Fuzzy Enough?

How "fuzzy" have the projections of scouting become?  And what does it mean for the draft?

Of course, pre-update the draft was very predictable - it was one of the aspects of HBD least like real life. With a few exceptions, the players were selected roughly in order of quality.

So here's an attempt to make at least a little sense of how jumbled the new fuzzier projections are making our drafts.

Here's what I did.  I looked at the pitchers taken in last year's (Season 31) amateur draft.  First, I charted their ratings improvements through the 3 cycles we've had so far.  Then I projected that their improvement for the rest of the season would equal 70% of the first 3 cycles' improvement (maybe a little low) to get a projection of their ratings at the end of their 2nd pro seasons.  Then I took that 2nd-year improvement and multiplied it by 2.5 to get a projection of their ratings for their 5th pro year.

Here are the 1st-round pitchers with my projections for their eventual ratings:

		CON	vL	vR	VEL	GB	P1	P2	P3	P4	P5
2	Cespedes	85	50	76	70	79	84	67	64	59	47
3	Kubitza	86	92	68	31	63	83	77	70	62	52
4	Dunham	86	67	84	23	82	81	75	54	0	0
6	Vitters	60	74	72	91	35	94	70	69	77	30
7	Lloyd	89	73	89	81	83	88	65	53	58	0
10	Washington	81	66	79	80	51	72	78	46	56	0
12	Christensen	80	53	50	76	60	82	63	47	0	0
14	Peters	41	58	64	66	73	77	73	54	47	39
16	Thome	78	70	69	31	0	83	83	58	59	27
18	Garces	90	58	63	80	77	88	73	47	0	0
20	Bigbie	85	72	60	41	80	86	71	45	0	0
25	Bowman	75	58	62	76	59	77	62	43	38	22
27	Pujols	75	64	58	71	88	67	77	58	51	30
29	Seelbach	87	65	56	32	63	79	69	51	60	34
30	Logan	60	51	70	30	85	99	74	46	49	0
31	Lyon	75	57	71	25	71	65	69	49	50	26

Couple of things jump out here:

1.  This doesn't look like a great draft for 1st-round pitching.  Outside of maybe 1 guy (Lloyd) there's nobody you'd say is going to be a real ace.  So this bunch could be closer together in talent than we see in other drafts...and the expectation would be that it would be more "jumbled".

2.  That said, it looks like the clear choice for the best pitcher of this group (Lloyd) was the 7th pick, behind 4 other pitchers.  That would've never happened pre-update.

3.  There are a couple of potential bombs here who's owners will probably be ticked if my projections come true.  Christensen at 12 looks like his splits will fall short of ML-caliber.  #14 Peters hasn't improved much so far; I don't know if that's due to coaching, lack of playing time, or he's just already close to his ultimate ratings.

4.  Other than that, these results don't look overly surprising.  For the most part the better pitchers are at the top and the poorer pitchers are at the bottom.

Definitely fuzzier ratings and more jumbled draft order, but not crazy.  Here's what I think we'll see teams doing with this going forward:

1.  Some will pitch the draft altogether and go all-free-agent-all-the-time, just for the more predictable return on $ spent.  Just live with it in lean FA years.

2.  More 20-0 or 0-20 HS/COL scouting configurations (not that we see these, but I think it will happen).  Fuzzier ratings put an even greater premium on scouting accuracy - better to be as accurate as you can be (and see the max number) on one group (HS or COL) than to be blurry on all.  This was already happening pre-update but I think it will accelerate.

What do you think this all means?  How do you think teams will react to the fuzzier projections?  Leave a comment below.