Changes in the first round

Adrian Gonzalez (2015)

Adrain Gonzalez was the first overall pick in the 2000 MLB Draft, selected by the Florida Marlins. He made his MLB debut in 2004 with the Texas Rangers. In his career, he played for 5 MLB teams (Texas Rangers, San Diego Padres, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets), accumulating with more than 300 HRs, 1000 RBIs and 2000 Hits. His career ops is .843. Meanwhile, he’s a 5-time All-Star and 4-time Gold Glove winner. And he was the first high school first baseman taken first overall since 1967.

Selecting first baseman in the first overall pick is not that common. How do major league baseball teams choose to pick in the first round? I looked back drafts between 2000 and 2015, seeing the first round (including compensation and competitive balance) results (players signed with the teams).

We heard that pitching is 70%-75% of baseball. There are some researches about the importance of factors (pitching, batting and fielding). Pitchers are always playing an important role of a baseball game. As we can see, most teams selected pitchers in the first rounds from 2000 to 2015.

MLB Draft result (Players signed)

Nonetheless, things are changed. From 2000 to 2005, 54% selected in the first round were pitchers. However, only 46% were pitchers from 2011 to 2015. Also, there are more outfielders picked in the first round, growing to 21.7% from 14.4%. Are pitchers less important in modern baseball? Is the importance of a good outfielder increased?

MLB Draft result (Players signed, %)

Some studies indicated that the relative importance of factors is like
Pitching: 54%
Batting: 26%
Fielding: 17%
Other: 3%
Well, pitching is still highly important in baseball, but there are some other factors that can’t be ignored. Baseball is evolving, so are the MLB team front office staffs. Teams have different frameworks to evaluate players and identify players’ potentials. The importance of pitching might be a little bit overstated in the past, even a great starter, he can only pitch every 5-day. Teams are looking for great athletes such Mike Trout who can hit excellently and make spectacular defense plays on a daily basis.

MLB still has not confirmed when the baseball will be back and we still don’t know if the draft will be in June as usual. But once the draft completed, we will definitely review the draft from 2016 to 2020 to see the changes and trends.