2016 MLB Draft Guide: Does the First Round Really Matter?

Let’s assume we’re in a 15-team mixed league as the baseline for this discussion. Here’s a top-15 ADP list from last season. Some hits, some misses, some failures. The usual actually.

2015 FIRST ROUND HITS (4)

Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Paul Goldschmidt, Jose Altuve

These four men produced numbers that had them inside the top-15 fantasy performers at the end of the 2015 season.

2015 FIRST ROUND MISSES (8)

Andrew McCutchen, Miguel Cabrera, Jose Abreu, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Anthony Rizzo, Robinson Cano, Adam Jones

All of the performers in this section were borderline stars at their position, but none of them was a top-15 player in terms of a player rater. These guys were “misses” but no one should have been bitching if they have any of these six men on their club (though I did heard a ton of complaints about McCutchen and Cano… people are never satisfied I guess). These guys weren’t “hits,” but they all produced.

2015 FIRST ROUND FLAME OUTS (3)

Giancarlo Stanton, Carlos Gomez, Troy Tulowitzki

Gotta be honest, 2015 was a really good year in terms of returns. Normally the production of players is way more off than on. Think about that statement while you ponder the fact that only four players were top 15 in 2015 who were drafted to be a top-15 player before the season started. Granted, only three guys totally crapped out, but still, the fact is that all this incessant talk we have every year about who to take in the first round is sheer folly. Facts are facts, and they support the position that you don’t win or lose your league in the first round. We’re simply not that good at predicting which players will be superstars. Some more data.

The Baseball Forecaster from Baseball HQ always has one of my favorite studies each year. They look at the top 15 drafted players, year after year, and come up with meaningful data based on more than one campaign. From 2004-15 they have shown that two-thirds of the players who finished the previous season as a top-15 performer fail to repeat with another top-15 effort in the following season. That means the odds, over more than a decade of research, suggest at least 2/3 of the following list of players will not return first round value in 2016 (these are the top-15 players based on 2015 value earned).

So a decade of research suggests that we have about a 33 percent success rate in predicting who will be the top-15 players each season. Be it because of injuries – a growing concern – or poor performance, the overwhelming majority of data points to the fact that all your worry about the first round is a complete waste of time… something I try to point out year after year.

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
-- Mark Twain