2010 MLB Draft by the numbers

For most fans, it’s easy to lose interest in the draft after the few couple of rounds. For the geekier of us, there are 1500 new players to analyze!

A good starting point is to look at the overall trends of the draft. Not every team takes the same approach. Even the same front office might go in a radically different direction than they did the previous year. To start with, here’s a look at how each team balanced their draft between pitchers and hitters, and which talent pools they drew from:

TEAM      Bat  Pitch     4YR   JC    HS  
ARI        24     25      32    6    11  
ATL        31     20      23   15    13  
BAL        27     21      25    9    14  
BOS        26     26      16    3    33  
CHC        19     31      21   14    15  
CHW        24     27      28    8    15  
CIN        23     27      30    6    14  
CLE        22     28      23   11    16  
COL        24     27      25    7    19  
DET        26     25      31    6    14  
                                         
TEAM      Bat  Pitch     4YR   JC    HS  
FLA        22     28      29   11    10  
HOU        26     26      24    3    25  
KC         23     27      35    6     9  
LAA        30     24      31    7    16  
LAD        27     23      21   11    18  
MIL        22     28      31    5    14  
MIN        20     30      28    9    13  
NYM        20     29      34    4    11  
NYY        22     28      24    7    19  
OAK        26     24      31    4    15  
                                         
TEAM      Bat  Pitch     4YR   JC    HS  
PHI        21     29      27    8    15  
PIT        18     32      17    7    26  
SDP        26     24      27    8    15  
SEA        20     28      29    3    16  
SF         25     25      33    8     9  
STL        26     26      35    6    11  
TB         25     28      23   10    20  
TEX        22     31      25    3    25  
TOR        24     32      14    7    35  
WAS        27     23      24   14    12  
                                         
TEAM      Bat  Pitch     4YR   JC    HS  
Total     718    802     796  226   498  
Average  23.9   26.7    26.5  7.5  16.6

The average team picked a few more pitchers than hitters, and got a little more than half of their new players from four-year colleges. The most noteworthy standouts are the Blue Jays and Pirates, two teams that went very pitching-heavy, and the Braves and Dodgers, who picked the most hitters.

In the type-of-school breakdown, what strikes me is the huge number of high schoolers selected by the Red Sox (33) and Blue Jays (35). No one else picked more than 26! On the flip side, the Royals went very college-heavy, choosing only nine prep players.

Batters and pitchers by type of school

Here’s a more detailed breakdown using the same parameters as the previous table:

TEAM     4Y-Bat  4Y-Pit  JC-Bat  JC-Pit  HS-Bat  HS-Pit  
ARI          18      14       2       4       4       7  
ATL          11      12       9       6      11       2  
BAL          15      10       6       3       6       8  
BOS           7       9       1       2      18      15  
CHC          10      11       3      11       6       9  
CHW          10      18       4       4      10       5  
CIN          15      15       1       5       7       7  
CLE           9      14       5       6       8       8  
COL          12      13       3       4       9      10  
DET          16      15       1       5       9       5  
                                                         
TEAM     4Y-Bat  4Y-Pit  JC-Bat  JC-Pit  HS-Bat  HS-Pit  
FLA          10      19       7       4       5       5  
HOU          11      13       1       2      14      11  
KC           16      19       2       4       5       4  
LAA          15      16       4       3      11       5  
LAD          12       9       7       4       8      10  
MIL          15      16       1       4       6       8  
MIN           7      21       3       6      10       3  
NYM          13      21       1       3       6       5  
NYY           9      15       1       6      12       7  
OAK          12      19       3       1      11       4  
                                                         
TEAM     4Y-Bat  4Y-Pit  JC-Bat  JC-Pit  HS-Bat  HS-Pit  
PHI          11      16       2       6       8       7  
PIT          11       6       1       6       6      20  
SDP          16      11       3       5       7       8  
SEA          12      17       1       2       7       9  
SF           19      14       3       5       3       6  
STL          17      18       4       2       5       6  
TB           11      12       3       7      11       9  
TEX          13      12       0       3       9      16  
TOR           5       9       3       4      16      19  
WAS          14      10       8       6       5       7  
                                                         
TEAM     4Y-Bat  4Y-Pit  JC-Bat  JC-Pit  HS-Bat  HS-Pit  
Total       372     424      93     133     253     245  
Average    12.4    14.1     3.1     4.4     8.4     8.2

The Pirates didn’t select nearly as many high schoolers as did the Jays or Red Sox, but man oh man, did they take some young pitching. Their draft suggests they are willing to take chances on raw arms—in addition to all the prep pitchers, in later rounds they chose Kelson Brown, a shortstop from Division 3 Linfield with limited pitching experience, and Stephen Lumpkins, a 6’8″ lefty from American University, where he played basketball. (They don’t have a baseball team there.) It’s not India, but it’s about as close as you can get in the Rule 4.

Position by position

Here’s one more look at the draft as a whole. This time we break it down by position, as well as type of school. (I won’t clog up THT Live with 30 posts doing this for every team, but you can find those starting today at the College Splits blog, where we’re recapping the draft in a truly inappropriate amount of detail.)

Pos    4YR   JC   HS    Total  
RHP    296   98  187      581  
LHP    128   35   58      221  
C       81    9   45      135  
1B      42   11   18       71  
2B      38    6   11       55  
3B      35    6   20       61  
SS      54   10   62      126  
IF       2    1    1        4  
LF      29    9    4       42  
CF      47   19   58      124  
RF      23   10   22       55  
OF      17   11   12       40  
UTL      3    1    0        4  
DH       1    0    0        1  
                               
Total  796  226  498

You’re wondering about that lone designated hitter, right? It’s Russell Moldenhauer, drafted 716th overall by the Nationals, a big lefty bat from the University of Texas and owner of a .503 adjusted wOBA this year. I wish him the best, but suspect that he probably isn’t Washington’s designated hitter of the future.


3 Comments
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ooraahh
13 years ago

Very nice work.

Is it possible on the site to get a summary count by position for the past 5 years for all of MLB?

Interested in seeing how the position demand shifts over time; For example, are teams drafting more positions associated with stronger defense rather than offense – especially now that MLB has transitioned into the post steroid era.

Jeff Sackmann
13 years ago

Others have done similar stuff in the past; I don’t have the breakdowns handy myself.

Teams have always drafted heavily from defense-first positions, because (in general) that’s where the talented guys are.  Just about every MLB second baseman was a SS at some point, many 3B were SS’s, and a lot of corner outfielders were CFs when they were drafted.

obsessivegiantscompulsive
13 years ago

Very interesting list, I would be interested in seeing the trends the way Jeff presented it.

Not all believe that the steroid era is responsible for the higher level of offense of the past nearly 20 years.  Eric Walker, in his High Boskage House website (and of The Sinister Firstbaseman and Oakland A’s bible fame), disputes this take on baseball history, instead calling it the Silly Ball era, and I find it persuasive:  http://highboskage.com/juiced-ball.shtml

He also provides his take on steroids:  http://steroids-and-baseball.com/