MORE THAN JUST THE TOP 100 – A DRAFT SUCCESS STORY

Hall of Fame Exhibit – written by Steven Cutler

Everyone looks at the Hollywood “Dynasty” and immediately connects their success to first-round picks, David Price, Clayton Kershaw & Christian Yelich.  While yes, they are big pieces of that team, you can’t win a World Series with 3 players.  You can’t draft your franchise in the first half of the draft and expect to win.  You need to find those players no one is looking at, but you find.  Sure I have missed more times than not, but I have hit late in the draft more often than a lot of others.  I will ignore potential future star guys I drafted late but they didn’t make it up in time (Blake Snell – 6th rd, 2013; Tristin McKenzie – 9th rd, 2016; Dylan Cease 9th rd, 2016; Bobby Dalbec – 6th rd, 2017) or those I traded (Marco Gonzales – 5th rd, 2014; Kenta Maeda – 6th rd, 2014) cause those guys never played for me.

While Price & Kershaw went 1 & 4, respectively, in the 2007 draft, an interesting fact about Yelich.  I was not available in the first round of the 2011 draft, so I gave Tempe owner Chris Douglass a small list since he wasn’t drafting in the first round.  On that list was my #1 option, Yelich.  So while I created the list, I didn’t physically make that pick 😊.  I digress…..The Hollywood dynasty was helped by some pretty savvy trades, but the depth of Hollywood was made thru through the draft, and mostly in the mid to late rounds.

Hollywood entered the league in 2002 (I managed the Columbus team midway 2001, then moved them to Hollywood).  In my first couple drafts, I drafted what I thought were good choices, but I was a newbie and didn’t know the minor leagues all that well.  How did I research….I used the Baseball America website, cause I didn’t really know what else to do.  If you go back to my first draft, you will see how bad it was.  One source with information of ‘potential’ really is not the way to research.  In 2003, I drafted a couple of valuable guys, but my team was bad the previous season, so I had some high picks.

Well, I had (2) years where I was good (2004 & 2005), however, it was short-lived and I returned to the cellar in 2006.  My research had gotten somewhat better, but I didn’t focus so much on those guys everyone knew but rather focused on guys for the later rounds.  In 2005, I drafted my first college player – the third baseman from Nebraska named Alex Gordon in the 4th round.  Gordon would move to the outfield and play his entire career in Hollywood, helping them to (2) World Series Championships.  I must have been drunk in 2006, cause looking back at that draft, it was horrible.  I had an 8-month-old, so let’s blame it on her. 😊 The 2007 draft is well documented and looking back, I used up all my draft capital smarts in the first round.  Ok, it wasn’t smart, it was luck. Fast-forwarding to 2011, Yelich was taken for me (by Chris-Tempe) in round 1, and you would think that was, in itself, a great draft, however, it wasn’t.  As I recall, we were in the 6th round and I was wanting to draft a first baseman “future”, so I reached out to Iron City (and MLB.com reporter) Jonathan Mayo with a list of 3 guys.  He said, without a doubt, Paul Goldschmidt was the guy.  Fortunately for me, there were 149 players taken before I had to opportunity to choose him. 

Four more years later (2015), coming off my first World Series victory, I was drafting last in each round.  Not expecting to get any good futures, I did my deep research.  This was probably my deepest draft of quality players I had drafted.  In the 7th round of the draft, at pick 169, I drafted an infielder out of Seattle, named Ketel Marte.  Marte has exceeded all expectations as a hitting star in the infield and the outfield.  Then in round 8, pick 213, I dipped deep into the Oakland minors and drafted my cornerstone third baseman, Matt Chapman. I must like that 8th round pick, cause in the 2017 draft, I drafted Gingergaard (Dustin May) with that same pick (212).  May has seen a little action but has been stellar when healthy.  Then, while the jury is still out on my 2019 draft, I picked up a potential future stud lefty in Shane McClanahan in the 10th round and a very valuable utility player in Kyle Farmer in round 11.  Then lightning may appear to have struck once again in the 2020 draft with my 9th round choice of Jake Cronenworth. He seems to be a fixture in Hollywood, like so many others.

So to recap, the following players were drafted in the later rounds by me over the years,

2005 (4th rd) – Alex Gordon

2011 (6th rd) – Paul Goldschmidt

2015 (7th rd) – Ketel Marte

2015 (8th rd) – Matt Chapman

2017 (8th rd) – Dustin May

2019 (10th rd) – Shane McClanahan

2019 (11th rd) – Kyle Farmer

2020 (8th rd) – Jake Cronenworth

My point in all this is that you need to research more than what MLB or Baseball America puts out here.  Build your franchise the way you like it, but know, the most valuable players are found later in the draft.  In this list, I drafted (2) starting Ooutfielders, my corner infield, a 2B who can play anywhere, a very valuable utility guy, and a couple of starting pitchers.