Guest Post - 'Hobie' - Musings on Mack's Draft Posts

Musing on Mack’s columns on the pattern of empty drafts, I was reminded of an in-flight conversation I had back in 1993 when I happened to be seated with a statistics guru who was, at the time, working for Elias.  After some math talk about conditional probabilities—and the general concept of the more you know, the more meaningful any probabilistic projection—the conversation turned to what crap-shoot the MLB draft is, and how much better we can do with 20/20 hindsight.

For some reason we centered on the 1976 June Draft (there was an August Draft back then too, I think), and the NY Mets (we were both Met fans). The 1976 Mets chose in rounds 1—5: Tim Thurberg (13); Mike Scott (37); Curtis Baker (61); Robertt Pappageorgas (85); and Dave Riehl (109).  Only Scott played major league ball.  They could have picked: Alan Trammel (26); Scott; Ricky Henderson (96); Jack Morris (98); Wade Boggs (166) and still have taken Neil Allen at 253.

When I got back home from that trip, I decided to create an alternate Met universe going back to the initial 1965 draft.  After reading Mack’s column, I searched and found in a stack of CD-ROM’s the file I had created 20 years ago—for some anal reason I had transferred old floppy disk data to CD’s some half-dozen computers ago.  The “Alternate Met” file was in a Quattro Pro spreadsheet that miraculously my current MAC can decipher.  Alternate universes are as much fun as they are useless, and this one caused smiles that I thought I’d share.  Only the Regular June Drafts were considered.

In the founding Regular June Draft of 1965 the Mets best guesses in the first four rounds where: Les Rohr, Randolph Kohn, Joe Moock, Ken Bosewell.  In the infinite wisdom of a posteriori evaluation, our Mets could have chosen: Billy Conigliaro, Johnny Bench, Ken Holzman, & Greg Nettles.

With Johnny Bench on the farm, Steve Chilcott would have been a less enticing choice in the infamous 1966 draft.  I don’t, BTW, disparage that choice as much as some—maybe most.  An avid devourer of The Baseball Digest and Sporting News in those days, Steve had the print version of Bryce Harper hype, and a Campanella/Berra type catcher in my mind was a rarer & more valuable commodity than a slugging outfielder.  Anyway, fantasy casts aside the Chilcott, Byron Van hoff, Donald Linehand trio for Reggie, Charlie Hough & Bill Russel.  And we could still have taken Mike Jorgensen, as we did,  in the 4th round.

No one can argue with the John Macklack 1^st round pick in’67 though 2, 3 & 4 (Daniel Carey, Gary Meyers & Gary King) get trumped by Vida Blue. Doug Zisk and, oh say, Rick Dempsey.  And in 1970 Tim Foli was the No.1 overall pick while Gregg Luzinski waited in the green room.  Bill Buckner(!), Doyle Alexander & Al Bumbry were available well after never-be’s Donald Dickerson, Bernie Boehmer & Alan Dodson.

1969 brought Randy Sterling, Joe Nolan, Garnett Davis & Bob Klieber into the fold over the likes of Bert Blyleven, Rawley Eastwick, Bob Boone & Glen Abbot.  Only Joe Nolan made it to the Show, 

After 1969 my fantasy game added a rule that NO historical 1^st round draft choice would be available to the Mets.  That being said, 1970-72, with the possible exception of Craig Swan, were particularly dismal early round drafts—1970: George Ambrow. Gary Nevinger, Michael Graham, Ronnie Collins; 1971:            Rich Puig, James Kidder, John Busco, Earnest Page; 1972:  Richard Bengston; Craig Skoglund. Swan  and Andy Replogle.  Coulda/woulda/shoulda: Jerry Hairston, Rick Reuschel, Rich Gossage, Ray Knight (1970); Mike Schmidt. Ron Guidry. Jerry Mumphry, Warren Cromartie (1971); and Dennis Eckersley, Gary Carter, Randy Jones & Willie Randolph (1972).

                       

1973’s first two picks (Lee Mazzilli & Jackson Todd) and both had more than a cup of coffee in MLB—the only time that happened before the Backman-Wilson draft in ’77.  In lieu of them, however, and the forgettable Gary Nevinger & Tom Kinkelaar, Fred Lynn, Eddie Murray, Mike Flanagan & Randy Lerch were available in rounds after the Met selections. 

2nd & 4^th  picks in ‘74 (Dwight Bernard & John Pacella) could have still been selected along with Eddie Whitson & Mark Fidrych instead of Cliff Speck & Keith Bodie.  And 1975 was a complete bust in the selection of Butch Benton, Rod Boxberger, George Miike & Larry Pewitt while Carney Lansford, Dickie Noles, Lou Whittaker & Andre Dawson were available in the round after the Met picks.

Which brings us back to 1976 where given stable of talent procured (I’ll leave it to you to imagine the Blue & Orange Machine of mid-70’s Planet Met) we would have drafted after Alan Trammel had gone.  Still, Scott, Henderson, Morris & Boggs would have been a nice haul.

And all of this fantasy confirms Mack’s thesis.  Of the top 50 selections (i.e. cumulative 1^st 4 rounds) in the first dozen years of the draft, the Mets landed 2 superior talents (Matlack & Scott), another 4 serviceable ballplayers (Boswell, Jorgenson, Mazzilli & Swan) & a half dozen also-rans.