" result.
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2001: Mark Prior was the 1-1. Dewon Brazelton was also hyped, but he was hurt a lot even in high school, pitched only one season at a small college and SSI is not including him in this group of "Kicked tail and took names in big-time CWS baseball" pitchers.
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2000: Adam Johnson the only SP taken high.... high school, as in. No college candidates for 1-1 this year.
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1999: Josh Beckett the only pitcher taken high. He was a prep player.
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Well, that's about a decade's worth of drafts we've gone through... let's flip back real quick through the previous decade's drafts for a reality check ...
1998 it was Mark Mulder ... 1997 Matt Anderson, a reliever, the only guy taken high ... 1996 Kris Benson and a reliever, Braden Looper ... now we're phasing well back before the Moneyball era. 1995 Kerry Wood, a HS pitcher, taken 1-4 ... 1994 the injured Mets' pheenom, Paul Wilson, actually taken 1-1 ... Dustin Hermanson, a very good ML starter, also taken high that draft ...
Okay, that's plenty 'nuff. We're ready for an executive summary.
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=== Dr's Diagnosis ===
In the Moneyball era -- since James and the Oakland A's created the paradigm of isolating college SP's with great CTL ratios --
ML teams have little problem identifying top-of-draft college SP's who are going to be good in the majors.
About the only realistic challenge that ML teams have, with super-high draft pick SP's, is making sure that their college Big Man On Campus is not going to get injured.
Here, let's tabulate, since 1999:
- GOOD - Strasburg, Price, Lincecum, Scherzer, Morrow*, Verlander, Prior*, Jeff Neimann, Mulder
- DISAPPOINTING - Humber, Hochevar, Miller
- INJURED - Lincoln, Bullington
It's interesting, too, that only 2 of those 14 college starters ran into serious injury problems.
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