2022 Guardians draft analysis

How did the Guardians do in the 2022 first-year player draft?

As with all drafts, this is a tough question as you don't know how these players are going to develop.  Still, even with that, let's dive in.

Scott Barnsby repeatedly said that the Guardians take the best player available when they make a pick. However, there have to be a number of caveats to that comment:

• There has to be some measurement that determines why that player is the best player available at that point.  Cleveland is a heavily antalytics-driven team.  So I think it would be safe to say that "best player available" is based on what they consider important traits.  To me Clevleand favors the following traits
• Hitters should be left-handed
• Bat-to-ball skills are favored over power
• College is favored over high school
• Speed is favored but should not nearly be the most important skill a player has.
• Position players should have position flexibility.  By that I mean that all outfielders should be able to play centerfield and have the flexibility to play left and right.  Infielders should be able to play second, short and third or some infield and some outfield.
• Pitchers should have good K/BB numbers and should be 'winners'.  This is more important to them than pure 'stuff'.  Late round picks should have one dominant pitch in addition to good K/BB numbers as they are looked at as relievers.
• There is no consideration to what is in the farm system right now.  That is, the analytics drive the selections in one direction (e.g., left-handed hitting position players with good bat-to-ball skills)  which, by definition, tends to overload the system with similar players.  
• Defense is favored if a catcher is drafted, although so few catchers are drafted that the sample size for that presumption is really small.  Aside from catchers, defense is not nearly the most important tool that is looked at (at least not in the last few years).

Using these tools, drafts can be very odd-looking for a team like the Guardians.   In 2021 the Guardians drafted 19 pitchers.  My presumption now is that they couldn't find a position player who met the above criteria and they could find a plethora of pitchers who met their pitching-based selection criteria.

This draft which, by the way, was rated as a weak draft class, had position players with traits that the Guardians valued or, at the least, no other player at a given slot had tools/traits that overwhelmed the Guardians analytic-driven hitter preferences.   That is why you saw (counting Furman who likely will be moved to the outfield) 6 college left-hand hitting outfielders, 5 with almost no power.

So, in considering all of this, I have the reason why I differ so much from the Guardians.  I simply value different traits AND I do let the composition of my farm system dictate which player I think is the best player available AND I take into account whether I think the front office can turn our excess at one position type into players (e.g., power-hitting corner infielders) who we don't have in our system.

Simply put, I don't like the Guardians' draft for the above reasons. It takes 3 singles to score a run and only one HR.  You can bat .250 and get 9 runs a game on HRs.  You have to bat .500 to get 9 runs a game on singles.  It's simple math to me.

It is not a bad draft on paper and, assuming that they sign all their high-profile players, it is sufficient fodder for their player development staff to generate major league players or prospects to be used in trades to fill long-term and short-term needs.   I just don't see anyone coming out of this draft who will be in the Guardians top 10 prospects next year nor anyone with any significant upside, i.e., overall 55 or 60 grade players.   It was a very boring draft to me and didn't address our need to infuse hitting catchers, power-based college corner nfielders and power-hitting right hand-batting outfielders into our system, with the usual sprinkle of college pitchers.  Those position players were available in this draft and highly rated.

It should be noted that some people (not counting Jim Callis who loved this draft for the Guardians) rating these drafts don't think much of the Guardians' picks.  Just like me, they are not considering the picks terrible but very few 'experts' seem excited about any of the picks.  Just this morning I read a Callis article about third day picks that were interesting and ZERO Guardans' selections were mentioned in the 30-or-so picks highlighted.  That tells you something.

So, as I said previously in draft posts and other posts, the Guardians front office is on the hot seat.   We just don't need dozens of left-handed hitting singles hitters who can play all three outfield positions.  The player development system has to morph some of those guys into power hitters or the people who make trades have to turn them into other assets or we will start losing good players to the Rule 5, 6-year minor league free agency (see Oscar Gonzalez, almost) or having to DFA them without getting any benefit out of them.  And the only way that can happen is if other organizations have the same analytics preferences as the Guadians do, which I have not seen so far.

I give this draft, overall, a grade of "C" based on who they picked, who I think they needed to pick and who was available at the time.  This grade only counts the first 10 rounds.  My sense is that they did not do as well in the last 10 rounds as they usually do, bringing me to give picks 11-20 a grade of C, also.

Time will tell who is right and even if Barnsby and staff are right, it only works if the FO can trade our excess for equal value in what we need.