Farm Aid
Major League Baseball General Managers are routinely evaluated on wins and losses produced. That makes sense for larger market teams who can afford just about anything they want. Small market GM’s are better evaluated on player development.
The Pittsburgh Pirates farm system was ranked 15th best by Baseball America in early 1999. Some of the players in the farm at that time included a former number one overall pick in Kris Benson, JJ Davis, JR House, Dave Williams, DJ Carasco, John Grabow, Rob Mackowiak, Craig Wilson, among others.
Mickey White joined the Pirates as their scouting director in 1998, had his first draft in 1999, and picked Sean Burnett in the first round. Over the next three years, Mickey’s drafts were considered some of the best in organizational history.
When David Littlefield was hired as the Pirates GM in 2001, he took over a farm system that was ranked 19th best by BA. Littlefield began retooling his front office and hired Ed Creech as Scouting Director and Brian Graham as Director of Player Development.
Despite the fact Graham had only one year of MLB front office management experience, Graham took over a system that wasn’t “rated highly by national baseball publications and the organization's best young players [were] in the lower minors.” In the ‘lower minors’ meaning, White’s drafts were starting to make an impact.
The 2002 draft was a bag of mixed nuts. Scouting Director Mickey White, who had been demoted to a scout by Littlefield when Creech was hired, had BJ Upton on the draft board as the Pirates first round pick, seeminly with Littlefield’s approval. Ed Creech decided that the Pirates couldn’t wait five years for Upton and drafted Bryan Bullington instead. Creech was quoted as saying:
"Honestly, this was a little more difficult than I had anticipated."
Mickey White promptly resigned.
Between 2002 and 2004, the Pirates farm ranking went from 22nd to 11th thanks to White’s drafts. John Perrotto, a Pittsburgh Pirate beat writer, stated it best in this December 2003 article in Baseball America:
“In Graham’s two seasons overseeing the system, the Pirates have finished second and first in minor league winning percentage, topping all clubs with a .581 mark in 2003. Each of the six affiliates had winning seasons in both 2002 and 2003.”
Graham, of course, had little to do with the 2002 - 2003 farm success that came from White’s picks despite Perrotto’s butt kissing article.
A general rule of thumb for prospect development is one level per year; high school players take five years to reach the majors and college players four years because they typically start off one level higher. There is some belief that you should add one additional year for pitchers but that hasn’t been the case in MLB over the last five years.
The Pirates farm ranking tanked in 2005 from 11th to 18th. In 2006, it is 19th at BA and 25th with Sickles. It is now becoming clearer how well Littlefield and Creech are doing prospecting for players and developing them.
Last week, BA released the top 80 player rankings by position that included only one Pirate -- Neil Walker, who just tore a ligament in his wrist and had surgery. Andrew McCutchen and Tom Gorzalanny both received honorable mentions but were not ranked. The Pirates were one of seven organizations with one player ranked.
Prospect guru John Sickles released his 2006 talent rankings last week as well and the Pirates were ranked 25th overall. Sickles’ ranked each organization’s prospects by grade, A, A-, B+, B, B-, and so on. The Pirates were one of nine organizations without at least one Grade ‘A’ prospect mirroring BA’s conclusions.
Of those nine organizations, the Pirates had the lowest winning percentage and the third best draft position in the previous five years.
Analyzing the drafts from 2001 - 2005, I took every single pick an organization made in the first five rounds (the best impact rounds), added up the overall draft positions, and then divided by the number of picks they had to get an index.
Overall, the Pirates had the tenth best draft index in MLB from 2001 - 2005. Thirteen teams drafted further behind the Pirates yet had more ‘A’ players than the Pirates.
Taking it one step further, of the thirty MLB farm systems, only two had fewer ‘A’ and ‘B’ players than the Pirates -- the Yankees and the Nats. Every other farm system had more impact players than the Pirates.
David Littlefield told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2002 that his goal was “to win the World Series," he said. "The plan is how to get there."
Before his first draft in 2002, Ed Creech said that plan was
“to have at least two or three [good] middle guys at every level of the system," Creech said. "You may not reach that goal, but I believe you build through the middle."
However Littlefield clearly stated a plan of his own in his 2002 interview:
Littlefield has a new scouting director in Ed Creech and some new people in the scouting department to find the best player out there.
“I don't have any doubt pitching is the strength of quality teams, and we're going to have to have strong starting pitching," Littlefield said. "Starting pitching to me is the most important area, and that's the area I feel least comfortable about."
Obviously, Littlefield won this battle because, of the little depth the Pirates do have, it is in pitching -- not middle guys. Further Littlefield said:
"Scouting and player development is the way to go. It's just a more efficient way to get things done in the market we're in. I don't see that there's any magic going on in any other organizations. We have to be more efficient. We have to make good decisions. We can do it."
The problem is there is more magic in almost every organization in baseball except Pittsburgh because Littlefield can’t do it.
Littlefield's four-year winning percentage? .443.
How does this man still have a job?
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