Thoughts on Biogenesis and PED-Users Becoming All-Stars

In case you haven’t heard, the big news in baseball this week is the Biogenesis suspensions. After investigating the Florida-based clinic, MLB came up with a list of fourteen players to suspend, plus a few other names cleared.

Ryan Braun was suspended a few weeks ago. Monday saw the suspensions of Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta, Everth Cabrera, Antonio Bastardo, Jesus Montero, Francisco Cervelli, Jordany Valdespin, Fautino De Los Santos, Jordan Norberto, Cesar Puello, Fernando Martinez, and Sergio Escalona. In addition to those thirteen, Alex Rodriguez is appealing his own suspension (which, for some reason, is three to four times harsher than every other player involved, but that’s another can of worms), while Melky Cabrera, Bartolo Colon, and Yasmani Grandal were all cleared of additional wrongdoing (all three were given suspensions last year).

Everyone likes to focus on Rodriguez and Braun, as they are the biggest names involved. Even Cruz and Peralta are drawing attention, thanks to playing key roles on pennant teams. However, I think the other names on the list are what make it interesting.

I’m going to be honest, there were players on this list that I have never heard of, and I consider myself a passionate baseball fan. I just somehow had never come across Jordan Norberto, Sergio Escalona, or Cesar Puello until their names turned up. That made me think, though.

MLB's Borderline-Insane New Draft Gimmick

So, did you hear that MLB has a new draft pick lottery thing? Yep, as part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, Selig made sure to fix that much-squabbled about problem of who gets the picks after the first round of the draft.

I don’t want to say this is the dumbest thing in baseball history; baseball has had numerous dumb things in history. There’s this. These. Most of these. This and this (you’ll know them when you see them). Yeah, not to beat the point into the ground, but if you’re looking for dumb things, there are worse. But I’m not sure how many of them rival the Competitive Balance Lottery on things like poor planning, inexplicability, or sheer out-of-nowhereness.

Granted, people had issues with the draft. The Free Agent type rankings were a mess, most of the owners wanted to curb spending on amateurs, some people wanted to add countries to the draft or remove them, and so on. Nowhere did I hear anything about teams needing more picks or less picks or anything like that.

Retired Numbers Series: Washington Nationals

After the first two articles in my Retired Numbers Series, I decided to continues on with a team common to both of them: the Washington Nationals.

As I said in the Orioles articles, I am an Orioles fan from when I lived in the D.C. area-that was obviously before the Nationals existed. I know the two teams are supposed to be rivals, and maybe it’s just because I haven’t lived in the area for a while, but I’m definitely sympathetic towards the Nats. They aren’t my favorite NL team-my two teams are the Orioles and Cardinals. But I do follow the Nationals somewhat, and I guess I care more about them than most other teams in the league. I don’t feel like there’s enough of a history between them yet to be full on rivals; maybe frenemies instead? They did just partner together in an effort to get their final vote candidates elected, so there is some cooperation. Besides, if Wikipedia has it, it must be a word, so I’m sticking with that one.

Anyway, onto the numbers.

Studying the First and Second Rounds of the Draft: What Can You Expect?

I’ve still been thinking a lot about the draft, so I decided to take one more quick look at it in a different way. I looked at the first and second round drafts from 1990 through 2005 (I needed players with some history in the majors) and looked at each year’s best players and when they were picked. More specifically, I went through Baseball Reference’s draft database, sorted each first round and second round by Wins Above Replacement (WAR), and marked down the top three players for the first round and top player for the second round. All of this was to see what picks in the first round usually yield the best results.


Via request, I also noted how many first round picks made the majors, how many had positive career values, and how many have reached certain career WAR marks. For the WAR numbers, I mostly stuck to round numbers to approximate various levels of success (5 as a sort of journeyman/bit part player, 10 for a bit player with some success, and 20 for a player that had at least some all-star years). I’m not positive if these exact numbers are right, but they should at least provide an estimate. Also note that, as I move forward, the numbers will start to skew as more and more active players are included.