Nothing groundbreaking here, but an interesting take at where the strongest positions are in the draft. Hopefully it's obvious, but blue shading indicates a superb OPS and as it shades from green, to yellow, to orange, and finally to red the available OPS gets worse and worse.
This is based upon an assumption that teams will draft about 16 batters and have a somewhat normal distribution of players - 48 catchers, 56 first basemen (some used as DH), etc.
A few things to point out
- Left Field is the most top heavy
- First base is the deepest
- Shortstop falls off a precipitous cliff after pick 3
As always, positional scarcity is so important yet so difficult to predict on draft day. Honus Wagner has always been a top 10-12 draft pick, not because of his .800 OPS, but since there is literally only one other great hitting shortstop, Arky Vaughan. This season Willie Wells is available too, perhaps Wagner slips.
First base is now so very deep is someone like Lou Gerhig - a masher, but a masher with just average defense - still a top 6 pick?
Just to illustrate the point, he 16th best available OPS at each position:
.685 - Short Stop
.692 - Second Base
.695 - Catcher
.722 - Third Base
.767 - Right Field
.779 - Center Field
.784 - Left Field
.799 - First Base
No comments:
Post a Comment