These seems like odd metrics to me. Basically, any prospect traded for a rental that helps you win a WS is not a successful prospect for the team in your mind. If Kikuchi had helped the 2024 team win a WS, that would still have counted a negative to you for the minor league system, even if it was a 10th round flier? And a top prospect that produces 0.5 war per year for 6 years would be a success?
It doesn’t make much sense to remove the context of draft slot/pool and recency when judging a GM’s drafts. A team picking first overall has a multiple of likelihood to add a star player than a team picking 30th. It’s also not reasonable to judge a draft until its players have had a reasonable amount of time to pan out (or not), which is usually 5+ years. Outside of guys drafted in the top 5 overall, Jeff Luhnow picked 13 guys who put up 3+ bwar in 8 drafts (~3 every 2 years). So by that measure Luhnow was average to below average if the bar is 2 3 war players per year. That’s not a vehement defense of Dana Brown; I had hopes he would be guru based on his drafts with the Braves and there is definitely an argument that his drafts have been underwhelming. But in the context of his late picks and loss of 2nd rounders and the fact that not nearly enough time has passed, I don’t think his drafts are a good reason to fire him.
Taijuan Walker was just released by the Phillies. Should we pick him up since his 9.13 ERA fits right into our mold this year? Maybe we can fix him and get his ERA under 8
I amend my statement to add "at least" and "or equivalent" to address hypotheticals that don't apply to anyone drafted by Brown ...."A prospect should not be considered a success unless they have at least 3 fWAR or equivalent value in the postseason. For picks in the Top 20, the bar is a little higher." If memory serves, the median is around 10, and the average is about 15 fWAR for the 1st overall pick. Maybe 3 fWAR or equivalent is too low or too high, but it is probably pretty close to the bare minimum for a prospect to be considered successful. I've seen 3 WAR used before by FanGraphs when counting bust rate for different FV ratings for prospects. To me, it seems to work as a good number except for the high end of the 1st round.
Currently, 3.5 games out of first place and the “Last 10” for all the teams in the West are 5-5, 5-5, 4-6, 4-6, 4-6.
There is hope. He needs to cut down the walks (surprise) But his fastball is firm with a very good 42.3% Whiff rate but when it gets hit, it gets hammered. He only throws it 28% of the time. We need to know if that's because it gets hammered or if its an opportunity to increase the usage for future success. He also has a 40% Whiff rate on his changeup and 50% on his cutter with better contact numbers. He isn't the next coming but he may be good enough to fill the #4 or 5 spot even if everyone was healthy.
His potential is very very high. His savant page is sea of deep red: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/peter-lambert-663567?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb It is very hard to judge his time in Colorado. He’s almost like if they signed another guy from Asia. Elite velocity and movement, elite at generating whiffs, prone to walks and giving up hard hits. But if he pitched at his best consistently, he would be a ToR SP.
Honestly why not sign him to a minor league deal, not because I think he could be effective, but we need more experienced BODIES because I'm still waiting for the inevitable McCullers IL trip and it looks like Javier's season is in jeopardy.
Because it would be another arm in the way of Ullola, Pecko and the high ceiling AA guys who are on the way. As it is, they have 87 injured starting pitchers and Alexander is still in AAA. They need MLB starters, not more scrub arms who can't get out MLB hitters clogging up AAA.
My criteria unamended falters for hypothetical situations, extreme situations, and value provided outside the regular season. My criteria were looking for the obvious wins and losses for a single draft based on real-world observation. It did not specify that a success or a loss could not occur in the area that my criteria did not address, as I left it open initially, as one would need to look closer if it was not an obvious success or an obvious failure. I'm not the one trying to force judgement right now. That is you, and you started by saying Brown has outperformed standard expectations and has since backed down to average if assessed now. I'm leaning towards incomplete, but AA and AAA do not look great. I'm not expecting a slug of talent from the farm until at least Alvarez and Neyens which looks at least 2 years away. On Luhnow. I said "0 or 1 players is below average (unless one guy produces a lot) and 2 and above is above average." Logic would dictate that less than about 3 fWAR for a draft would definitely be a failure. One should conclude my statement of "0 or 1 players is below average (unless one guy produces a lot)" does not apply to Luhnow for his average record as he drafted an average greater than 1 and had several produce a lot more than 3 fWAR. 2 and above is above average does not mean one can't be above average with less than 2 players producing more than 3 fWAR. It only means that if you have two players who are successes, odds are it is a draft success. Averaging 1.6 could be below average, average, or above average by my criteria. My criteria does have a weakness in that popping out two mild individual successes (both near 3 fWAR) in a single draft would not be an overall success. Though real-world distribution of 3+fWAR players would suggest that it would be very rare (<3%) for a draft to have exactly 2 3+fWAR players that are very close to 3 fWAR. For instance, Luhnow, averaging 1.6 was a great success Simple question: Can you find a team that averages 1 or less 3 WAR players who on average aren't producing a lot more than 3 WAR from drafts over a long period of time that had success that isn't a large market? I get my upper bound may need some work to work out extreme situations, but getting ~30-40 fWAR from the 3+ fWAR players drafted over a 10-year period would seem to be really bad. Much like a lot of things in baseball, failure happens a lot, but success is measured by the extreme events.
That’s not really a simple question. How do you define “had success”? How do you define “large market”? My guess is that there isn’t a team over the last 30 years who had 7+ playoff appearances over a 10 year period that wasn’t a top 10 market, regardless of their draft performance. Houston’s success from 2015-2024 was built around 4 players drafted in the top 11 (Correa, Bregman, Tucker, Springer), 2 international players who came out of nowhere to be hall of fame caliber (Yordan, Altuve), an innovative pitching philosophy, and luck. Drafting and developing guys outside of those very top picks falls way down the list of reasons for the dynasty, if it’s even on the list at all. Of the 2 legit star players Luhnow drafted and developed outside the top 5 picks, one (Pena) was a rookie on their last really good team and the other (Brown) didn’t break out until Houston began its tumble toward mediocrity. The 2017 roster featured just one player Houston drafted after the top 11 picks that contributed 2+ fwar (McCullers, the 41st overall pick who got a bonus commisserate with a top 12 pick). The 2022 roster had just 2 such players (McCormick, who as a 21st rd pick would be an UDFA in recent years, and Pena, a legit draft-and-develop 3rd rd pick). To flip the question, name a team in the last 30 years with sustained payroll outside the top 10 in the league that made the playoffs 7 times in a 10 year span that had >30% of their war come from guys drafted outside the first half of the first round and developed internally? Good teams and dynasties aren’t built around late draft picks or cheap international signings; they’re built around high draft picks, big contracts, and luck.
It's unfair to make these poor guys try to play major league baseball at that elevation. Franchise should relocate to Monterrey.
