For demonstration, take Bruce Seid’s 2009 draft, which was driven (according to popular arguments) either by great late round value or astonishing early round missteps. Any way one slices it, Seid ended up with three 2.5+ WARP players (“Fastballer” Mike Fiers, “Khrush” Davis, and Scooter “Scoots McGee” Gennett. Incidentally three of my favorite Brewers). That former GM Doug Melvin was unable to transform the 2013-2015 Brewers into strikingly consistent contenders with this supporting cast is less an indictment of these players than an indictment of the front office’s miscalculations (or failures of imagination) during those years. Complain all you like about the early round failures, that’s an astonishingly good draft (interestingly enough, the draft return will be even better once one incorporates the trade returns for deals involving Fiers and Davis, respectively).

Alternately, take Scoots McGee’s predecessor, Rickie Weeks, arguably one of the greatest Brewers of all time and (probably quite easily) the organization’s best second baseman. One of the commonly cited “Core Players” drafted by Jack Zduriencik, Weeks easily lands among the top third of MLB players from the 2003 First Round. The median player from that round (according to bWAR) was outfielder Mitch Maier (1.5 career WARP accumulated from 2006-2012). Of course, by now everyone knows that Weeks’s career was derailed by misguided prospect hype, which unfortunately makes the Brewers’ franchise second baseman a “bust” in many fans’ eyes. Nevermind that he’s nearly 12x more valuable than the median player drafted in the 2003 First Round; one of the very best players drafted in 2003 overall; or a better-than-median overall 2nd pick in the history of the draft: Many Brewers fans prefer to side with hype over their beloved power/speed franchise second baseman.

These drafts are merely two organizational examples of the extremes that populate draft analysis. One of the basic reasons that these types of analytical and narrative shortcomings exist is that fans and analysts alike “dismiss” as a truism the fact that the striking majority of players in every draft will never make the MLB: such a fact is taken to be so clearly true on the surface that its impact is not seriously considered.

To counter this analytical blindspot, one can simply look at the median player value for each round in each draft. For this exercise, I wanted to focus on drafts that are mostly “finished,” since more recent drafts would require judging players by value metrics, organizational depth charts, and prospect rankings. By beginning a decade out (with the fantastic 2006 draft), one can find a rather clear model for how player talent may populate the rounds of an MLB draft. To construct the chart below, I began in 1999 and stopped at 2008, since I understand that even aspects of the 2009 draft remain unsettled (take Davis, Gennett, and Fiers, for instance: their careers still hang in the balance, so it’s not really safe to say that their overall value can reasonably be measured).

The spoiler alert is that due to the overwhelming or daunting fact that most drafted players simply fail to reach the MLB, by the third round of the draft the solidly median player value is “Did Not Reach MLB” (DNRM for short). One should not necessarily dismiss this as nonsense, as one must consider that teams are still (mostly) drafting within the Top 100 in the third round. So, if a team is drafting median talent that fails to reach the MLB as early as the first, second, or third round, one can use that metric to evaluate draft day approaches, expectations, risk assessment and management, bonus assessment and analysis, player profiles, hype, etc. (that’s for another day). The purpose of this chart is to simply begin the analysis, starting with the first five rounds:

In the most straightforward terms, this chart means that for the first five rounds, at least 16 players (per round) fail to make the MLB.

Incidentally, the importance of the first round should not be understated: in recent drafts, it is likely that somewhere around 20 percent of all MLB players from a given draft will reside within the first round of that given draft. So, in this sense one can weigh first round misses much more heavily than others, since that is the most likely spot to find an MLB’er (like Rickie Weeks, even, as noted above).

This lends some credence to criticisms of Seid’s early drafts, although one still must deal with the pushback from that excellent late round value (some teams failed to land 10.0+ WARP in the entire 2009 draft, let alone after the fifth round, which should increase the considered value of Davis, Fiers, and Gennett). Successful depth drafting places Seid’s efforts in the top half of MLB draft value in 2009.

One should also note how the increase in supplemental first round picks (and therefore overall first round picks) spiked the MLB player totals (especially in the 2005, 2007, and 2008 drafts). It stands to reason that the basic institutional fact of higher draft bonuses in the first round accounts for those steep MLB player totals; judging by the sheer number of replacement level players available in the first round, one might question whether an 11th or 15th or 20th round organizational player would have an equal shot at reaching the MLB as replacement depth if their bonuses were as high as first rounders. Even a replacement player bumps a club’s first round efforts into “successfully produced an MLB,” which must be a much more favorable return on investment in the eyes of that organization.

Who are these median players? For fun, let’s highlight the best median talent from the first through fifth rounds of the 1999-2008 MLB drafts:

Building a narrative and analysis of the draft, one can take two steps.

• First, one must heavily weigh the “DNRM” reality and build a comprehensive analysis of scouting profiles, player backgrounds, player competitive levels, pre-draft hype, and various aspects of organizational ideologies (mechanical & statistical analytical tools, risk assessment, bonus pool strategies, etc.). There is one sense in which all players that fail to reach the MLB are equal, but the institutional factors of signing bonuses and scarcity of elite talent render first round failures more problematic than, say, 20th round failures.
• Second, one can mine the profiles, backgrounds, hype, and organizational ideologies involving successful “median” drafted players as well, in order to effectively recognize additional replacement talent within any given system, and ultimately build an effective account of how talent is dispersed throughout a draft. In this sense, the profiles of “median” first or second round players (like Eddie Kunz or James Darnell) can potentially serve as guideposts to other replacements or depth talent within an organization.

Of course, one might eventually opt to celebrate the careers of the likes of Josh Banks or John Mayberry, etc., in order to further appreciate the weight of reaching the MLB. Even at the margins of the draft, there is talent that can help an organization in some regard. Should organizations wish to push ahead with current cost-cutting measures, thereby enhancing and maintaining their revenue shares, and extract ultimate value from the draft, they may find valuable lessons by wading through the draft median and DNRM.

From 2007 through 2014 (and the first week or so of 2015), I felt the Brewers had a chance to compete every year, even if it was occasionally a slim one. Their offense was always laden with enough talent — thanks to great players like Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Carlos Gomez, J.J. Hardy, and Jonathan Lucroy — which inspired confidence that if they could just squeeze a little bit of production from the supporting cast, a winning season was possible. Now only Braun and Lucroy remain among the Brewers stars, and neither of them has been at their best in 2015. It’s clear that if the Brewers will compete in the second half of this decade, another Great Brewer (or two) must make himself apparent, and soon.

A couple of years ago, fellow blogger Larry Granillo mailed me some old Brewers media guides that were taking up too much space during his move. My favorite of the bunch is this one, from 2006:

I have a lot of love for this campy, extremely mid-2000s piece of baseball kitsch. None of these players are Brewers any more, and two of them are unemployed. But here, they’re the future. They’re the youth movement. The Brewers had won 81 games out of nowhere in 2005, the team’s first sign of baseball life since 1992. These four — combined with the talent in the minors and yet-to-be-drafted players like Braun, Yovani Gallardo and Corey Hart — comprised the core of the only competitive Brewers squads I’ve seen in my lifetime.

Hall was a four-year veteran, the oldest of the bunch, yet still only 26. Hardy and Fielder made their major-league debuts in 2005, and Weeks had played just seven games in 2003 prior to coming up for good in 2005. Weeks, Fielder and Hardy had combined for under 1,000 career plate appearances. Only Hall had extended major-league experience; the other three were rookies still trying to find their sea legs in The Show. But we already knew what the likes of Geoff Jenkins and Doug Davis could do. If you believed in the future of the Brewers in the mid-2000s, you believed in these young players.

It’s pretty amazing to think of what these four players did in the years to pass. Their careers were just beginning, and neither the stiff major-league competition nor any of the seemingly infinite pitfalls of injuries prevented their careers from lifting off. Even Hall, the worst of the bunch, finished his Brewers career with 102 home runs, tied with Sixto Lezcano for 19th in team history.  In the years that followed, these four players reached five All-Star games for the Brewers (and Hardy deserved another one in 2008), hit 493 home runs, and compiled 53.0 WARP. They had produced all of 5.0 WARP collectively before that, four of those coming from Hall’s breakout 2005 season (.291/.342/.495, 17 homers, 18 stolen bases, and average-to-good defense all across the infield).

We can only hope the next wave is this successful. Hopefully, as this year concludes and 2016 begins, the next fearsome foursome to capture our hopeful baseball souls will become clear. Maybe it will include Jimmy Nelson, who has pitched like he belongs in the top half of a rotation since early June (2.98 ERA, 72 strikeouts in 87.2 innings over his past 14 starts). Rotation mate Taylor Jungmann has made his case as well, with a dazzling 2.23 ERA, sharp 2.82 FIP. He has allowed over three earned runs just once in 13 starts, startling consistency from a pitcher in his first crack at the major leagues. 

Who else will be the future? Domingo Santana, who kicked off his Brewers career with a laser beam homer off Gio Gonzalez on Friday night? Orlando Arcia, whose glove could make him a rock behind Brewers pitching like J.J. Hardy was before? What about Brett Phillips, the centerpiece of the Gomez trade, or Gilbert Lara, the teenage phenom from the Dominican Republic the Brewers aggressively signed last year? The Brewers have a number of exciting young prospects, but most of them are still a breakout season, minors or majors, away from becoming the kind of young player who really inspires hope in a competitive future.

It’s because of this uncertainty that I’m not ready to say I have hope for the Brewers yet. It’s why the question for this club isn’t, as it has been for the past eight years or so, “What can we do in the offseason to make the playoffs?” but rather, “How many years away are we?” But leafing through my Brewers junk and finding this gem of recent history reminded me of what hope for this team can look like, and that the future just might be closer than you think.

Lucroy, this year, has had it worst of all. On April 20th, he was placed on the 15-day DL, with a fractured toe. Since returning to the Brewers lineup, Lucroy has been a shell of himself. Normally, Lucroy displays a rare combination of great pitch framing skills with the ability to hit for average and power. This has made him an elite catcher. and player, in all of baseball. In 2014, Lucroy ranked 5th in catcher framing, finished with the 4th-best TAv among catchers, and was 4th in WARP among all position players. In 2015, though, Lucroy’s framing has drastically dropped to the point where we have to begin to wonder if we can call it a strength. His batting average has also drastically dropped, but what is most concerning is that he has stopped hitting for power.

That being said, while injuries have definitely hampered Lucroy’s 2015 season, he’s not a player that one often describes as injury-prone, at least that never been the typical narrative. When discussing which players on the Brewers are more prone to injuries, the narrative typically goes towards Ryan Braun. This is not an unreasonable charge, as Braun has definitely experienced many injuries throughout his career. Without data, though, it’s difficult to accurately determine which one of these players has suffered more injuries. Therefore, I wanted to find which Brewers player had dealt with the most injuries. In that way, we can perhaps more accurately define which player is most disposed to injuries on the Brewers. I could have simply researched which player had suffered more injuries between Lucroy and Braun but, you know, that would have been boring.

One quickly finds, though, that trying to answer this question is not easy, due to a few factors:

(A) Injury data is unfortunately difficult to come by.

(B) What does being injury-prone even mean? Is it somehow the anticipation of a future injury due to style of play or pitching mechanics? Is it simply a combination of a multitude of injuries? Or is it having missed a lot of games due to injuries?

(C) Finally, we’re looking at which Brewers players were the most injury-prone. So would it count if a player got injured for another team?

Firstly, I was able to gather injury data on the Brewers thanks to Pro Sports Transactions. Unfortunately, the data only extends back to 2004. There is more data prior to 2004, but it’s very limited. So I decided to only analyze a ten-year span (2004-2014). Secondly, this article is not going to be forecasting any upcoming injuries. If I were able to do that, this would not be an internet article, but rather an application for a very well-paid front office position. When it comes to defining whether or not a player is injury-prone, I decided to arbitrarily define it as the number of days one misses due to injury. While I say this, I could see myself getting talked into another definition, but this seemed to be the best definition. Lastly, the injuries of the individuals had to occur when the player played for the Brewers because that’s what Brewers fans best remember. So, for example, even though Ben Sheets had Tommy John surgery in 2010, it did not count because he was pitching for the A’s.

Below, you’ll see a table that ranks the players’ days missed and the number of injuries since 2004, all while they were on the Brewers. You’ll also be able to see the player’s games played for Milwaukee and the years they played for Milwaukee, again from 2004 to 2014. I did this because while a player may have been rarely injured, he may have only played a few games for the Brewers.

As you can see, while Braun has definitely suffered many injuries, he hasn’t missed a lot of games due to injuries. Instead, the player who leads the Brewers since 2004 in that category is Rickie Weeks. Weeks has spent most of his career with the Brewers, though, so while he’s definitely suffered a lot of injuries, I would not label him as the most injury-prone Brewers. That label would instead go to Mat Gamel — who, even though he spent four years with the Brewers, only played 106 games. The rest of the time was spent either on the DL or on the bench with injuries. To further grasp this, let’s get a more visual look.

This visual does a much better job of displaying some of the information. It clearly shows that Gamel’s stint with the Brewers was saturated with injuries. In fact, Gamel’s career ended because of this. After spending almost all of 2012 on the disabled list due to a torn ACL, he attempted to author a comeback in 2013 but was unsuccessful. He ended up re-tearing his ACL, which led him to retirement. Gamel’s story is a somber one and serves as an example of how injuries can impact a player’s career, if he’s unable to stay healthy.

Again, Ryan Braun has had numerous injuries and has missed a myriad of games. However, it does not appear to be an unreasonable amount and should not warrant him the label of being injury-prone. His former teammate Rickie Weeks only played 49 more games and yet missed 349 more days than Braun.

The player, though, who can be labeled as the least injury-prone through his tenure with the Brewers is Prince Fielder. He’s played just under 1000 games with the Brewers and only missed one day do to injury. Any way you slice it, that’s an amazing feat, and it’s one of the primary reasons why Fielder found so much success in Milwaukee and why he’s recognized as one of the franchise’s best players.

There’s a lot of information here — and a lot of it can be labeled as noise — but through the noise, we can see that player’s like Braun and Lucroy aren’t nearly as disposed to injuries as one might think. They’ve both played a ton of games with the Brewers and have managed to stay relatively healthy. Going forward, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if both players succumb to more injuries. This is not something I wish upon either player, but as one gets older, injuries start to become more prevalent. Lucroy isn’t very old — he’s only 29 — but he is a catcher. Catchers are typically more susceptible to injuries than other position players. And while Braun isn’t very old either (he’s 31), that’s around the time when players’ bodies start to break down. He hasn’t missed many days to injuries, but he has suffered a lot of them. And, of course, the best predictor for future injuries is the frequency of past injuries.