A VERY UNIQUE DRAFT CLASS AWAITS
Every year the Figment draft class can be considered unique but that is especially true about the players that will make up the 1930 class. It is unusual for several reasons and all of them centering around a dearth of high end college talent. This college portion of the draft pool, at least aside from 3 time All-American Jack Flint who may have had the best college catching career of all-time, is simply not very deep and lacks high profile star power. Maybe it is the lack of a Barrell brother in this pool- Fred went 3rd overall in 1926, Bobby 6th in 1928 and Tom first last year with young Harry not eligible until next season. Perhaps it is the lack of a dominant pitching prospect such as Tom Barrell and Chick Stout a year ago or Tommy Wilcox in 1928 but this draft appears to be lacking the high end can't miss prospect of years gone by.
So that is what this draft lacks. What the 1930 draft does appear to have is an extremely large proportion of high school players at it's upper echelon, especially at the shortstop position. One could argue the high school pool is no better then years gone by, it is just getting more attention now because the college class is so weak. However, only time will tell which assumption is the right one.
The 1930 draft will mark the sixth one since human GM's took over Figment baseball. It also, on the surface at least, looks like far and away the weakest draft pool we have seen. For comparison sake let's look back at the top players from each of the five previous drafts.
1925
The first human draft may well go down as the greatest of all-time. The star studded group of first round picks included Al Wheeler, Bud Jameson, Bill Ashbuagh, Doug Lightbody, Jack Cleaves and Chick Dyer. Wheeler was a high school pick who has already had two 30-homer seasons for Detroit and has won a World Series as has Cleaves. Lightbody owns an MVP award and a batting title and is fast approaching the 1,000 career hit mark. Ashbaugh and Jameson are two of the best hitters in FABL and Dyer, while a late bloomer, is having a breakout year this season.
1926
Cleveland went with outfielder Karl Stevens over catcher Fred Barrell at #1. Stevens was coming off a great amateur career at Rainier College and is not quite 25 years old but it is becoming apparent he will not live up to the billing of a number one pick. Fred Barrell was coming out of Georgia Baptist as the top catcher but slipped to the Cougars at #3 and is well on his way to becoming a big league star. The Foresters might have redeemed themselves by getting perhaps the biggest steal of the draft in selecting Chicago Poly SS Woody Armstrong, who was later traded to Montreal.
This draft actually had some similarity to the current one as, aside from #2 overall Walt Palmer, the top pitchers were all high school kids. Four of them: Larry Brown, George Johnson, Frank Crawford and George Williams, went in the first round. All, at one time or another, have been ranked in the top 100 prospects but none have made the big leagues yet. Interestingly, and perhaps just the proof needed to explain the dangers of drafting high school arms, only Crawford remains in the top 100 at this time.
1927
Five pitchers went in the first round including a pair of high schoolers but at this point the top prospects certainly seem to be the college guys led by first overall pick Cliff Moss in Montreal. It is still early of course, but at this point 1927 is looking like a very weak class with only #4 Frank Lightbody and 10 pick Andy Carter having seen big league action to date.
1928
The year of the pitcher part I as college superstar Tommy Wilcox went first overall and a total of 5 pitchers went in the top seven picks. Wilcox has the makings of a generational talent while fellow college arm Mike Murphy, who was being briefly considered for the number one slot by Brooklyn before going second to the Chicago Cougars, has so far not progressed past AA and is only ranked 19th on the Cougars prospect list. Meanwhile two of the high school pitchers selected in Chuck Cole and George Thomas are ranked first and third out of all pitching prospects in the league right now. The other one, Phil Hicks, doesn't crack the Gothams top 30 prospects.
1929
The year of the pitcher part II, or at least the high end pitcher as Tom Barrell and Chick Stout went 1-2 after much debate about the two of them all season. There was also another highly touted college arm in Tom Blalock, who went fourth overall and two other pitchers heard their names called in the first round.
The best player in this class may well turn out to be Vic Crawford, a power-hitting college player who generated plenty of buzz in a draft that seemed chock full of high end college talent. 14 of the 16 first round picks came from the college ranks and there was plenty of buzz about them throughout their draft year. In contrast we look at this season, with a poor college crop and little fanfare, so perhaps that is why this year's draft is not talked about as much.
Last season we had all that college talent that was getting talked up as the college's have been of late. However, the high school league often flies under the radar and gets far less publicity. High School players are also less mature and more prone to talent changes - both good and bad - so they are inherently more risky. With an expected run on high school talent in the early rounds this season there may be some booms and there will certainly be some busts - but for the most part it will take a number of seasons for GM's to figure out which they got.
The lack of a clear cut number one and the unpredictability that comes with drafting high school talent is going to make this a very interesting draft. Initial thinking is it is much closer, and perhaps even weaker than the 1927 class was, but in reality at this point it also has the potential to be much better than the 1927 class as well.