If a Drafted Player Gets Traded and Turns out to be a Draft Bust?

[Trov]

I was just pondering a question that if a player drafted by a front office, not limited to Twins, and they trade that player quickly, within a year or two, and the drafted player turns out to be a bust, should the front office get credit for the trade, assuming they got value in the trade, or attacked for the poor draft choice?

As I said this is not about the Twins front office but we have been on both sides of this in recent years.  We traded for Austin Martin, who was traded one year after being drafted, and we traded away guys like Chase Petty and Noah Millar were traded away within a couple of years of being drafted.  Now, none are to be considered "busts" at this point but just was highlighting them as players who were traded early in time with team that drafted. I am sure there are many possible trades this could be looked at.

The question I have though is if you draft a player in first round or two and they fail we call them a bust and blame the front office or at least organization for failing.  However, if they get traded when they still have value as a prospect because shortly after drafted and you get value out of that, do we give praise for the front office making the trade?  Do we say the front office did a bad job of drafting but good job of maximizing the value?  I think it is an interesting question.

For example, we traded away Chase Petty, and got two good years from Sonny Grey for it.  Petty did well enough to get up to MLB level last year, but did terrible at MLB level.  He may not be a bust and may be just fine, but his last year was terrible.  His AAA numbers were not good and his couple of starts at MLB level were terrible. He is still very young and may develop into a good pitcher.  However, if he ends up being a bust and starts bouncing around from one organization to next, should front office get credit for getting value out of him, or attacked for drafting him to begin with? 

 

[ashbury]

Unless you think all farm systems are alike, there is a third dimension to consider.  There's drafting (scouting) and then there's development.  Maybe said prospect would have turned out just fine if the original team had kept him, but the new team messed him up.

That's been the narrative regarding Austin Martin, for instance.

[Blyleven2011]

Interesting discussion and enjoyed the analysis ...

Prospects are usually traded early in their professional career for positions of need for a team , not usually Prospects for Prospects  , the sonny gray and chase petty is a good example  , sonny had good years for twins , chase hasn't established himself yet , it was a good trade for the twins 

Or it Could be It's always the other guys fault 🤣 ...