Excessive

That's what people might think.   Drafting 18 college pitchers, 86% of your draft picks in a draft.  Really? 

So I decided to take a look at what other teams did this year.  Here is what I found:

Team - Total Pitchers-College-JUCO-HS

Arizona 9-6-1-2

Atlanta 10-6-1-3

Baltimore 9-9-0-0

Boston 8-6-1-1

Cubs 10-5-0-5

White Sox 12-10-1-1

Cincinnati 12-8-4-0

Cleveland 19-18-0-1

Colorado 11-11-0-0

Detroit 12-11-0-1

Houston 7-7-0-0

KC 12-8-1-4

Angels 20-19-0-1

Dodgers 17-12-3-2

Miami 10-10-0-0

Milwaukee 10-3-4-3

Minnesota 10-8-1-1

Mets 12-12-0-0

Yankees 13-9-1-3

Oakland 10-9-0-1

Philadelphia 13-7-3-3

Pittsburgh 11-7-1-3

San Diego 12-9-1-2

San Francisco 16-13-1-2

Seattle 9-6-2-1

St. Louis 12-11-1-0

Tampa Bay 13-11-2-0

Texas 10-4-2-4

Toronto 14-10-1-3

Washington 10-8-2-0

So, what can we make from this?  Being lazy I am taking a guess here and saying that, on an average year, 55% of your top 20 picks (11 picks) would be pitchers, probably split 8-1-2.  If you can buy these made up numbers then 11 of the teams in baseball felt that it was a pitching heavy draft.   If you believe in the average of 4-year college pitchers drafted in the first 20 rounds then 16 teams thought that it was a draft heavy in college pitching. 

Even more interesting is that the LA Angels picked more pitchers than the Indian and the LA Dodgers drafted almost as many.   

So, if Tribe fans thought the Indians were crazy, I can only imagine what Angels fans think of their amateur scouting group,  Dodger fans?  I am sure with their success they trust their scouting department implicitly.

It is also interesting to note that in over 600 picks in the draft, 43 were HS pitchers.  In the first 20 rounds of 2019 there were 51 HS pitchers selected so the numbers are roughly the same but a little smaller this year.  

The one area that I think the Indians should do a better job is in junior college scouting.  There were 32 junior college pitchers drafted this year and the Indians didn't draft any.   My guess is that some HS pitchers who weren't drafted last year went to junior college to keep their options open.   Our of 20 rounds I would have thought at least 1 junior college pitcher would have been drafted by the Indians as they also need AZL-level pitching prospects.  Nineteen teams drafted at least one junior college pitcher.  I think scouting JUCO players may be more expensive as you likely won't find more than one or two players on a JUCO team worth watching and it is harder to scout them because the competition level is lower.   So my guess is the reward may be considered not worth the effort.  Still, even if they just call a guy and then draft him only by looking at a game tape, to get one JUCO pitcher in 20 rounds wouldn't seem to cost that much in resources. 

I would have liked to see the Indians draft a couple of college position players earlier in the draft but if your need is pitching and your organizational strength is development of college pitchers, even in cases where the talent level is close between a position player and a pitcher, you take the pitcher as your chances or getting a ML return on your investment are greater. 

More analysis later.