A corner draft fluttered the flame
And the white fever of temptation
Upswept its angel wings that cast
A cruciform shadow.

— Boris "Frank" Pasternak

I was musing to my friend Mike last night about the hoopla attending the amateur draft over the last couple of days. We decided it was a slow (baseball) news day.

I mean, the overwhelming media coverage has been like the sports writers expect the next LeBron James to step up to the podium. The truth is that it is unlikely that any of the players will make an impact this year and very few will be ready for anything but a September callup next year. It's the sports equivalent of watching paint dry.

Aside from an occasional Bob Horner has the draft ever mattered? I know that in the long run, a good number of these players will contribute at the major-league level, but does it really matter whether he was drafted in the second round or the 22nd round? Gammons had a nice piece the other day on how the Red Sox settled on Roger Clemens, the tenth pitcher selected and "a pitcher who Morgan that day said 'might be a closer'", after the high profile guys (Tim Blecher, Darrel Akerfelds, Jackie Davidson, and Stan Hilton?) were taken. The Sox actually wanted Rich "Mink" Stoll.

In the last eleven drafts, there have been just 6 players who made any contribution at the major-league level in the year they were drafted. Of those six, three came in 2003 (Rickie Weeks, Ryan Wagner, and Chad Cordero).

Basically, no more than a handful have ever made a contribution in the same year they were drafted. Here are the numbers for all amateur drafts:

The Seventies are aberration of the group. The half-decade of the 2000s match the totals for the half-decade of the Sixties:

Moreover, very few of those guys got more than a look-see in the majors in their draft year. Here are the totals per decade of players who played 10 major-league games in the year they were drafted (Cordero and Wagner are the only ones to qualify in the 2000s):

Decade	10+ G
1970s	11
1980s	2
1990s	3
200s	2

So how about 2006? Will Justin "Downtown" Upton be able to make the leap from Great Bridge High School to the BOB by next year? Recent history isn't on his side.

Here are the players that reached the majors the same year or within the next year of the draft by year:

Seven per year? Maybe Upton will be one of the few to do it. Hold the phone, let's look at the trends per decade (through 2004 data):

For all the talk of its being easier to get to the majors due to overexpansion, it seems that the reverse happened in the Nineties and continues today.

Well, maybe it's better to look at the draft as part of a five-year plan. How many will be in the majors by 2009? Let's see. Here are the drafts with the total number who made it to the majors in five year and the total who ever made it to the "show":

Now per decade with percentages for each category (realizing that career and five-year data is incomplete for more recent drafts):

So, yes, most of the players in the 2005 draft who will ever make it to the majors will does so in the next five years. But it might take another ten to determine each player's fate. Come back in fifteen years and we'll discuss the draft. In the meanwhile, I'll just go watch some paint dry.