Giants Draft follow-up: Do Giants Draft Early

I was looking at the Giants draft data I had gathered and I realized that Baseball America comes out with a ranking of who the Top 100/200/250 prospects to draft are. So I thought I would test the oft-mentioned theory - which I mentioned in my draft article - that the Giants draft players ahead of where they should have been picked assuming the players were picked by how they were ranked, talent-wise. And what do you know: the Giants do draft way ahead of where the player is "expected" to be drafted at.

Late As Expected Early Early Early Early Early
(+/- 10) <30>91 ?
2000 0 1 0 1 0 0 1
2001 0 2 1 1 0 0 0
2002 1 0 2 0 0 3 2
2003 1 1 1 0 0 3 2
2004 0 1 0 0 0 1 3

The "Early ?" means that we don't know exactly how early. It could be greater than 100 but there are minimum Early for each. In 2000, it could be as expected or it could be >100. In 2002, one could be as expected and the another is at least 34 picks early. In 2003, one is early at least 48 picks and the other is early at least 78 picks. Lastly, in 2004, one could be as expected, next is at least 41 picks early, and the last is at least 71 picks early.

Thus, out of 28 picks, only 2 were later than expected, 5 were as expected, and the other 21 picks were all picked early by some margin. Taking the best case scenario for the question marks, we get:

• 2 were later,
• 8 as expected,
• 4 picks were less than 30 picks early,
• 5 picks were less than 60 picks early,
• 2 picks were less than 90 picks early,
• 7 were greater than or equal to 90 picks early.

That meant:

• 25% were picked over 90 picks early
• 50% were picked over 30 picks early
• 64% were picked early
• 29% were picked as expected
• 7% were picked later

So the Giants do pick their draft prospects earlier than would be expected 64% of the time over the past 5 drafts. And half the time it is over 30 picks early. And a quarter of the time they are over 90 picks early.

And taking the worse case scenario, where all the ? is 90 picks early, we get early picks 75% of the time, with 54% over 90 picks early.

So the Giants are not only picking early, but often times (from quarter to half the time) are over 90 picks (or 3 rounds) early with their pick and half to three-quarters of the time they were at least 1 round early in picking the prospect. The Giants do draft their players early, often times much more earlier, than scouts would think.