By The Numbers- Success in the Draft

One thing that each major professional sports league has in common is the yearly draft in which teams pick young players to add to their systems so that they can continue to build on their success and competition levels. However, while each of the four major sports league’s has its own version of the draft, they are not equal in terms of success. I have looked at a small sample size of draft picks for each of the four major sports, and will put into perspective just how the players chosen early in each draft can translate to long term prospects. For my sample size, I looked at a 4 year period between 2005 and 2008 in order to account for the time it takes for players in certain leagues to make it to the majors. I looked at 1st round draft picks 11-30 (or 32 for the NFL), as the early picks are often the most successful. However, I chose not to include draft picks 1-10 as those are generally the top players and the success of top draft picks could skew the data. By looking at these small sample sizes, you can see that the NFL and NBA draft players that are nearly always expected to play in their respective leagues, while the NHL and MLB have much lower rates of success relative to the NFL and NBA. While the numbers can be used comparatively in some ways, they really just tell you what works for each league individually. In my small collection of data, I looked at which players have played at least a few games in their respective leagues, and then took it a step further to see how many players had achieved some level of success by determining which players had accumulated about 3 seasons of play in their sport. What the data does not look at is individual success. This cannot determine the impact a player has had in the league, only if they have played a significant amount of games.

MLB:

The MLB has the lowest level of success when it comes to drafting and having players go on to play a significant number of years in the Major Leagues. I believe that this can be attributed to the long process that a player must go through to make it to the majors in comparison to the other sports. MLB players can be drafted about of high school or college, but it can often take several years of minor league play before a player is major league ready. This can make it more difficult, even in the early rounds of a draft, to predict the future success of a player.  Of the players taken in the drafts between 2005 and 2008, picks 11-30, only 75% played in at least 3 games for a Major League team and only 36% had “successful” careers of at least 3 seasons.

NFL:

The NFL at a first glance seems to have an extremely successful draft-success rate, but many things must be taken into consideration when looking at these numbers. NFL players are drafted out of college and are expected to go right from college into the NFL, with few exceptions. There are no minor league systems in place for players to continue to gain experience. Unlike with the MLB, NFL players are drafted with their abilities already pretty much known, especially in the first round. Even though I know that to be true, I was surprised to see that every player chosen in the first round of these drafts had at least some NFL experience to their name. Also the highest of the 4 leagues was the NFL’s 83% “3 year success” rate, Even given the expectations of NFL draftees, it is interesting to see that 83% of those drafted from picks 11-32 went on to play at least 3 seasons in the NFL. This is also taking into consideration the lower career span of the NFL, where for some players, 3 years can be the only good ones that they get.

NBA:

After the NFL, the NBA is the most successful in terms of numbers alone. This is surprising given that an NFL team contains a roster of 53 while NBA rosters are significantly smaller. However, while the number of players that make it to the NFL and play for several seasons are high, many of these players are role players, that often don’t put up many points and go in for small portions of a game. While there are a great number of “stars” in the other leagues, the NBA has few stars, and many utility players. One thing that seems like it has an affect on draft success in the NBA and NFL is that for the most part these players are drafted out of college and go directly into the major leagues without much minor league play, which can lead to more players receiving playing time.

 

NHL:

Surprisingly, the NHL has supplied the same number of players through the first round of the draft as the MLB, however they have more players that have gone on to play at least 3 seasons. The NHL, like the MLB, has a minor league system that allows players to prepare for the NHL. Since players are drafted out of high school, they are often given time to grow into their roles. However, the NHL minor league system is not quite like the one in baseball, and some players do make the immediate jump into the majors, although those are usually top 10 picks that are not included in this data. It is interesting to note that just over half of the players drafted in the first round of the NHL draft will go on to have “successful” careers of at least 3 years. That number makes it seem like it is pretty much a toss up for every player taken in the first round.

 

The data that was collected was from a small sample size of drafts, and an even small portion of the draft. So this doesn’t even begin to cover what goes into drafting players, or what it takes to be successful in each particular draft. In the MLB, finding a player that will play 3 seasons is a much bigger deal than it is in the NFL, where that is expected of most drafted players. What one league may deem a success, another may consider a failure. Some players are seen as sure things, while other are high-risk, high-reward types. Sometimes an all-star caliber player slips down in the draft, and years later someone that was drafted 22nd overall is having a more successful career than 19 of the 20 players drafted ahead of him. Even with all of the data and  information there is out there, nobody can predict exactly what will happen to a player that is drafted. Some leagues have data that seems to show a more successful draft formula, but that doesn’t show the whole picture. This data isn’t meant to be compared to other leagues as a determining factor of success, but to each league’s individual data year in and year out.

 

March Madness and Social Media

March Madness is one of the biggest sporting events each and every year. It is the highlight of the college basketball season, and basketball fanatics and casual fans alike get involved in the excitement. The single loss elimination tournament starts with 64 teams and continues on to the final round in order to name a champion. This year’s tournament was full of the usual stories of upsets, Cinderella runs, and close scores. Like with most sporting events today, many people took to social media to express opinions and interact about the tournament. Now I will look back on social media use during the NCAA tournament, both my own and other’s.

Biggest Stories:

The biggest story of the tournament, no matter what else transpires, is always who comes out on top. This year, UConn controlled the headlines, taking victories in both the men’s and women’t tournament.

Some other big stories included major upsets, as well as surprising runs by teams that weren’t expected to win much. Syracuse and Duke were both strong contender that were surprisingly bounced from the tournament early. Dayton was seen as the biggest Cinderella story this year, making it to the Elite 8 before being eliminated by top-seeded Florida.

Another big story that is important in the discussion of social media is the Bracket Challenge. Each season, millions of people compose brackets online, hoping to win a million dollars in the perfect bracket challenge. The challenge has people pick each game from the round of 64 all the way to the finals. It is such a difficult task that even out of millions of brackets, nobody even comes close to picking a perfect tournament bracket.

Interesting Trends on Social Media:

One of the biggest moments of March Madness comes after the final game, when a video known as “One Shining Moment” is played, highlighting the season, the tournament and the winning team. The video is also a major topic on social media, as made evident by the trending topic.

Social Media is a great way to learn interesting things that you might not know. Reporters, fans and media sites are constantly tweeting about different and obscure statistics, including new records that were set by a victory.

My Social Media Usage During March Madness:

With the Olympics, I was familiar with some of the sports, some of the athletes and I followed it pretty closely. I write this post coming in with a different perspective. I am not a basketball fan, and I had never really put a lot of focus into following the NCAA tournament in the past. This year, I made a point to pay attention to what was going on during the tournament so that I could keep up with social media. I made a bracket for the first time (which went very poorly), and I watched more basketball than I normally would have.  I did not post as much on social media, because of my lack of knowledge about the players and teams. I instead chose to observe the social media use of others.

Following March Madness and engaging in social media use was very different for me than my use of social media during the Olympics. This was helpful in writing this blog post because I was able to look at social media from the point of view of someone that is very involved in what is going on, and also from the point of view of someone who takes notice of what other people are saying on social media. It has showed me that no matter what form of participation one takes in social media, it is clearly becoming a major factor in both professional and collegiate sporting events.

Sports 4/13- A Week in Review

A busy week in the sports world as college championship games took place, some seasons are wrapping up while others are just beginning.

NHL

The regular season will come to a close later tonight as teams wrap up the final day of the 2013-2014 season. However, today’s games have been rather meaningless for most teams as the real excitement took place earlier in the week. All playoff spots have been clinched for days and playoff matchups were nearly all set before going into today’s action. The week was more exciting than today as teams that were battling for playoff spots and positions were able to clinch, and certain teams post-season dreams came to an end.

Some of the week’s Biggest Stories:

-Martin Brodeur may have played his final NHL game, and at the very least, his final game with the Devils, with whom he spent his entire NHL career.

-The Toronto Maple Leafs choked their way out of playoff contention in dramatic fashion over the last few weeks of the season, dropping their final 4 games and 12 of their last 14.

-The Flyers will play the Rangers in the playoffs for the first time since 1997, which should help to ignite a strong rivalry that has been heating back up over the last few seasons.

-The Boston Bruins have clinched the President’s Trophy as the team with the top record in the league.

MLB

While the NHL season has been wrapping up, the MLB season is just getting started. Finishing out the second week of a very long season, some stories of the season are starting to shape up. Injuries, hot starts, and instant replay have dominated the headlines of the first two weeks of the season.  With every team having played only about 12 games so far this season, the biggest stories are about the games and the players, rather than the teams and the standings, as it is still early.

Some of the Week’s Biggest Stories:

-Instant replay has made games a bit longer this season, and the still being implemented strategy is still taking some getting used to.

-Hot starts- Chase Utley is hitting .500 after 40 at bats this season, and leads the majors in BA, OBP, and SLG. Mark Trumbo leads the league in homeruns with 6 and also leads with 18 RBIs. On the pitchers side, Yu Darvish has pitched 15 innings without giving up any earned runs, giving him a 0.00 ERA.

-Injuries are starting to add up as some players are spending time on the disabled list, which can have major effects on the outcome of games. One of the biggest injuries to surface this week is the injury to Angels Josh Hamilton, who will miss quite a bit of time with a torn ligament.

NCAA Basketball

The big story this week really revolves around one team: UConn. Both the Men’s and Women’s NCAA tournaments concluded this week, with UConn winning in both tournaments, which is no small feat. The NCAA tournament featured many big stories, including a number of upsets, a Cinderella run by Dayton that came to a close, and some really big, close games. But the biggest story is always about the winner, and UConn came up big this week.

*Check back in the next few days for the post on March Madness and Social Media (the second in a multi-part segment on sporting events and social media)

NCAA Ice Hockey

Not as big of a topic of conversation as basketball, but equally as big an accomplishment, the NCAA Ice Hockey tournament also came to an end this week with the Frozen Four and Championship game. The game between Union College (NY) and Minnesota was a high scoring one, with Union coming out on top for their first NCAA tournament win. Philadelphia Flyers defensive prospect Shayne Gostisbehere won the tournament MVP honors, leading Union to its first championship title in school’s history.

NBA

The NBA season hasn’t wrapped up yet, but will enter its final stages this upcoming week, as the battle for the playoffs continues. Taking a back burner to the NCAA tournament, the NBA will take center stage again as the season concludes and the playoffs begin.

This week was a big one for sports, and things are going to get even more exciting from here on out with the NHL, NBA and MLB. Keep checking back for updates.