College Right-handers Among Top Ten Draft Choices

Camden Depot very generously invited me to share my opinions of the top prospects in the Orioles farm system and included my thoughts in the Depot’s prospect ratings. I live in the Norfolk, Virginia area and as mentioned, I have been a datacaster for milb.com – I enter the pitch-by-pitch results that show up in GameDay – for seven seasons and a scorer for BIS for five seasons.

The Depot’s evaluation of Kevin Gausman states that I’m the reason why Gausman isn’t regarded as a Grade-A prospect, and although I’m sure it’s not meant this way, it might imply that I’m being unreasonable. Maybe the Depot is right. To see if my concerns are reasonable, I will look at the history of players like Kevin Gausman. First, I'm going to examine the right-handed starting pitchers who were drafted out of college in the first ten picks of the draft, and how they did professionally in the year they were drafted.

There were thirty-nine four-year college right-handed starting pitchers drafted in the first round. Actually, there were forty-three, but I will not examine the pitchers who didn't sign in the year they were a top-ten pick (Aaron Crow, Mark Appel), who were a top-ten pick the year after they didn't sign out of college (Luke Hochevar), or both (Wade Townsend.) Twenty-three of the pitchers didn't play at all in the year they were drafted. Usually, that's because they were negotiating their contracts until the signing deadline. Occasionally, the pitcher was hurt and didn't start his career until the following season. 

I recognize that some of these pitchers may not be all that similar to Gausman. Some of these picks were picked more because they would sign cheaply, without drawn-out negotiation, and not generally regarded as being worth a top ten pick. Others may have been picked in a draft without a lot of talent and wouldn’t have been a top ten pick in many other drafts. Also, this list will miss pitchers who are similar to Gausman, such as Jered Weaver, who would have been top ten picks except for signability or injury. I acknowledge this and will willingly consider a different list of comparable pitchers.

Here is the table:

Year	Pitcher	Level	W-L	ERA	IP	H/9	BB/9	K/9
1993	Darren Dreifort	Did Not Pitch
1993	Steve Soderstrom	Did Not Pitch
1994	Paul Wilson	Complex	0-2	3.00	12	6.0	3.8	9.1
		High-A	0-5	5.06	37.1	7.7	4.1	8.9
1995	Jonathan Johnson	High-A	1-5	2.70	43.1	7.1	3.3	5.2
1996	Kris Benson	Did Not Pitch
1996	Braden Looper	Did Not Pitch
1996	Billy Koch	Did Not Pitch
1996	Seth Greisinger	Did Not Pitch
1997	Jason Grilli	Did Not Pitch
1997	Dan Reichert	Short-season A	3-4	2.84	38.0	9.5	3.8	9.2
1998	Jeff Austin	Did Not Pitch
1999	Kyle Snyder	Short-season A	1-0	4.12	24.0	7.5	2.6	9.4
1999	Ben Sheets	Rookie	0-1	5.62	8.0	9.0	2.2	13.5
		High-A	1-0	3.58	27.2	7.5	4.6	9.1
2000	Adam Johnson	High-A	5-4	2.47	69.1	5.8	2.6	11.9
2000	Justin Wayne	High-A	0-3	5.81	26.1	8.9	3.8	8.2
2001	Mark Prior	Did Not Pitch
2001	Dewon Brazelton	Did Not Pitch
2001	Josh Karp	Did Not Pitch
2001	John Van Benschoten	Short-season A	0-2	3.51	25.2	8.1	3.5	6.7
2002	Bryan Bullington	Did Not Pitch
2003	Kyle Sleeth	Did Not Pitch
2003	Tim Stauffer	Did Not Pitch
2004	Justin Verlander	Did Not Pitch
2004	Philip Humber	Did Not Pitch
2004	Jeff Niemann	Did Not Pitch
2004	Thomas Diamond	Short-season A	0-2	2.35	15.1	7.5	2.9	15.3
		Low-A	1-0	2.05	30.2	5.3	2.3	12.3
2005	Mike Pelfrey	Did Not Pitch
2006	Greg Reynolds	High-A	2-1	3.33	48.2	9.4	2.6	5.4
2006	Brad Lincoln	Complex	0-0	0.00	7.2	7.0	1.2	10.6
		Low-A	1-2	6.75	16.0	14.1	3.4	5.6
2006	Brandon Morrow	Did Not Pitch
2006	Tim Lincecum	Short-season A	0-0	0.00	4.0	2.2	0.9	22.5
		High-A	2-0	1.95	27.2	4.2	3.9	15.6
2009	Stephen Strasburg	Did Not Pitch
2009	Mike Leake	Did Not Pitch
2010	Barret Loux	Did Not Pitch
2010	Matt Harvey	Did Not Pitch
2011	Gerrit Cole	Did Not Pitch
2011	Trevor Bauer	High-A	0-1	3.00	9.0	7.0	4.0	17.0
		AA	1-1	7.58	16.2	10.8	4.3	14.0
2012	Kevin Gausman	Short-season A	0-0	0.00	6.0	1.5	0.0	7.5
		High-A	0-1	6.00	9.0	10.0	1.0	8.0
2012	Kyle Zimmer	Complex	1-0	0.90	10.0	4.5	0.0	11.7
		Low-A	2-3	2.43	29.2	10.3	2.4	8.8

There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the pitchers who signed in time to pitch in the season they were drafted and those who didn't. Among those who didn't pitch are Justin Verlander, Mark Prior, and Kris Benson -- but also Steve Soderstrom, Dewon Brazelton, and Josh Karp. Among those who did pitch are Tim Lincecum and Ben Sheets -- but also Adam Johnson and Justin Wayne.

Among those who did pitch, there seem to be more failures than successes among those who pitched (relatively) a lot. The six pitchers who pitched the most after signing (and whose eventual future we now know) include one successful pitcher (Ben Sheets), one pitcher who had some success before being derailed by injury (Paul Wilson) and four pitchers who didn't do much at all (Jonathan Johnson, Dan Reichert, Adam Johnson, and Thomas Diamond.)

Most of the pitchers didn't pitch enough to make a meaningful evaluation of quality. But the four pitchers with noticeably low strikeout rates (Jonathan Johnson, John Van Benschoten, Greg Reynolds, and Brad Lincoln) have not yet been successful.

We really can't tell from a pitcher's professional performance in his limited post-signing innings whether he's going to be good or not. So, we have no choice but to judge his prospect status based on scouts' observations, his own amateur performance and our personal observation (if any). So, I am probably right to want to see more before anointing Gausman a future star, but I should have had more faith in the scouts in evaluating his prospect status.