Thursday, July 9, 2009

Past drafts mostly bad



The MLB draft took place this week as 1,521 high school and college kids were selected by 30 teams. For most teams not named the Yankees, who can spend $400 million on free agents to replenish their roster, the draft holds the keys to future success or failure.

Now it's virtually impossible to turn every high draft choice into a major league all-star. In baseball it takes three, four or more years for a pick to even make his debut in the bigs. So much can happen in that timeframe that a bust or two are bound to happen. The objective is not to let this go on for years on end like the Detroit Tigers did throughout the 90s and early part of this decade.

Looking back at the Tigers’ first-round draft choices from the last 20 years it's obvious why they were so horrible. Since 1989 the Tigers have had four winning seasons (two in the last three) and nine 90-plus loss seasons with four of those over 100 losses.

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