Nationals Farm Authority

I figured that there might be some value in graphically representing the Nationals 2009 draft. There is a myriad of ways the information could be sliced and diced, but I figured I start out with the simplest perspective, by position:

As you can see the Nationals spent over 40% of their draft picks on right-handed pitching and if you combine the left-handers, it comprises nearly 60% of the players they selected.

The next slice is splitting the draft up into portions. Realistically, the players taken in the first 25 rounds are the most likely to sign (or at the very least make up the largest portion of the ultimate menu of new Natsionals).

So, I split the data into rounds 1-25 and rounds 26-50.

The pitching proportions remained relatively constant in the two groups. One thing to note is that the Nationals did not select any catchers in the first half of the draft and did not select any corner infielders in the second half (though they increased their focus on outfielders).

The next area that I figured wouold have value was the source of talent. Where did the players selected come from? I split the population into five groups: high school, junior (or community) college, college sophomores, college juniors and college seniors.

First, the whole draft class:

The Nationals used less than half (43%) of their draft picks on players from four year colleges while spending a near equal portion on high schoolers. This is a bit misleading as the next two charts will demonstrate:

The first half of the draft was very college/JuCo heavy with over three-quarters of the first 26 players selected coming from those groups.

The Nationals high school population is heavily influenced by picks made in the third day of the draft. The high schoolers selected here very rarely sign professional contracts, instead opting to head off to their college commitments and a likely/hopefully better draft position in the 2012 draft.

Like I mentioned at the outset, there are numerous other ways I can refigure the populations to attempt to glean more information. It can be focusing on the Nationals-specific data or expanding it to include how the Nationals draft class compares to MLB as a whole.