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February 14, 2007 Welcome to an all-new edition of Prospecting with
Jack Cust! In our last
issue,
we took a look at how many ineligible players were selected over the
last five years, and at what appears to be a trend of teams using more
early picks to select ineligible players. In this edition, we'll break
it down even farther and see which teams like using early picks on
ineligible players. In fact, since it's Valentine's Day, you might even say these teams love
taking ineligible players! If you love them so much, why don't you
marry them? I think I'm getting a little off-topic here. Let's take a
look at which teams were the busiest when it came to taking ineligible
players over the last five drafts.
The
Another defunct franchise, After Westwood and Columbia comes Honolulu,
which has selected just 7 inactive
players over the last five years; then the defunct Phoenix Dragons,
which used 10
picks in five drafts. The Tijuana/South Boston franchise is tied for
fourth-fewest ineligibles drafted, with 10 selected over the last five
drafts. It may be worth noting that of the four
teams that
used the fewest picks on ineligible players, three have gone belly-up. On the other hand, the hugely successful Arkansas franchise hasn't used many early picks on prospects either. In the five drafts we reviewed, the Golden Falcons selected a prospect with a pick in the first five rounds just once -- Bobby Crosby in 2004. And that was with 70th pick overall -- the last selection of the 5th round. Jack Cust has been drafted four times by four different teams -- but has never been eligible for the DMBL! More Prospecting articles can be found in the Prospecting Archives. |
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team most dedicated to its farm system
over the past five years has been the Hoboken Cutters, using 28 draft
picks to take ineligible players. (League rules now prohibit teams from
having more than five ineligible players on their roster at any time.)
The Stanhope/Marietta franchise is next, at 25, followed by Philly
(24), Carolina (23), Arkansas (22) and Newark (20). All six of those
teams have been around for all five drafts in the study period; on a
per capita basis, it's interesting to note that Hillsborough has been
around for just two drafts, but has taken 13 ineligible players,
ranking them behind only Hoboken if you pro-rate the players for the
number of drafts they've been in. The Harrison/Las Vegas franchise (15)
and Vancouver (13) are around the middle of the pack.
The team using the least draft picks on
prospects -- not counting D.C., which has only been around for one
draft -- was the now-defunct Brooklyn/Westwood franchise, which
selected just six ineligible players in five years of drafting. In
fact, in its six years of existence, the franchise 
the Columbia Crusaders/Rattlesnakes, also seldom
used draft picks on ineligible players. They used just
one pick in the first
five rounds on an ineligible prospect between 2002 and 2005, spending
their second round pick (#21 overall) to take Francisco
Rodriguez in 2003 -- but then cut him. "K-Rod" was scooped up by
Philly the following season -- again in the second round, this time #20
overall -- and last year won the