BA gives out Draft Grades

Over at Baseball America Jim Callis one put up his draft grades for the last 4 drafts. They include the 08 to 05 drafts for each time. Per his comments BA doesn't take into account losing a first round pick, having multiple first round picks or supplemental round picks.


This stance upsets me slightly. They have the Giants have a grade of A for 2007. That year they had 6 of the first 51 picks. The odds of them getting a great prospect is extremely high because of that. Being able to take 6 top 50 talent is huge to restock a farm system with elite talent.

Also BA doesn't taken into account the position of the drafting. The rays have the 3rd best drafting of the 4 years. 2008, 2007 they had the #1 picks 2006 they had the #3 pick and 2005 they had the #8 pick. Tampa never drafted lower then 8th in any round during that time. They get the first pick of each round.

The Yankees had a C for 08, a C for 07, an A for 06 and a C+ for the 05 draft. Some of these grades are in my mind what they should be. 06 was easily the best draft class that the Yankees have had. 07 was the Brackman draft. Now I also don't think that BA has these grades locked. I think the 06 regardless of what happens will be an A. I think the 07 has a change to improve.

07 has a chance to improve. If Brackman regains some of his form and makes the majors the draft grade will improve. Also Romine still has a chance alone to improve this grade just himself. Also Bradley Suttle was injured all season. He had a great year in 08 and was ranked very well by BA. BA also had a coach who said that he liked Suttle more then Montero as a bat. Of course this was before Montero blew up in the minors but he was still at that point considered a top 50 prospect.

My biggest gripe with the grades is this. I don't think you can really grade a draft until 3 or 4 years down the line. All the HS talent after 1 year is either in Low A or the short season ball. Most HS pitchers aren't going to be Phil Hughes and jump up to High A in your first season. Most elite pitching prospects pitch a full season in Low A. While you can tell stuff you most of the time they are facing guys who are good but haven't seen advance pitching and elite pitchers can get by on fastball velocity alone.

Over the next few days I'm going to take a look at each of these drafts and give my own grade. We will see if BA and I can agree or if we will disagree.