In the current print edition of Baseball America, John Manuel looked at their the grades for every major league team’s draft over the last ten years. And, along with that, Jim Callis went back and graded each draft for the last decade and ranked teams by their overall grade-point averages.
In this analysis, the Red Sox (3.40 GPA), Diamondbacks (3.20), A’s (3.10), Phillies (3.05), Rays (2.90) and Twins (2.90) were the top five teams in baseball in terms of drafting well over the last ten years. (Rays and Twins were tied for fifth.) And, the Yankees ranked 26th overall – with a GPA of 1.95 – only bettering the Mets (1.90), White Sox (1.75), Astros (1.55) and Mariners (1.45). Clearly, this is not pretty news for the Yankees front office in terms of grading out well in the draft.
In the same edition of Baseball America, Jim Callis had a feature on the best scouting directors (current and former) in the last few years. Among those listed were David Chadd, Mike Rizzo, Logan White, R.J. Harrison, and Jason McLeod. Note there’s no mention of Damon Oppenheimer, the man in charge of the Yankees amateur scouting and draft, or anyone else within the Yankees front office here.
And, today, with their first pick in the 2010 draft, the 32nd overall pick, the Yankees selected Cito Culver - probably two or three (or maybe four?) rounds earlier than he should have been selected – passing on talent like Anthony Ranaudo, Bryce Brentz, Ryan LaMarre and Seth Blair (just to name a few).
Considering all this, and then factoring in that the Yankees had screwed up their first three picks in the draft just about every year from 1998 through 2008, I have to wonder about what’s going on in the Yankees front office with respect to handling the draft? (“What about 2009?” some may say? Well, the jury is still out on that one.)
At some point, Damon Oppenheimer – and his bosses, Mark Newman and Brian Cashman – have to be held accountable for the way they’ve been wasting the Yankees “prime” picks, draft after draft, no?