A look back at the 1st round of the 1996 draft

by erik on May 11, 2009 11:22 AM EDT

Once upon a time, Kris Benson was Stephen Strasburg. No, really.

Pitcher	IP	H	K/9	BB/9
Strasburg	97.1	61	12.3	1.5
Benson	156	109	11.8	1.6

I dare say Benson was facing tougher competition pitching in the ACC than what Strasburg has faced for the Mountain West Conference. I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer. If I was the GM of the Nationals (call me, Mr. Kasten!) I would draft Strasburg in a heartbeat. The point is there's lots of risk involved in giving gobs of money to any pitcher.

Benson is just one wart on the ugly face that is the 1996 draft.

Charted below is how the draft went down, alongside their wins above replacement totals for their first six years in the majors. Again, we're looking at six years because that is when the player was under his team's control.

Player	POS	Team	HS/College	WAR
Kris Benson	P	PIT	College	8.2
Travis Lee	1B	MIN	College	2.5
Braden Looper	P	STL	College	3.8
Billy Koch	P	TOR	College	5.8
John Patterson	P	MTL	HS	5.1
Seth Greisinger	P	DET	College	0.3
Matt White	P	SF	HS	0
Chad Green	OF	MIL	College	0
Mark Kotsay	OF	FLA	College	13.6
Eric Chavez	3B	OAK	HS	26.7
Adam Eaton	P	PHI	HS	4.4
Bobby Seay	P	CHW	HS	0.5
Rob Stratton	OF	NYM	HS	0
Dee Brown	OF	KC	HS	-2.8
Matt Halloran	SS	SD	HS	0
Joe Lawrence	SS	TOR	HS	-1
Todd Noel	P	CHC	HS	0
R.A. Dickey	P	TEX	College	0.6
Mark Johnson	P	HOU	College	-0.6
Eric Milton	P	NYY	College	13.2
Jake Westbrook	P	COL	HS	8.2
Gil Meche	P	SEA	HS	4.4
Damian Rolls	3B	LAD	HS	-0.5
Sam Marsonek	P	TEX	HS	0
John Oliver	OF	CIN	HS	0
Josh Garrett	P	BOS	HS	0
A.J. Zapp	1B	ATL	HS	0
Danny Peoples	1B	CLE	College	0
Paul Wilder	OF	TB	HS	0
Nick Bierbrodt	P	ARI	HS	-0.1
Peter Tucci	OF	TOR	College	0
Corey Lee	P	TEX	College	0
Matt McClendon	P	CIN	HS	0
Chris Reitsma	P	BOS	HS	1.1
Jason Marquis	P	ATL	HS	-0.1

Scott Boras is evil, just in case any of you had forgot. Exploiting a loophole in Rule 4 (E), his clients Travis Lee, John Patterson, Matt White and Bobby Seay all filed grievances and were declared free agents. Lee and Patterson ultimately signed with the Diamondbacks, White and Seay signed deals with the Devil ~~Rays~~. The four combined for $29.2 million in signing bonuses flushed down the toilet.

Outside of Boras and is antics, there's not much to say here. Eric Chavez was a star. Eric Milton and Mark Kotsay became average big league regulars while they were under team control. 71% of this first round class contributed less than an average of .5 WAR per season while under team control. That is...bad. Splitting them into groups ---

Grouping	#	Total WAR	Avg /season
College Pitcher	8	31.3	0.652
HS Pitcher	13	23.5	0.301
College Hitter	5	16.1	0.536
HS Hitter	9	22.4	0.414

College players came out ahead over high school players, high school pitchers in particular predictably came out worse than any grouping.

Later on, Jimmy Rollins was taken in the 2nd round, and much later on, Travis Hafner was picked in the 31st round. Apparently it's hard for North Dakota kids to get noticed. Other notables in the '96 draft are Milton Bradley (2nd), Joe Crede (5th), Mark DeRosa, Casey Blake (both 7th), Doug Davis (10th) and Chad Bradford (13th).

We've only looked at three drafts so far but I think there are some lessons here. 1.) not every draft is equal. Each draft has it's strengths and weaknesses. 2.) TINSTAAP likes to rear its ugly head. 3.) Which is tied to 2, and that is there are a ton of failures along the way. When reading different scouting reports on some of these draft prospects you might get the impression that some of these players are destined to stardom or least will make it as big league regulars. The odds are against such outcomes.

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Comments

Paul Wilder!

It’s sad to see alot of these players actually played for the Rays

www.draysbay.com

by Tommy Rancel on May 11, 2009 11:35 AM EDT reply actions

Two favorite parts of this series, which I'm loving:

Seeing how many players and top picks fail, and the funny names.

Today’s examples:
- Let’s keep Strasberg in proper context.
- A.J. Zapp

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 11, 2009 11:38 AM EDT reply actions

Misleading analogy

Why are you comparing Kris Benson to Strasburg’s stats from last season? The whole reason the collective internet is creaming it’s pants over the latter is what he has done this season.

Benson draft year: 6.3/1.6/11.8 (H/BB/K)
Strasburg 09: 4.9/1.8/16.9

That is MUCH better.

by aCone419 on May 11, 2009 11:47 AM EDT reply actions

Adjust for leagues.

And then remember that this was 1996, not 2009, so there weren’t thousands of internet blog pieces about Benson. Then remember that Mark Prior had similar hype Then realize how much of a crapshoot it is.

by Andy Seiler on May 11, 2009 11:56 AM EDT up reply actions

bah!

curse you, baseball cube. I thought I was looking at 09 stats

godfather of futureredbirds.net

by erik on May 11, 2009 12:01 PM EDT up reply actions

Good point, definitely agree his 2009 season should be part of the question.

How many IP this year, though? If we combine it with last year’s numbers, he’ll have about as many IP as Benson’s year. Same BB/9, slightly higher K/9, probably around 13.5 K/9. Still similar lines. The hype is huge. He could be awesome, sure. Still a significant chance he’s mediocre or busts in MLB.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 11, 2009 12:05 PM EDT up reply actions

Sure, that can be done

But part of the “mythos” of Strasburg is how much he has improved from year to year, so expanding the sample is, in a sense, missing the point.

Additionally, you are comparing different samples. 150 IP of Benson at age 21 should not be treated the same as 150 IP of Strasburg across ages 19-20. If you compare the entirety of their collegiate careers, Strasburg looks much better.

None of that is to say that Strasburg is some kind of guaranteed excellence; just, that point can be made while still appreciating the uniqueness of his achievements.

by aCone419 on May 11, 2009 12:33 PM EDT up reply actions

+1

by Brendan Scolari on May 12, 2009 2:48 AM EDT up reply actions

to be exact

184.6 IP, 1.6 BB/9, 14.5 K/9.

I blame brain farts, I really thought for some reason baseball cube was giving me 09 stats. but the point remains – phenoms can and do flame out, and i’m not sure there is such a thing as a safe draft pick, especially a pitching draft pick.

godfather of futureredbirds.net

by erik on May 11, 2009 3:02 PM EDT up reply actions

The Cardinals

Pick of Braden Looper is interesting. They get good years of Renteria and then when Renteria leaves, they get some decent years out of Looper when he returned to the organization. Pretty much an all-around win for the Cardinals.

by Hambone Willis on May 11, 2009 2:47 PM EDT reply actions

09 Draft

Kind of eerie how this draft might miror that Benson draft.

I think that the game has evolved a lot since then and prospects are more in tune with mechanics and preparation as are scouts. Not to say that there wont be misses or klunkers in any draft, but todays players are more dependable than that class was. You can never account for injuries for instance, but a guy like Strasburg is a safe bet to be pitching mlb ball very soon.

Even in the case of, say the 04 draft, the only players that havent really arrived were ones that got hurt. Sure there have been underperformers, there always will be, but I think that the draft has really evolved to the point that projectability and injury are the only things keeping a team from having a good draft.

I guess what I am saying is that I dont feel that Strasburg will be a bust, barring injury. Someone should do a study showing effect of 1st rounders as the years go by. As the draft has become more scientific over the years it would be interesting to see how scientific it has actually become….In financial terms…discovering where the “alpha” is. I might have to look into this. hmmmm

by backtocali on May 11, 2009 3:01 PM EDT reply actions

Question for you

Would there be value in discounting the value of players who never make the major leagues at all? It seems that even with a negative WAR, someone like Dee Brown (-2.8) has greater value than Rob Stratton (0) based strictly on the fact that he played any role at the major league level.

by NFA Brian on May 11, 2009 7:34 PM EDT reply actions