2011 MLB Starting Pitchers and the Draft

The Tampa Bay Rays have been eliminated from the playoffs, but not without raising some big questions in my head first. I wrote a post a few days ago about the drafting genius of the franchise. All five of their mainstay starters this year were drafted and developed within the system. That's truly impressive these days.

All of that raised another question in my head of what the other teams in the league look like when you check to see where there starters came from. I compiled the data, and here it is:

This is a Pirates blog, so let me note this first: there are only four pitchers above that were drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates. That's right, of the 150 most used starting pitchers this year, four of them were drafted by the Pirates. Those pitchers are Tim Wakefield, Paul Maholm, Zach Duke, and Bronson Arroyo.

Now let's get away from the Pirates and look at this data more generally.

There are three teams in the league that drafted or signed all five of their most used 2011 starters themselves (Dodgers, Giants, and Rays).

The Rockies are the only team with exactly four pitchers coming from their own system, and there are eight teams that drafted or signed three of their most used starting pitchers (Mets, Nationals, Reds, Astros, Twins, Rangers, Mariners, and Angels).

That leaves 18 teams that drafted or signed less than three of their main 2011 starting pitchers themselves, more than half the league. The Yankees, Athletics, White Sox, Diamondbacks, Brewers, Phillies, Pirates, and Cardinals all have just one pitcher on the list that they drafted or signed themselves.

Talent evaluation and development is crucial to all teams in the league, but that is especially true for small market teams like the Pirates. Some teams do it much better than others. We have seen the Tampa Bay Rays go from worst to first and now they have made the playoffs three of four years because of their ability to draft pitching in the draft.

The Pirates, on the other hand, have not done a good job at all in the draft, especially with pitchers. The four that they have drafted that are still relevant in this league are not top pitchers by any means, Wakefield has been very good in his extremely long tenure in the league, and Arroyo has had a successful career as well. However, Wakefield was drafted in 1988, so that is long before any elements of the current Pirates management were around, and Arroyo was selected in the 1995 draft. So for last 16 years, the Pirates have drafted only two pitchers that are still good enough to be a top-5 performer for a major league team, and there lies a huge part of why the Pirates have been a losing team for 19 years.