Can someone explain rookies to me? Why is it that some players look so good when they enter the league, good enough to be drafted in the first round of the EFL rookie draft for millions of dollars, and then just completely wash out?
How do you figure out which ones are going to succeed and which ones won’t?
I decided to look back at our first-round drafts for two recent years and see what I could learn.
| 2015 | |
| Jose Abreu | Canberra |
| Marcus Stroman | Kaline |
| Mookie Betts | Portland |
| Jorge Soler | Cottage |
| Joc Pederson | Flint Hill |
| Javier Baez | Peshastin |
| Daniel Norris | Canberra |
| Shane Greene | Canberra |
| 2016 | |
| Corey Seager | D.C. |
| Carlos Correa | Portland |
| Kris Bryant | Kaline |
| Stephen Matz | Canberra |
| Addison Russell | Cottage |
| Trey Turner | Peshastin |
| Byron Buxton | Flint Hill |
| Kyle Schwarber | Old Detroit |
| Miguel Sano | Haviland |
If you pay the big bucks to grab a top rookie, wouldn’t you expect to get an all-star? But out of 17 first-round picks where the EFL owner paid the high price to get the player he wanted, only four (Betts, Seager, Bryant, and Correa) are all-star caliber. Some of the rest are pretty decent players (Sano, Stroman, Matz when healthy) but I’ll guess that none of the owners who picked the others — let’s call them “losers”, just because — would make the same pick if granted a do-over.
So I guess you won’t have answers for my questions.
And another thing I noticed – our “big three” teams that always win the league? They don’t always participate in this annual ritual of throwing away our money. In fact Pittsburgh doesn’t join in at all.
What does that suggest, strategically?