Cy Young and Draft status history

[Trov]

I was wondering how often are the top pitchers top picks in drafts.  So I decided to look back to 2000 and the top 3 Cy Young votes for each year, and when were the pitchers taken in the draft.  Some were not drafted and international signings, of those international guys some were signed young and some signed after several years in Japan or Korea.  What I found was what I was kind of expecting, but doing the research was very interesting as well. 

First, there was a lot of first round picks, but only a few of the first pitchers taken were on the list, many times there were many taken before the best pitchers in the draft.  Additionally, some drafts had several good choices in the first round, one example was 2006 draft Kershaw was 6th pitcher taken, 7th overall and it was Kershaw, Lincecum, and Scherzer the 6th, 7th and 8th pitchers taken all near each other.  All pitchers taken before were not good MLB pitchers overall. However, there are a few times the first pitcher taken did work out very well. 

Second, in the early 2000's a lot of 2nd round picks in their drafts were some of the best in baseball.  Randy Johnson, Greg Maddox, Tom Glavin, David Wells, and Kurt Schilling.  However, after that only 1 2nd round pick, Jon Lester is on the list.  There are several 4th and 8th round picks on the list, and a huge spread in double digit round picks as well. 

Third, there were a lot more drafted pitchers on the list than international signed ones, and recently only a few where signed from central America, but more from Asia. There were a lot more international signed pitchers from 2000's and 2010's, but overall drafted were more present. 

What I would conclude is that you can get great pitchers in any round of the draft, and many times may be the best, but you are more likely to get a good pitcher in 1st round, however, that does not mean success being 1st round.  Also, many times the best pitcher in the first round is not the first pitcher taken and the first pitcher or first several taken were flops. Also, looking at the 1st round pitchers taken many times only 1 or 2 actually pan out and many never even make majors or just a small run. 

I would note that sometimes guys that would fall in draft were due to "signability" issues before the slot values where in place.  I could not determine how many guys fell because of that.  For example, Rodger Clemons draft he was 11th pitcher taken, 1 did not sign Twins number 1 overall Tim Belcher, but Clemons signed the largest signing bonus of any pitcher. and 4 highest overall despite being drafted 19th.  It is very possible that some of the later picks and 2nd round guys fell into those hard to sign, or tried to dictate where to sign. However, it was also very interesting to see how many 4th round, 8th round or much later guys became some good pitchers and clearly had many more pitchers that failed drafted ahead of them.