2006 draft

2006 is the draft that really restocked the Yankee farm system. The Yankees spent 6.7 million dollars on the 2006 draft. While other years since then the Yankees have spent more money on the draft this is the year where it all seemed to have come together. So I wanted to take a look at each of the guys drafted, see how much the Yankees have gotten in return and really evaluate the draft.
Here is a list of the players drafted, numbers in parenthesis are the draft round.

Ian Kennedy (1)
Joba Chamberlain (1S)
Zach McAllister (3)
Colin Curtis (4)
George Kontos (5)
Mitch Hilligoss (6)
Tim Norton (7)
Dellin Betances (8)
Mark Melancon (9)
Casey Erickson (10)
Seth Fortenberry (11)
Nick Peterson (12)
Dan McCutchen (13)
D.J. Hollingsworth (14)
Gabe Medina (15)
Paul David Patterson (16)
David Robertson (17)
Chris Kunda (19)
Kevin Russo (20)
Russell Raley (21)
Brian Aragon (22)
Brandon Thompson (23)
Brian Baisley (24)
Tim Dennehy (26)
B rock Ungricht (30)
Luke Trubee (33)
Tim O’Brien (37)
Nick Diyorio (38)
Kevin Smith (39)
James Lasala (44)
Chase Odenreider (49)

So those were all the players that were drafted by the Yankees. I’m going to use WAR to evaluate value of the player. I will also subtract the players salary from the MLB level not the minor league level.

1. Ian Kenney according from Fangraphs is $1.6 million He also earned $803,200 one season in salary along with his signing bonus
2. Joba Chamberlain according from Fangraphs has given the Yankees $25.3 million in value with $822,575 in salary.
3. Mark Melancon has contributed $200k in value and Cot’s doesn’t have what his salary was during the year because he didn’t break camp and wasn’t up very much. I’m going to say he cost $100k in salary.
4. David Robertson has given the Yankees $4.8 million in value. Cot’s had his value for 09 as $406,825 in salary for 09, for 08 I’m going to say another $200k in salary.

What is crazy is that only 4 of the guys have made the majors from the 06 draft. That is 3 years of time for players to get to the show. Out of these picks the Yankees can still add value also. Zach McAllister will probably be the 2nd guy called up from the minors because of injury. Dellin still has a legit ceiling of a number 1 if he is healthy and get’s his walks under control. Kontos could bounce back and be a decent middle reliever. Kevin Russo might also be a future utility man.

Dan McCutchen also helped bring Xavier Nady to the Yankees. Nady contributed WAR value to the Yankees and I’m going to take 20% of his prorated value minus salary. That adds 1.16 in WAR value minus his salary.
So how do the numbers stack up? This draft class has contributed $33.06 million in value to the Yankees. It has cost them $8,625,775 in salary and signing bonus. This also doesn’t take into account minor league salaries for players. So the Yankees have gotten 4 times the value from the signing bonuses and salary of these players that they drafted. Also keep in mind that they used Kennedy as a big part of the Granderson trade too.

Now Joba contributed 75% of the total value of the WAR. I do think that this will change with Robertson, Melancon and McAllister helping out. I would say that if the Yankees got 4 times the value of what they spent 3 years later that they would spend more on the draft. For a draft junky I would like this a lot.