Pop Quiz: What do Andrew Wiggins of the Minnesota Timberwolves (2014), Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts (2012), and Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers (2015) have in common? Answer: They are all recent household names that were chosen with the first overall pick in their respective draft class. Yet, unlike the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), and the National Hockey League (NHL), much less attention is paid to the first-year player draft by fans in the Major League Baseball. Correspondingly, not withstanding exceptions such as Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals, there is also considerably less hype associated with the first overall selection in the Rule 4 draft on the whole. As America’s Pastime, how is it possible that the grand old game’s annual amateur drafts consistently fall behind the other three North American major professional sports when it comes to media exposure? Why is it that interests among fans on the top pick of MLB drafts pale in comparison to that of the NBA, NFL, and the NHL?

Several explanations have been presented by analysts, including the fact that:

1. the majority of potential top draftees, typically comprised of high school and college student athletes, were “unknowns” to the lay public because high school and college baseball are nowhere near as popular as college football, college basketball, and college/junior hockey;
2. high MLB selections would almost certainly be assigned to minor league-affiliated ballclubs (either Rookie or Class A) in order to refine their skill sets whereas top draft picks in the NHL, NBA, and NFL have a good chance of starring in their leagues right away in their draft year; and
3. the overwhelming majority of prospects taken in the first-year player draft, including numerous first-round picks, would end up never appearing in a single MLB game whereas significantly more drafted players in the NHL, NBA, and NFL, including some of those who are late-round selections, would reach their destiny in due course. Although these assumptions all have merits to various degree, I construe that the dual trends are the direct result of the more volatile nature of the first-year player draft (relatively speaking in comparison to the NBA Draft, the NFL Draft, and the NHL Entry Draft), which makes the process more difficult to yield a “can’t-miss” generational player when compared to the other three North American major professional sports.

All-Stars:

Dating back to the first Rule 4 Draft in 1965, there has been a total of fifty-one first overall selections. To this date, this short list has produced twenty-three All-Stars:

1. Rick Monday, drafted by the Kansas City Athletics in 1965;
2. Jeff Burroughs, chosen by the Washington Senators in 1969;
3. Floyd Bannister, selected by the Houston Astros in 1976;
4. Harold Baines, picked by the Chicago White Sox in 1977;
5. Bob Horner, drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 1978;
6. Darryl Strawberry, chosen by the New York Mets in 1980;
7. Mike Moore, selected by the Seattle Mariners in 1981;
8. Shawon Dunston, picked by the Chicago Cubs in 1982;
9. B.J. Surhoff, drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in 1985;
10. Ken Griffey, Jr., chosen by the Seattle Mariners in 1987;
11. Andy Benes, selected by the San Diego Padres in 1988;
12. Chipper Jones, picked by the Atlanta Braves in 1990;
13. Phil Nevin, drafted by the Houston Astros in 1992;
14. Alex Rodriguez, chosen by the Seattle Mariners in 1993;
15. Darin Erstad, selected by the California Angels in 1995;
16. Josh Hamilton, picked by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999;
17. Adrian Gonzalez, drafted by the Florida Marlins in 2000;
18. Joe Mauer, chosen by the Minnesota Twins in 2001;
19. Justin Upton, selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2005;
20. David Price, picked by the Tampa Bay Rays in 2007;
21. Stephen Strasburg, drafted by the Washington Nationals in 2009;
22. Bryce Harper, chosen by the Washington Nationals in 2010; and
23. Gerrit Cole, selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2011.

By all accounts, the results are quite encouraging as the chance of landing a player who would go on to be named an All-Star at least once in their MLB career is a generous 45.10% (23/51).

Rookie of the Year Award Winners:

While All-Star selections are the benchmark of elite players, one question that we need to ask is how many of these players can actually make an immediate impact to their respective ballclubs? Historically, we should look to past American League and National League Rookie of the Year Award winners to answer this question seeing that the Rookie of the Year Award is the highest form of recognition to new players who are making contributions to their teams straight away in very meaningful ways.

Of the aforementioned fifty-one first overall picks, twenty-three of whom were named All-Stars at some point in their MLB career, only three of them were winners of the Rookie of the Year Award:

1. Horner, the National League winner in 1978;
2. Strawberry, the National League winner in 1983; and
3. Harper, the National League winner in 2012.

Sadly, this means that the probability of choosing an eventual Rookie of the Year Award winner with the first overall selection is only 6% (3/51). Although this phenomenon could be purely circumstantial, it is noteworthy that no first overall pick (as of 2015) have ever been named as the winner of the American League Rookie of the Year Award!

National Baseball Hall of Fame:

On the other side of the spectrum, an equally interesting question is how many of the fifty-one previous first overall selections can make a long-lasting contribution to the ballclub(s) that he has played for over his MLB career. Here, we ought to look to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum as being inducted into Cooperstown is the ultimate form of acknowledgment for a player in terms of honouring his sustained excellence and longevity in the big league.

Among the aforesaid fifty-one first overall selections, only one of them was ultimately enshrined into the Hall of Fame: Griffey, Jr. In other words, the odds of choosing an eventual Hall-of-Famer with the first overall pick is a minuscule 2% (1/51). That said, I gather that adjustments are needed as including first overall selections who are still active players into the computation would distort the outcomes. If we were to leave out these seventeen players who are still playing in MLB—(1) Rodriguez; (2) Hamilton; (3) Gonzalez; (4) Mauer;(5) Delmon Young, picked by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2003; (6) Matt Bush, drafted by the San Diego Padres in 2004; (7) Upton; (8) Luke Hochevar, chosen by the Kansas City Royals in 2006; (9) Price; (10) Tim Beckham, selected by the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008; (11) Strasburg; (12) Harper; (13) Cole; (14) Carlos Correa, picked by the Houston Astros in 2012; (15) Mark Appel, drafted by the Houston Astros in 2013; (16) Brady Aiken, chosen by the Houston Astros in 2014 but did not sign; and (17) Dansby Swanson, selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2015; out of the formula, then the possibility of being able to reap a future Hall-of-Famer utilizing the first overall pick would increase to an ever so slightly better 3% (1/34).

Cross-Sports Comparisons:

While the short-term outlook of getting an impact player who can pay immediate dividend in the form of a Rookie of the Year winner is bleak to say the least at 6%, the good news is that there is close to a coin flip (fifty-fifty) chance of drafting an All-Star player with the first overall selection of a first-year player draft at 45%. However, when it comes to the long-term outlook, the likelihood of obtaining a future Hall-of-Famer is highly improbable at 2% pre-adjusted and 3% post-adjusted.

For comparison’s sake, if we look to the left tail of the MLB and NHL distribution curves, the chance of an MLB ballclub landing a Rookie of the Year winner with the first overall pick in a Rule 4 Draft, at 6%, is a sizable 13% less (or more than three times worse) than an NHL team finding a Calder Memorial Trophy winner in an Entry Draft at 19%. Likewise, the probability of an MLB ballclub being able to draft an eventual Hall-of-Famer with the first overall selection of a first-year player draft, at 2% before adjustment and 3% after adjustment, is a considerable 11% (or nearly seven times worse) and 16% (or more than five-and-a-half times worse) less than an NHL team unearthing a Future Hall-of-Famer in an Entry Draft at 13% prior to adjustments and 19% after adjustments. Accordingly, the results seem to back up my hypothesis that the Rule 4 Draft is inherently more unpredictable when contrasted to the NBA Draft, the NFL Draft, and the NHL Entry Draft, which in turn renders the procedure of uncovering a “can’t-miss” generational player harder compared to the other three North American major professional sports.

Final Words:

Even though the likelihood of picking a player who fails to have at least a short stint in MLB is remarkably low at 4% (2/51), as only two players who were taken first overall in the first-year player draft failed to play a single MLB game — (1) Steve Chilcott, picked by the New York Mets in 1966 and (2) Brien Taylor, drafted by the New York Yankees in 1991 — the reality, much like the NHL, is that the likelihood of being able to discover that “can’t-miss” diamond in the rough appears to be an imperfect science regardless of how we break down the fifty-one first overall picks in past Rule 4 Drafts. Now do you want to choose heads or tails?

N.B. A more condensed version of this article was originally published on Obiter Dicta, 89(13), 20 and 23.

Here in Canada, the Toronto Blue Jays’ recent playoff run in 2015 gave us a reminder of how exciting postseason can be when management, players, and fans all share the same goal and vision. Yet, as thrilling as playoff baseball can be, the true definition of success for a team comes down to it being able to win the last postseason game. Why? All teams that bow out of the playoffs — be it the League Division Series, the League Championship Series, or the World Series, ultimately lose their last postseason game. Only one team — the World Series Champion — ends its season by winning its last game in the calendar year!

Before we get ahead of ourselves about winning the last game in October/November, however, we must be reminded that a team cannot participate in the playoffs — let alone advance — unless it wins its division or a wild-card spot. Even with the newly-expended postseason format that saw both leagues (American and National) having two (as opposed to one) wild cards, it remains a challenge to secure one of the 10 playoff berths. One only needs to see how much obstacles Toronto overcame in the 2015 season, aided by then-GM Alex Anthopoulos’ fury of trade deadline activities (acquiring Troy Tulowitzki, LaTroy Hawkins, David Price, and Ben Revere within a span of four days from July 28th to July 31st) to bring an end to the Blue Jays’ 22-year postseason drought. To this end, the first order of business for a team should be getting into the playoffs.

In the simplest form, there are arguably three ways to try to make the postseason. One way is to try to “buy” a championship by signing one or more (if not all) the elite unrestricted free agents on the open market. Of course, this approach requires an ownership that has deep pockets and is willing to spend (sometimes without limitations). Traditional big spenders that come to mind include but are not limited to the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. An alternative approach, put on full display by Pat Gillick when he guided Toronto to four American League East Division titles, two American League pennants, and two World Series championships from 1989 to 1993, is to build the core of the 25-man roster through smart drafting and player development and then bolster the lineup, starting rotation, and/or bullpen through trade-deadline deals (including rentals if the cost of prospect capital is within reason). Perhaps the least popular method (at least from the fans’ perspective due to the long-term patience required) — albeit arguably just as effective as the other two means — is to rely on continuous and sustainable home-grown talents strictly, much like the Cleveland Indians (which managed to win an impressive six American League Central Division titles and two American League pennants from 1995 to 2001) and Tampa Bay Rays (which managed to win an American League pennant, two American League East Division titles, and two American League Wild Cards from 2008 to 2013 despite having a very modest payroll).

If money is no object, it would be logical to conclude that most baseball executives would opt for the first route given that it is the shortest avenue to get to the promised land, at least in theory. After all, the Yankees are the owner of 27 World Series championships, by far the most championships of any teams among the four North American major sports, i.e., Major League Baseball, National Baseball Association, National Football League, and National Football League. The greatest strength of “buying” a championship is two-fold. On one hand, by taking an elite talent off the unrestricted free-agent market and/or the trade market, you can prevent your rivals from acquiring that talent, meaning that you are strengthening yourself while simultaneously weakening your opponent. On the other hand, you can afford to “make mistakes” because if the player that you signed and/or traded for did not pan out as anticipated, you can always go out and sign and/or trade for another elite talent as a replacement until you find the right one!

Yet, there is no guarantee that being a big spender would necessarily get you a championship. In the 2015 season, the eight ball clubs with the highest payrolls — and I purposely limited the scope of my coverage to eight teams because there are only eight “true” playoff spots — as of the 2015 season are as follow: (1) Los Angeles Dodgers at $ 301,735,080; (2) New York Yankees at $221,256,867; (3) Boston Red Sox at $214,789,749; (4) San Francisco Giants at $187,088,630; (5) Washington Nationals at $165,655,095; (6) Detroit Tigers at $162,218,297; (7) Texas Rangers at $152,445,607, and (8) Los Angeles Angels at $151,348,162. As we can observe, among the eight teams with highest payrolls, all of which have a payroll in excess of $150,000,000, only three (3/8 = 37.5%) of the ball clubs — the Dodgers, the Yankees, and Rangers — made the cut! In other words, even if you spend money without reservation, it does not necessarily mean that success is guaranteed! In fact, based on this small sample, there is a (5/8 = 62.5%) chance that your team will be watching (as opposed to playing) postseason baseball even if your ball club has one of the highest payrolls in all of Major League Baseball.

Conversely, having a modest or low payroll does not necessarily mean that your team is completely out of running for the grand prize. Even though the odds may stack against you, at least from the surface, recent history suggests that the probability of a low-budget ball club making it to the playoffs is actually not terrible. Below are the eight teams with the lowest payrolls — again, I deliberately limited the range of my coverage to eight ballclubs because there are only eight real playoff spots — in the 2015 season: (1) Miami Marlins at $63,590,525; (2) Tampa Bay Rays at $73,582,652; (3) Arizona Diamondbacks at $76,639,242; (4) Cleveland Indians at $77,404,413; (5) Oakland Athletics at $80,376,830; (6) Houston Astros at $81,450,835; (7) Milwaukee Brewers at $94,010,873; and (8) Pittsburgh Pirates at $99,435,606. As we can decipher, among the eight teams with lowest payrolls, all of which have a payroll south of $100,000,000, there are actually two (2/8 = 25%) ballclubs that managed to secure playoff berths. Indeed, the difference between the number of the “rich” teams from among the eight ballclubs with the highest payroll that made the postseason — three in total — and the number of “poor” teams from among the eight ballclubs with the lowest payroll that made the playoffs — two in total — is only one team.

Hence, in statistical terms, there is not a massive gap in the chances of making the postseason between being one of the “rich” teams from among the eight ballclubs with the highest payroll (37.5%) and being one of the “poor” teams from among the eight ballclubs with the lowest payroll (25%) as the difference is only a mere (3/8 – 2/8 = 1/8 or 12.5%). As a matter of fact, if we were to take the average payroll of the eight teams with the highest payroll [($301,735,080 + $221,256,867 + $214,789,749 + $187,088,630 + $165,655,095 + $162,218,297 + $152,445,607 + $151,348,162)/8 = $194,567,186] and subtract the average payroll of the eight teams with the lowest payroll [($63,590,525 + $73,582,652 + $76,639,242 + $77,404,413 + $80,376,830 + $81,450,835 + $94,010,873 + $99,435,606)/8 = $80,811,372], which yields ($194,567,186 – $80,811,372 = $113,755,814), and then divide this difference by 12.5, i.e., the chances of making the postseason between being one of the “rich” teams from among the eight ballclubs with the highest payroll and being one of the “poor” teams from among the eight ballclubs with the lowest payroll, we can deduce that for every additional one percent (1%) in which a team wants to augment its odds of making the playoffs, it would cost that ballclub just less than 10 million dollars ($9,100,465.11). While the math suggest that you are inching closer to the promised land (at a rather slow pace of one percent) for each additional nine million ($9,100,465.11 strictly speaking) that you are dishing out, I am not so sure that the trade-off makes sense from a value (or cost-benefit) perspective unless money is no object whatsoever.

If spending money blindly is not the way to go, then it seems logical that the second or third approach (perhaps even a combination of the two) is the preferred option. Recent trends in the baseball industry seem to back this rational strategy as more and more teams are demanding “value” for their investments, meaning that they want to get the most bang for their bucks. Below are the eight teams with the lowest average cost per win in Major League Baseball for the 2015 season, as calculated and ranked by dividing the total payroll of all 30 teams by the number of wins (“W”) they have in the 2015 season: (1) Miami Marlins at $895,641.20 per “W;” (2) Tampa Bay Rays at $919,783.15 per “W;” (3) Houston Astros at $947,102.73 per “W;” (4) Cleveland Indians at $955,610.04 per “W;” (5) Arizona Diamondbacks at $970,116.99 per “W;” (6) Pittsburgh Pirates at $1,014,649.04 per “W;” (7) Oakland Athletics at $1,182,012.21 per “W;” and Minnesota Twins at $1,282,311.06 per “W.”

Among the eight teams with the lowest average cost per win in Major League Baseball for the 2015 season, there are once again two (2/8 = 25%) ballclubs that managed to secure playoff berths. This means that the probability of teams that emphasize values for their spending making it to the postseason is the same as that of ballclubs with lowest payroll in Major League Baseball for the 2015 season. Better yet, the chances of teams that emphasize values for their spending and ballclubs with lowest payroll in Major League Baseball for the 2015 season making it to the playoffs are only slightly worse than teams with highest payroll in Major League Baseball for the 2015 season (3/8 – 2/8 = 1/8 or 12.5%).

All things taken into account, I would opt for smart drafting and player development rather going for the shortcut of “buying” a championship if I were a GM, unless my budget is a bottomless pit. Bottom line, not only is there no absolute certainty that having one of the eight highest payrolls would mean a ticket to the playoffs, but as we have witnessed, the odds of making it to the postseason are not really that different for the eight teams with the lowest payrolls and for the eight teams with the lowest average cost per win in Major League Baseball for the 2015 season. Coupled with the unattractive fact that it would cost me nearly 10 million dollars to increase my team’s chance of making the playoffs by a mere one additional percent (and each percent thereafter), it seems obvious that smart drafting and player development is by far the most optimal plan.