The guy is just built like a starting pitcher. He stands 6'6" tall and weighs 230 pounds, although his weight has fluctuated since becoming a member of the Yankees organization.

Because of his size and pitcher's build, he immediately drew comparisons to Phil Hughes, the Yankees top pitching prospect at the time. Because of his repertoire, he also was compared to Jeff Marquez, one of the team's better prospects at the time, but obviously nowhere near as good as Hughes. This was always a more reasonable comparison.

After signing for $368,000, McAllister got into game action pitching mainly in relief for the GCL Yankees. Over 35 innings, McAllister allowed 35 hits, walked 12 batters, struck out 28 and pitched to an ERA of 3.09.

The showing was impressive and made McAllister a guy to watch. The hopes were, at the time, that his build would allow him to add some more velocity and become the type of prospect who had ace potential.

At just 19 years old, McAllister started the season in extended spring training to work on adding some more pitches. Instead of just throwing a two-seam fastball and changeup, the Yankees wanted him to work on his four-seam fastball and slider while also trying out a curveball. The curveball didn't work out too well and McAllister has since scrapped the pitch.

He didn't get to pitching in competitive games again until the New York-Penn League season began. Things didn't go as planned and McAllister struggled a little bit for Staten Island. His ERA stood at 5.17 over 71.1 innings but his peripheral numbers were actually quite solid. He struck out what is still a career-high 9.5 batters per nine innings and only walked 3.5 per nine.

He gave up only three home runs, so that wasn't the problem either. On balls in play, batters hit a whopping .370 against him. He could have just been throwing meatballs over the plate, but given his strikeout rate, that is doubtful. It is much more likely that some bad luck played into McAllister's rough season. It also could have just been a sign of fatigue, as McAllister especially struggled down the stretch for Staten Island.

The struggles McAllister had in 2007 would not repeat themselves in 2008 or in 2009. While scouts are not too high on McAllister, his results are hard to argue with. The guy has dominated the competition over the past two seasons as he has breezed through Single-A and Double-A.

The velocity that the Yankees had hoped McAllister would gain never came to be, which is why scouts' opinions on him aren't too optimistic. I think McAllister is a known entity at this point.

If he remains healthy (he had some arm fatigue last season), he will reach the majors no later than 2011. Most people don't see him as much more than a back-end starter, but my hopes remain high until I see some sort of failure from him.

McAllister primarily works off of his sinking two-seam fastball. With it, he breaks a ton of bats and gets a ton of ground balls. Reports on his velocity differ. Near the end of last season, Baseball America reported that he wasn't even reaching 90 with his four-seamer. Contrary to that, I've heard that his four-seamer hit upwards of 93 at certain points this season. I'd say that he needs his two-seam fastball to come in at 89-91 for it to be successful in the majors.

Besides his two fastballs, McAllister also throws a changeup and slider. Neither of them is a great strikeout pitch, but McAllister has always maintained solid enough strikeout rates in the minors, never posting a rate of less than 6.9 per nine innings. You won't see much hype surrounding McAllister, but I think he currently stands as the team's best pitching prospect.

McAllister will spend the bulk of the 2010 season pitching for Triple-A Scranton, and I think it's extremely unlikely that we see him in the Bronx before September. He is not currently on the 40-man roster and would need multiple injuries to see time in the Bronx.

This season will be a good year for McAllister to continue to prove doubters wrong. It will be much harder for them to argue against his success in Triple-A at just 21 years old. While he'll never be a front-of-the-rotation starter, it is extremely likely that McAllister will provide value to a major league team, whether it be the Yankees or another team.

Find other great content and more prospect profiles at Pending Pinstripes .

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They have seemingly been building Joba Chamberlain up so that he could have the opportunity to start a full season and pitch 200 innings. Now, when he finally are at a point where Chamberlain is without innings limits, they decide to go another direction and stick him in the bullpen.

Not only that, but who are they replacing him with? Phil Hughes, a pitcher who will have an innings limit this season. The number has not been disclosed, but it will probably be somewhere in the 160-170 innings area.

The Yankees proved last year that they don't have an effective way to limit innings while getting a positive contribution from a young pitcher. Their plan with Chamberlain didn't seem to work and was changed multiple times last season. Now, they will have to find something that works for the team and Phil Hughes.

Chamberlain will likely start the season in the bullpen. There has been no indication of what this means for his long-term future, but I hope that they are not planning on making this a permanent move. With his stuff and repertoire, Chamberlain deserves more of an opportunity to be a starter.

If a Yankees pitcher goes down with an injury, the Yankees should not hesitate to replace him in the rotation with Chamberlain. If the Yankees keep him in the bullpen all season, and he pitches just 60-70 innings, all of the innings building that they have been doing with him over the past two seasons will have been a waste.

I'm sure the Yankees are doing what they think is best for the team in 2010, but I'm not sure it is the best long-term move for Chamberlain or for the team. It seems like this was just a gross miscalculation by the Yankees of both pitcher's abilities and one where their plan seemed to go incredibly awry. 

The fact is, though, that Hughes will be a capable starter for the Yankees this season. The looming questions will be about Hughes's innings limits and Chamberlain's long-term future. These are questions that we'll begin to find out the answers to over the course of the 2010 season.

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After this move, it looks like the bullpen will shape up as follows:

• Mariano Rivera
• Joba Chamberlain/Phil Hughes
• Alfredo Aceves
• David Robertson
• Damaso Marte
• Chan Ho Park
• Sergio Mitre

Chamberlain, Hughes, Aceves, and Robertson all have options remaining—and they could be sent down with no repercussions to start the season. The Yankees will probably place Boone Logan on waivers soon, too.

It's arguable whether Mitre or Gaudin is better suited for the 'pen—personally, I think Gaudin is. Either way, the bullpen shapes up to be pretty good, and it has a lot of depth.

However, the Yankees could have kept Mitre and Gaudin on the roster as the season starts. While I would certainly not advocate sending down any of the other bullpen members to keep one of these guys, there is another alternative.

Looking at the schedule, the Yankees don't need a fifth starter until April 24. Whether it is Hughes or Chamberlain who wins the starting role, that pitcher could have started the year in the minors, giving the Yankees more time to make a decision and see if things sort themselves out.

It would also give the fifth starter an opportunity to find more of a rhythm than he would find pitching as a long reliever during the first few weeks of the season.

If a Yankee pitcher happened to go down with an injury before the team needed a fifth starter, the team would be well prepared.

Either way, I don't think placing Gaudin on waivers is a good way for the Yankees to maximize their assets.

It has been debated that the loser of the fifth starter competition should start the season in Triple-A. I don't think that would be the ideal situation, but maybe sending down the winner of the competition would be the right move.

Now, it is certainly possible that Gaudin clears waivers and this is all moot. His salary isn't insignificant, and many teams are already at their budgets. But if I were the Yankees, I wouldn't risk losing a useful pitcher at this point.

Gaudin would also be a better option in the bullpen over Mitre because he has dominated righties during the course of his career with a good slider. He also has the ability to eat up innings.

Mitre, on the other hand, doesn't have any particular standout ability.

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This is likely to be the case, but is that the right decision? Could Joba Chamberlain or Phil Hughes use more development against Triple-A hitters?

With Hughes, I think the answer is an obvious no. He has a ton of minor league experience and has already dominated the Triple-A level. I don't think Hughes has anything to learn in the minors.

With Chamberlain, on the other hand, I'm not so sure. He had a very brief minor league career, racking up fewer than 90 innings in the minors over the course of his career and only throwing eight innings at Triple-A. 

Also, Chamberlain is not the same pitcher that he once was. His velocity as a starter now pales in comparison to what it was when he was starting in the minors. This could give him the chance to learn how to pitch without his best stuff and also give him a better opportunity to work on his changeup and curveball.

The question then becomes, if Hughes is anointed the fifth starter, would it be worth it for the Yankees to send Chamberlain down to work on his pitches and become a more efficient starter? This way, he'd also be immediately available to step in if one of the Yankees' top five starters went down with an injury.

First, it would be important to see how taking Chamberlain off the team and out of the bullpen would affect the team. Using Sky Kalkman's bullpen chaining spreadsheet with 2010 CHONE projections, it would cost the team eight runs over the course of the season if they were to replace Chamberlain with a replacement level reliever like Albaladejo, who projects for a 4.75 ERA.

Eight runs is nearly one win, and even though that may not sound like too much, it could make all the difference in the toughest division in baseball. In order for it to be worth starting Chamberlain in the minors, the Yankees would have to be sure that it would improve him and the team very soon.

It's definitely an interesting idea and one that the Yankees should look into, but I'm not convinced it would be the right move.

I don't take spring training results very seriously, so I am still standing where I have all along. Entering the season, Joba Chamberlain should be the fifth starter and Phil Hughes should be in the bullpen ready to fill in if or when the Yankees need him.

Find more great content at Pending Pinstripes. This article is somewhat of a response to this post by Jay on Fack Youk.

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So, instead of debating who should win the fifth starter job, I'd like to take a look at what the Yankees need from their fifth starter. You see, fifth starters tend to be pretty fungible. Usually, the difference between a fifth starter and the sixth guy waiting at Triple-A isn't too vast.

In the Yankees case, I think that remains the case. Whether Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, or Alfredo Aceves wins the fifth starter job, the difference in the most likely outcome for each of these three pitchers is probably negligible over the course of a season. What does always matter, though, is roster flexibility.

The Yankees decision with the fifth starter will affect both short-term and long-term roster flexibility. That is the reason why Aceves is not really a serious option to start the season in the rotation. Over the next few seasons, his place on the Yankees roster is as a reliever and spot-starter. He just doesn't have the ceiling that Hughes and Chamberlain do.

Now, I'm sure many of you disagree with my assessment that the three pitchers would put up similar lines going out and throwing 32 starts, and that's fair. I just think that if we're projecting the most likely outcome or the over/under for each pitcher, the three project similarly. They all have strong minor league track records (although Chamberlain and Aceves didn't get too many innings in the minors). They all have been extremely successful as major league relievers, and each have had some success starting for the Yankees.

Because I do believe they would each project similarly as starters, and I think you have to choose the fifth starter based on roster flexibility. Aceves is in the bullpen because building up his innings serves no purpose for the Yankees. Then it comes down to Hughes and Joba. I'm not going to get into the numbers or who I think is better, because that has been done enough.

What matters is innings. Last season, fans were upset with Chamberlain's innings limits and many even blamed the Yankees "messing around" for his poor second half. That's certainly possible, but I don't think we can definitively say that's the case. What I find interesting is that it seems to be those same fans that want Hughes to be the fifth starter.

Do people not realize that Hughes would be under similar innings constraints? I can't positively say this, but I'm pretty sure that he would be. I'm not sure the Yankees would handle his innings limit the same way they did with Chamberlain last year, but some finagling would need to be done; I don't have any doubts about that.

Chamberlain, on the other hand, is finally free from the so-called "Joba Rules" that really surround every young pitcher. If healthy and successful, the Yankees would realistically let him go out and start 32 games. With Hughes, that wouldn't be the case.

Don't misconstrue this as me thinking that Hughes should be a reliever for the entire 2010 season; I don't. The Yankees should utilize Hughes in a way out of the bullpen where if they had an injury, he would be able to step in as a starter. I feel like the Yankees always made that much more painful with Chamberlain than it needed to be. There are plenty of pitchers who pitch in short relief and are able to transition to the rotation. It seemingly took Chamberlain a month of starts with small pitch increments in order for the Yankees to actually have a regular pitch count.

If they are counting on Hughes to be their sixth starter, as I think they should, they need to do something differently. If that means utilizing Hughes in more multiple inning stints, then that's what they have to do.

Of course, you hope that you don't succumb to any injuries, but that doesn't mean you don't prepare for them. It's nearly inevitable that a starter will go down at some point, and the Yankees need Hughes to be ready to step into the rotation.

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Noesi is a guy who, due to his age and injuries, managed to stay away from the prospect radar before the 2009 season.

Looking at his 50 or so innings in 2008, it wouldn't have been far-fetched to predict greater success for Noesi in 2009. He was absolutely dominant in 2008, striking out over ten batters per nine innings while walking less than two.

Noesi has had an interesting and slow-moving path thus far through the Yankees system, largely because of his injuries, that is interesting. He was largely a reliever when pitching for the GCL Yankees in 2008. When I see a 21-year-old pitching in relief in the Gulf Coast League, that is usually not a good sign.

Then, when the Yankees promoted him to Staten Island at the end of the season, they used him as a starter. He only made five starts, but he excelled. He struck out 11.6 batters per nine innings while posting a BB/9 of just 2.60.

Pitching in Staten Island presented more of a challenge for Noesi, as there are many college graduates in that league who were a similar age to Noesi. Even though it was just five starts, I'd imagine that Noesi opened a few eyes in the Yankees organization with that eye-popping K/9.

Even as Noesi dominated during the 2009 season, there was little buzz surrounding him. Seeing great numbers are nice, but they don't mean too much in the low minors without an accompanying positive scouting report.

I wasn't hearing bad things about Noesi suggesting that he was getting by on poise rather than stuff, I just wasn't really hearing much at all about the then 22-year-old righty.

It wasn't until the end of the season that I, and others, started to take note of what Noesi was accomplishing. Right around the time I noticed the absurd numbers Noesi was putting up, others noticed how his stuff had improved.

Noesi's biggest fan seems to be Frankie Piliere, former Rangers' scout and current writer for AOL Fanhouse. He had great things to say about Noesi in a brief scouting report:

"[Hector] Noesi is the type of prospect that shows up in deals quite frequently. He's a little older than you'd like for a pitcher below Double-A, but has the stuff of a No. 3 big-league starter. Another reason you may not know much about Noesi is because in 2008 he was much shorter in his arsenal than he is today.

When I had the chance to see him then, he was pitcher severely lacking in secondary pitches despite his good velocity and fastball command. This year was a much different story. He displayed downright dominance at times, especially in his stint with at low Single-A Charleston (S.C.). Maybe most impressive of all was his stamina; his stuff would sometimes improve as his pitch count mounted.

Although he still likes to mostly to work off his well spotted 90-94 mph fastball, this year there was the curve ball as well. With good 12-6 action, the curve ball came out whenever Noesi seemed to need it this year. He had a feel for just how much to mix it in and varied the speeds from 72-76 mph. With a second pitch that now shows flashes of being plus, and an occasional changeup mixed in, Noesi showed tremendous growth in 2009 and became a complete pitcher. He could be a guy that continues to emerge in a hurry and may not be far off from the big leagues."

For a player who had never received much scouting hype, that is some very high praise. His statistical trends match up with Piliere's observation that his stuff had drastically improved.

As Sean recently noted, Noesi also possessed one of the best SIERAs in the Yankees' farm system. It was already evident that Noesi's Tampa ERA of 3.92 was a fluke, considering that he had a freakin' K:BB of 10.00(!) but his 2.64 Tamps SIERA further confirms that.

Noesi has gotten into a few televised games during spring training, but I haven't gotten to see much of him. I saw him face a few batters but I wasn't paying full attention so I can barely even give you my own irrelevant personal scouting report.

The few pitches I saw represented such a small sample, but I did not ice a few things. It seemed Noesi possessed full control of his curve ball and had no problem working with it in the strike zone for strikes. His fastball was around 91 on the YES gun and he had a high leg kick when he was working from the windup. That's all I was able to gather in the few pitches I saw, so hopefully I'll get to see him pitch again.

During the offseason, the Yankees opted to add Noesi to the 40-man roster even though he has yet to pitch above A-ball. This shows that the Yankees like what they've seen from him and couldn't risk losing the control specialist. I was relieved to see him protected from the Rule 5, because I think there's some legitimate upside with Noesi.

Noesi will start 2010 on the 40-man roster making his first stop at Double-A Trenton. I don't think it will be too much of a challenge for him, and given that he'll be 23-years-old for the entire season, a quick promotion to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre would not surprise me at all.

The combination of Noesi's improved stuff and impressive performance make him one of the better pitching prospects in the Yankees' system. Keep an eye out for him, as we may see Noesi pitching in the Bronx this September.

Find more prospect profiles and other great content at Pending Pinstripes .

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This is termed a market inefficiency. Basically, the best thing a team can do is find something of value that isn't being valued properly on the open market.

While many people ignorantly think Michael Lewis's Moneyball is about sabermetrics, this is what it was really about: finding market inefficiencies and using them to your advantage. The biggest example that was used in this case was on-base percentage, which was significantly undervalued at the time.

At this point, something as simple as OBP is valued correctly. In recent years we've seen teams like the Mariners shift to optimizing defense at a well below-market rate.

It seemed that this was the new market inefficiency, but this seemed to right itself quickly. This offseason, we saw Boston look to improve their defense through free agency by acquiring defensive specialists Adrian Beltre and Mike Cameron while moving Jacoby Ellsbury to left field.

While Boston may seem to be a continuation of getting defense on the cheap, they actually didn't pay too much below market value with these two signings. This suggests that teams are much more aware of the impact defense can have and it can no longer be seen as a market inefficiency.

These things work in cycles. It's very hard to find a way to game the market consistently without other teams catching up to you. In a recent post on FanGraphs, Dave Cameron talked about efficiency wages . In his piece, he briefly mentions nutrition without getting into it too much.

See, MLB just raised the minor league per diem five dollars all the way to $25 per day. Now, if you're eating for one and cooking your own meals, that's fine. I cook many of my own meals and spend less than $25 a day.

The issue here is that these are not people who live on a regular schedule. They're not working nine to five jobs; they're traveling all around whatever region they're in and end up eating out for many of their meals. Now you can see why that's a struggle. If you want three meals on $25...you're going to be getting food that is neither nutritious nor particularly good.

Dave suggests a widespread increase of quality of life for minor leaguers. He proposes that you not only raise the per diem, but you get better buses as well. For the Yankees, these two things should be a no-brainer. Having updated, comfortable buses for each minor league affiliate would cost relative pennies for the Yankees. We can't be sure how much this would benefit the team in the long run but improving the day-to-day life of the team's prospects can't hurt.

This also got me to thinking about the recent film Sugar, which follows a young pitching prospect out of the Dominican Republic. Now, I don't want to spoil the film for you if you haven't seen it yet (and I recommend you do ), but the character Sugar could have benefited from these things and many more.

My Recommendation for the Yanks

With the Yankees' financial advantage, they should take this whole idea a step further. Considering that they are so active in the international free agent market, they'd benefit the most from it anyway. Instead of just increasing the per diem, encourage players to eat healthy. Maybe if there is a restaurant in an area a team is visiting that specializes in healthy food, offer incentives to eat there.

When the team is home, serve healthy foods. Substitute regular pasta, white rice, and white bread out; replace them with whole wheat pasta, brown rice, and whole grain bread. Obviously, I'd take it a bit further, but you get the point. Simple changes like that would not even cost very much, but would increase the health of the players.

I haven't spent enough time around the low minor leagues to know what goes on in Low-A ball, but teams should go out of their way to make sure that the prospects are comfortable and happy. In Sugar, we saw that might not always be the case.

This would not only benefit the players currently in the system. It's possible that young ballplayers would be even more attracted to signing with the Yankees because they offer a better quality of life.

As the first commenter on Dave's post points out, this would probably end up causing other teams to follow suit, which would just raise prices all around. If that happens, then so be it.

This would just mean that corporate suits end up with a little less money while these 18-year-old kids in A-ball get an increase in their quality of life. I know I don't have a problem with that.

If other teams didn't follow, then the Yankees could have found themselves another efficient way to spend their money as they streamline talent to the major league team.

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The two players are both right-handed hitters, but that is about the extent of their similarities. They both have their fair share of strengths and weaknesses, but the Yankees only have room for one on their roster.

Marcus Thames's biggest strength is his power. For his career, he has hit a home run once per every 15 at-bats and he has an ISO of .248 which is well above average. On the other hand, Jamie Hoffmann hit one home run for every 60 minor league at-bats with a career minor league ISO of .118.

What's more striking are Thames' splits versus lefties. It has been well documented that the Yankees could use a lefty-masher on their bench to compensate for the relative weaknesses of Curtis Granderson and Brett Gardner.

While Gardner has not shown much of a platoon split over the course of his career, the Yankees must see something there because they have made the habit of hiding him versus left-handed pitching.

For his career, Thames has a .360 wOBA against lefties as opposed to a .323 wOBA versus righties. This is a stark difference that makes Thames a legit pinch hitting option against left handed pitching.

If the Yankees are looking for a player they can use to pinch hit, back up the corner outfield spots and first base, Thames is the guy they will choose.

Hoffmann, on the other hand, offers a different array of skills to the team.

Baseball America just named him the best defensive outfielder in the Yankees system after consistently ranking him the best in the Dodgers system. This is a clear difference from Thames, who has been worth -15.8 runs in the corner outfield over his career and has a career outfield UZR/150 of -9.5.

Hoffmann is an unknown when it comes to hitting at the major league level, though. CHONE predicts an unacceptable .304 wOBA for him, which is not good enough to justify giving him a roster spot.

Whichever of these two players doesn't make the 25-man roster will be gone at the end of spring training. The main difference is that if the Yankees make Hoffmann their fifth outfielder and he remains with the team for the entire 2009 season, they would be able to retain him for the following five seasons.

If the Yanks decide to hold onto Thames, they will lose team control over him after the 2010 season. So what it really comes down to is what the Yankees see in Hoffmann. If they see a player who will be slightly less valuable to Thames in 2010, but one who can provide value for multiple seasons, they'll keep him.

If they have soured on Hoffmann a bit since the Rule 5 draft and think he doesn't provide enough offense to be a part of their bench, they'll try to work out a deal with the Dodgers to keep him, or send him back to Los Angeles while adding Thames to the 25-man roster.

The choice is up to the Yankees, but I think I'd lean towards keeping Hoffmann. Thames would not definitively opt out, seeing that he could see an opportunity with the Yankees after a single injury to an outfielder or due to ineffectiveness from Hoffmann.

Either way, the winner of this battle is just going to be the fifth outfielder. If one of them ends up playing a major role in 2010, that means injuries have befell the Yankees and would not be a good sign.

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He had some of the most dominant seasons of all time and continued to be an effective starting pitcher even during the twilight of his career.

This is not how he is thought of in Yankee lore.

The two seasons Randy Johnson spent in New York were not memorable. He won 34 games, an impressive number, but still did not win the hearts of the Yankee faithful.

It started before Johnson had his first game in pinstripes. It seems that he just didn't know what he was in for when coming to New York. He quickly had an infamous confrontation with the media. Walking down the street, a cameraman approached him. 

Instead of politely posing for the camera, Johnson declined, saying, "No cameras," and shoving the cameraman in the face. This gave New Yorkers an immediate opinion of Randy Johnson, and he was never able to overcome his negative first impression.

Even with Johnson's gaudy win total as a Yankee, his 4.74 earned run average drew him jeers from the fans at Yankee Stadium. Putting up a 6.14 ERA in 7.1 playoff innings in 2005 and a 7.94 ERA in 5.2 playoff innings in 2006 sure didn't help.

It's not like the Yankees got Johnson's average production for free, either. They paid him $31.7 million over two seasons, which he probably wasn't worth. The fact that the Yankees traded Javier Vazquez and Dioner Navarro for him made it even worse.

That said, Yankee fans don't give him enough credit for what he did do.

At the time, the Yankees had one of the worst defenses in baseball. That can't help a veteran pitcher whose strikeout rate was steadily declining from over 10 to under seven. The additional balls in play with a weak defense behind him really hurt.

Johnson's personality was not fit for New York, nor was his talent set. Johnson is one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball, but his time with the Yankees did not exemplify that. 

He was still quite a pitcher, who put up decent FIP numbers. But he still wasn't good enough. Yankee fans put their pitchers up to higher standards, and Randy Johnson couldn't quite cut it.

When the Yankees bring in a Hall of Famer, people expect Hall of Fame quality. I think Johnson did a formidable job, but the Yankees defense and the pressure from the press made Johnson look worse than he was.

In the end, Randy Johnson won't be remembered for his two seasons with the Yankees. He'll be remembered for striking out over 300 batters five times during his career.

Johnson was an amazing pitcher whose resume can't be tarnished. His two seasons with the Yankees present the only black mark on his sterling career.

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(click to enlarge)

June drafts, 1975-2000

Top five years: 1990, 1981, 1992, 1982, 1979

Notable players (15 career WAR or more):

1978: Howard Johnson (24.9)*

1979: Don Mattingly (39.8)

1982: Fred McGriff (50.5)

1983: Todd Stottlemyre (19.7)*

1984: Al Leiter (38.8)

1987: Brad Ausmus (17.4)*

1990: Carl Everett (18.5), Andy Pettitte (47.1), Jorge Posada (44.3)

1992: Derek Jeter (68.7)

1995: Mike Lowell (29.1), Casey Blake (19.9)*

*Was not signed

I got this idea from Jon over at Pro Ball NW , and he provides the following disclaimer that applies to my little study as well:

"There are a few obvious things that skew the data. For one, draft sizes fluctuate through the years. Two, through the first few [drafts I covered], there were three separate amateur drafts per year, though the June draft was still the biggest. Also, [guys like Jeter] are still adding/subtracting to their WAR totals. The biggest skewer is including unsigned players. It's easy for teams to spend a late round draft pick on a high school stud that isn't expected to sign, which every team will do."

Now, the one problem with this is that it's results-based analysis, whereas process based analysis is preferable in almost all cases. No one could argue with the Yankees pick of Brien Taylor, but he never even made it to the majors. Should the Yankees lose credit for that? I don't really think so, but over the span of 25+ seasons, I'd guess that it would come pretty close to evening out.

There is no doubt that the Yankees best draft in this time period was the 1990 draft. They took Carl Everett with their first round pick and he turned out to be a pretty good player. The Yankees really did well in the later rounds of this draft by taking two borderline hall of famers, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada, who are still adding to the total WAR for this draft class. No other draft class comes close to having the success this one did.

Overall, the Yankees have had some good years and are averaging 27.5 WAR per draft. I assume over the past 25 years, every team has drafted some superstars, some stars, and a bunch of role players. The Yankees aren't unique in this case. Since the Mariners are all I have to compare to right now, they demolished the Yankees and averaged about 38 WAR per draft. Part of this has to do with the fact that the Mariners tend to have higher first round picks than the Yanks. Having the first overall pick when Griffey and A-Rod are entering the draft can't hurt.

This doesn't really shock me, but the Yankees drafting from 1997-2000 was just plain awful. How bad it was is a bit surprising, though. If you take out Mark Prior, who the Yankees didn't sign, the total WAR netted by those draft classes is -0.3! That's four years of drafting, and the total is below replacement. That really is remarkable. It honestly could not be worse than that. This is what led to the awful farm system that the Yankees had at the turn of the century.

All WAR numbers are Rally's historical WAR, which can been found at BaseballProjection.com . And again, thanks to Jon at Pro Ball NW for the idea. Also, be sure to check out the new and improved Pending Pinstripes , where this article and other great content is featured.

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