Who Can It Be Now

The song by 'Men at Work' titled 'Who Can It Be Now?', is the current #1 song in the DFW area! Just like it is in NASBL, who will go first in the 2011 Draft- OF Jason Heywoodor C/1B Buster Posey. OR will the pick be traded? When GM Red Robbins was asked by the local press if 'he [Red] wanted to give the press a tip'?. He replied 'Sure- plant your corn early in the fall'. The press look at each other with their best Homer Simpson face and went 'D'OH'!! When asked what that meant, 'Red replied, 'Wait till Monday and you will find out he smiled'! Asked if DFW would trade the pick? Red said we had some really good offers along with some laughable ones, however right now we are 99% sure we are going to keep the pick. When reporter Ima Dumbass shouted, 'Give us something, anything', Red said a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then pointed to the above picture and left the room.

Haymakers for Sale!

Troy, NY: You read that right; you, the fan, can buy a part of your favorite team! In order to build the funds to keep the new top tier players, the Haymakers are selling .10% portions of the team for $25 a pop, plus a $5 per transaction fee.

What's so great about this deal is that if we don't get enough fans involved (don't worry, we won't tell you what that magic number is) then we will refund your $25. We will keep the $5 processing fee though.

So send in your money today because it's not cheap having players like Chris Carpenter or Josh Hamilton on your favorite team!

#3 Pick - Take a hitter or the TNSTAAPP?

Burlington, VT

Pending a lobotomy, the top two picks of the upcoming NASBL Rookie/Free Agent draft are set in stone. Thus, the guessing and real fun begins with the #3 pick.

The Burlington Free Press caught up with Vermont Fighting Sioux GM Justin Rabidoux during a recent all you can eat luncheon at Moe's.

When asked the million dollar question, Rabidoux shrugged his shoulders, attempting to reveal neither his intent nor his thoughts.

However, he did point to a recent study his office commissioned. The VFS number crunchers took a look at all draft data dating back to 1998 (years 2005 and 2002 are gone into cyber-abyss apparently) and evaluated the careers of the players drafted #3 and #4 overall. Rabidoux apparently thinks any combo of the three players he's considering are likely go in the #3 and #4 slots of the draft.

The resulting 22 players were then assigned a score ranging from 1 (Bust) to 5 (HOFer, Borderline HOFer, elite at their position for 2-4 years) and then sorted as either a pitcher or a hitter.

The players are:

2010 - Elvis Andrus, Pablo Sandoval
2009 - Evan Longoria, Matt Garza
2008 - BJ Upton, Dustin Pedroria
2007 - Justin Verlander, Matt Cain
2006 - Ryan Howard, Scott Kazmir
2005 - No data
2004 - Jose Reyes, Hank Blalock
2003 - Austin Kearns, Eric Hinske
2002 - No data
2001 - Pat Burrell, Fernando Vina
2000 - Carlos Beltran, Tim Hudson
1999 - Todd Helton, Ben Grieve
1998 - Scott Rolen, Vlad Gurrero

Categories -

1 - Bust
2 - Short, underwhelming career - didn't realize potential
3 - Average production, decent career length
4 - Very good career, all-star caliber player
5 - Hall of Fame type player - elite for multiple years

Young players such as Andrus have their value based on a combination of production to date as well as expected production - they may end up in a different category before their career's over, this represents a best guess.

Results (pitchers shown in bold)

1 - Austin Kearns, Eric Hinske, Ben Grieve
2 - Hank Blalock, Pat Burrell, Fernando Vina
3 - Pablo Sandoval, Matt Garza, BJ Upton, Scott Kazmir
4 - Elvis Andrus, Dustin Pedroria, Justin Verlander, Matt Cain, Ryan Howard, Jose Reyes, Tim Hudson, Scott Rolen
5 - Evan Longoria, Carlos Beltran, Todd Helton, Vlad Gurrero

Obviously opinions can vary on the results, but the main point was to determine if there's a evidenced history of highly drafted pitchers not panning out. As far as I can tell, the range is somewhere between Kazmir on the low end (three quality seasons, a few ... others) and Verlander (strong candidate to end up in Category 5 before all's said and done.

What's interesting when looking at the hitters that haven't panned out, is they all fit a similar mold. They mostly play the power positions (corner IF/OF - can't explain how Vina ended up on this list, so I won't try). Middle IFers/CFers have fared better over time.

So what does this tell us, other than to ignore results comprised from a small sample? It tells us that in the NASBL, pitchers drafted high have a decent chance of succeeding.

Wait, I thought the title of this article included the phrase There's No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. Correct, it did. But perhaps NASBL's player eligibility requirements (100 IP for starters) act to filter out and separate hurlers who are merely prospects from those that have some level of demonstrated success.

Whether he truly doesn't know, or hasn't made up his waffling mind yet, Rabidoux did not state if he was swayed by the findings of his study. Surely he must have an opinion on it. Surely?