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March 23, 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Supplemental Draft in Review Most GMs are exhausted when the draft concludes. The 15-rounder entails 210 picks usually over a two to three hour period. At this point, most teams have filled their 30-man rosters and are ready to go to spring training. What about those teams that traded away picks though? In the past, the draft would be followed by a free-for-all free agent signing period. Of course this became too chaotic for the commissioner's office, so the supplemental rounds were implemented in 1999. Since then 361 players were selected in the supplemental rounds, including a record number 81 this year. But is it really worth sticking around for the supplemental draft? How many of those 361 players actually had any kind of worth in the DMBL? Let's take a look. NOTE: For the sake of this study, players who were drafted and released then later resigned either by the original team or another team had their stats counted only up to the point of their first release. 1999 The first year of the supplemental draft. There were ten rounds this year, with 46 being selected. 11 of the 14 teams participated. Out of the 46 players selected, only 19 made it to the opening day roster and eight of those spent all year on the reserve list. Only one player (Esteban Yan of Phoenix - a relief pitcher) could be viewed as a full-time player. Yan appeared in 84 games that season, though his performance was mediocre at best. "Yeah, but the supplemental draft is for the future!", you say. If that's the case, the results are poor. Only four players made the transition to the 2000 roster - one was reserved for the duration of the season, two pitchers who had subpar seasons, and one other. Paul Konerko, of the Phoenix Dragons, was the success of this draft. Konerko had a very good rookie season in 2000, batting .299 in 138 games, with 25 home runs and 105 RBIs, and was a regular with the Dragons until 2003. It's always fun to look at what could have been if teams had held onto their picks a little longer. We'll dub this award the Ryan Anderson Award (after the pitcher who had very high expectations but whose career was decimated by injuries). The 1999 award goes to Columbia for selecting Lance Berkman with the 29th pick. Berkman was later drafted by the Arkansas Golden Falcons and has had an All-Star career so far. 2000
The 2000 Ryan Anderson Award goes to....Columbia again for their pick of Aramis Ramirez in the first round. Ramirez had an up and down start to his career but has settled down as one of the better third basemen for the Carolina Mudcats. 2001 With somewhat better results in 2000, teams went all-out in 2001. 65 selections were made in 10 rounds with ten teams participating. With those kinds of odds, there must be a good number of success stories! The truth is only five players out of 65 made it through the entire 2001 season on the same roster! Two of the players were traded (Lou Pote and Wade Miller). Only 15 players made it to the opening day roster. Only six of these players even played a single game for the team that drafted them and the results for four of them were not good, even disastrous. Wade Miller was solid for Vancouver before being shipped off to Harrison, where his numbers soon took a downward turn. Bobby Chouinard or Carolina was the only one who contributed positively for their drafting club in 2001. Chouinard ended up 3-2 with a 3.51 ERA in 56 appearances. Out of the five players to make it through the 2001 season, only one survived to the 2002 roster. That's one out of 65 drafted that made it to the next season, let alone became a quality player. Luckily for Honolulu, the player did indeed turn in a quality 2002 season. Mark Mulder pitched in 33 games for the Sharks, compiling a 17-8 record and 4.81 ERA. Mulder is still with the Sharks in 2005. Well with 65 picks you can imagine there were a lot of "could-have-beens" in this draft and you'd be right. It was a tough decision, but Arkansas gets this year's Ryan Anderson award for selecting Carlos Beltran with the ninth pick in the first round. Beltran was also selected in the 1999 supplemental draft by Honolulu. Beltran, despite being traded several times has become a star outfielder in the DMBL and is now a member of the Las Vegas Rat Pack. 2002 Things settled down a little after last year's explosion. 41 selections were made in eight rounds in 2002. Participation was at a high with 11 of 14 teams in it for at least one round. The results weren't much better, with six players lasting the entire season (one of which was on reserves all year). However, 16 players made the opening day roster. Seven of those players didn't see any game action in 2002. There were a few positive contributors here. Honolulu's Danny Graves pitched in 78 games and compiled a 3.51 ERA, despite a 1-7 record. Tsuyoshi Shinjo of Wanaque played in 100 games and hit .287. Graves was also solid for Honolulu in 2003 (5-3, 3.77, 2 Saves in 67 games), but Honolulu also hit it big with Jacques Jones. Jones was mediocre in 2002, but in 2003 he played in all but one game, hitting .275 with 23 homers, 107 runs, 74 RBIs, and 37 doubles. The other four players were all cut before the 2003 season began. It's tough to see a player you selected a year too early make it big on another team, but it's tougher yet to see two players develop into stars. That was the case in 2002 when Stanhope selected both Carlos Zambrano and Mark Texeira only to release them before the season began. Stanhope gets the coveted Ryan Anderson award for their double kick-in-the-nuts. 2003
While it's still early to tell who missed out on the superstars here, the early prize goes to Arkansas, who selected Rich Harden with the 31st pick. Harden had a rough 2004 but is now developing into an ace for the Las Vegas Rat Pack. Therefore Arkansas tentatively receives this year's Ryan Anderson Award. 2004 The numbers dipped again in 2004, equalling 2002 with 41 players selected in eight rounds. Eleven teams participated. Nine players lasted throughout the season, including one who sat on reserves all year. 14 players survived to make the opening day roster. Only one of the players was a fulltime contributor: Jeff Conine of Phoenix. Conine batted .299 with 16 HRs, 46 2Bs, 78 RBI, 84 runs and a .798 OPS. Most of the others did not contribute significantly. Who knows how they will do this year, but 2004 drafters netted three players that are slotted to start in 2005 (Oliver Perez, A.J.Burnett, and Conine) and one player who was traded before the 2005 draft (Jeff Weaver). We'll have to wait to see who takes the Anderson Award for 2004. 2005 2005 featured a record number of 81 selections in 11 rounds. Twelve teams participated in this year's supplemental draft. The jury's still out on who did the best and who flunked. CONCLUSION The results are not overwhelming. There hasn't been a tremendous amount of success and filling a roster with questionable prospects will most likely not result in truckloads of talent. There is always the chance for finding that diamond in the rough though, and that is enough incentive to keep the supplementals going deeper and deeper.
Cecil Fielder was the first selection in the DMBL's inaugural draft in 1991. Since then he's enjoyed a solid career as a member of seven DMBL teams. He is now retired and serves as the color man for the Columbia Rattlesnakes radio team. Click Here for past articles. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Maybe the first year was just a practice round. No one really knew what to make
of the supplemental round. Surely teams would have a better idea of how to
strategize for this year, right? This was the shortest supplemental draft in
league history. Maybe owners were scared off by the failures of the previous
season. Only 29 players were selected in seven rounds. Only eight of the teams
participated (barely half of the league!). Only nine of the players made it
through the entire season (four on reserve the entire year), and ten total were
still on their original rosters come opening day. The results were somewhat
better for the six players that actually played in 2000. Though only
Philadelphia's Gregg Olson and Columbia's Terry Adams could be considered a
full-timer (71 and 88 games in relief respectively), four of the six actually
contributed positively for their clubs. How did they do for the next season?
Five of the players survived all the cuts and found themselves on the 2001
rosters of their drafting clubs. Starters Kevin Appier, Carl Pavano, and Brad
Penny each had rough seasons, but Columbia's Terry Adams was solid in the pen.
The true gem here was Arkansas' Will Clark. Clark was a part timer in 2000
(.303, 6 HRs, 31 RBIs in 77 games), but in 2001 he had one of his best seasons
in the DMBL. Clark played in 135 games and hit .306 with 27 HRs, 108 RBIs, 103
R, 42 2Bs, 91 BBs and a .968 OPS!
As has been the trend, 2003 was another up year, with 58 selections, 10 rounds,
but only eight teams participating. That means that an average of 7.3 players
were picked for each team that participated. Twelve players lasted throughout
the entire 2003 season, with four on reserves, making this the year with the
most players to last through the season. However, only 14 total players out of
the 58 made it to the opening day rosters. None of the players that played this
season were fulltime players and most did not make a positive contribution.
Ricardo Rincon of Vancouver, Eric Karros of Hoboken, and Julio Santana of
Hillsborough were the only ones that even had decent numbers in 2003. The
turnover rate was highest in 2003-2004, when six players survived the cuts to
the 2004 roster and there are two true success stories here. Melvin Mora of
Harrison batted .306 (.867 OPS) with 25 homers, 99 RBIs, 110 runs in 153 games.
Mora is still a starter for the Rat Pack. An even bigger success is second
baseman Marcus Giles of Newark, who won the 2004 Pat Listach award for the top
rookie with a .319, 28 homer, 107 RBI, 110 runs, 49 doubles season. Giles is
currently the starting second baseman for the Sugar Bears.