Dayn Perry Tries To Sneak a Flagrant Lie Past His Readers

Fortunately I have enough time on my hands to thoroughly disprove him. In this case, I don't think the problem is Dayn's idiocy. That's not to say that he's not an idiot, of course- but this time around I think he knew full well that his point was awful and decided to try to sneak it past everyone anyways. So which is worse- being stupid, or lying? I'll leave a question like that to Jack Handy. Let's just get down to brass tacks.

Among the major professional sports drafts, the MLB variant seems to get short shrift.

This is so for a number of reasons. One, college and high school baseball players are far less familiar to the sporting public than, say, those eligible to be drafted in the NBA and the NFL. Two, the MLB Draft is burdened by the "crap shoot" reputation, and, three, MLB draftees have far less immediate impact than those playing hoops or football.As for the first point, not much can be done about that one — college football and college basketball are and probably always will be more popular than college baseball (and certainly high school baseball).

As an aside that has nothing to do with the rest of this post, it's nauseating to me that high school football and basketball are now nationally televised. It's only going to exacerbate the already disastrous levels of corruption at sports' lower levels. Anyways-

As for the second point, well, it's a myth.

Is it? We can test that theory pretty easily, you realize.

Take a gander at the top 10 picks in a given year for all of the three major sports, and, generally speaking, you'll find similar levels of success or failure. MLB has its Brien Taylors, but the NFL and NBA have their Ryan Leafs and Chris Washburns, respectively.

Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Thank you in advance, Wikipedia. Let's take a look at the 5 year span from 1999-2003, because that gives the MLB draftees (who are obviously at a disadvantage relative to their NBA and NFL counterparts in terms of amount of time needed to make an impact) at least five years to have gotten to the big show and made an impact. I'll list the three leagues' top ten picks grouped together by year. I'll bold the guys I would consider to be flops. When it's all said and done, give or take a few possible disagreements between you and I about whether certain guys busted or not, you tell me whether or not you think the argument that the MLB draft is no more crapshootish than the NBA and NFL drafts really holds any water.

1999-

MLB
1. Josh Hamilton (obviously would have been bolded until 12 months ago)
2. Josh Beckett
3. Eric Munson
4. Corey Myers
5. B.J. Garbe
6. Josh Girdley
7. Kyle Snyder
8. Bobby Bradley
9. Barry Zito (the guy won a Cy; I don't care how bad he is now)
10. Ben Sheets

NBA
1. Elton Brand
2. Steve Francis (a tough call, but he was sick for his first six seasons)
3. Baron Davis
4. Lamar Odom
5. Jonathan Bender
6. Wally Szczerbiak (has had a better career than most would think)
7. Rip Hamilton
8. Andre Miller
9. Shawn Marion
10. Jason Terry

NFL
1. Tim Couch
2. Donovan McNabb
3. Akili Smith
4. Edgerrin James
5. Ricky Williams (what a weirdo, still has 7,000+ career yards)
6. Torry Holt
7. Champ Bailey
8. David Boston (David says: Hey kids, don't do steroids)
9. Chris Claiborne
10. Chris McAlister (meh)

2000-

MLB
1. Adrian Gonzalez
2. Adam Johnson
3. Luis Montanez
4. Mike Stoldoka
5. Justin Wayne
6. Rocco Baldelli (not even that good when he's healthy)
7. Matt Harrington (one of the stupidest athletes of all time)
8. Matt Wheatland
9. Mark Phillips
10. Joe Torres

NBA
1. Kenyon Martin
2. Stromile Swift (close to being a non-bust, but not quite)
3. Darius Miles
4. Marcus Fizer
5. Mike Miller
6. DerMarr Johnson
7. Chris Mihm (Andrew Bogut before Andrew Bogut was Andrew Bogut)
8. Jamal Crawford
9. Joel Pryzbilla
10. Keyon Dooling

NFL
1. Courtney Brown
2. LaVar Arrington (a tough call; in the same boat as Steve Francis)
3. Chris Samuels
4. Peter Warrick
5. Jamal Lewis (recovering in Cleveland from his prison rape quite nicely)
6. Corey Simon
7. Thomas Jones
8. Plaxico Burress (it's possible he and Darius Miles are the same person)
9. Brian Urlacher
10. Travis Taylor

2001-

MLB
1. Joe Mauer
2. Mark Prior (I really should bold him, but I'm trying to be overcompensatingly fair to Dayn)
3. Dewon Brazelton
4. Gavin Floyd
5. Mark Teixeira
6. Josh Karp
7. Chris Smith
8. John Van Benschoten
9. Colt Griffin
10. Chris Burke

NBA
1. Kwame Brown
2. Tyson Chandler
3. Pau Gasol
4. Eddy Curry (a decent offensive player when not being attacked by the NY media)
5. Jason Richardson
6. Shane Battier
7. Eddie Griffin (watch out for that train! not too soon!)
8. DeSagana Diop
9. Rodney White
10. Joe Johnson

NFL
1. Michael Vick (don't even try to argue this one)
2. Leonard Davis
3. Gerard Warren
4. Justin Smith (a fringe guy, but he got double-teamed a lot and still produced in Cincy)
5. LaDainian Tomlinson
6. Richard Seymour
7. Andre Carter
8. David Terrell
9. Koren Robinson (Koren says: hey kids, don't drink and drive.)
10. Jamal Reynolds

2002-

MLB
1. Brian Bullington
2. B.J. Upton
3. Christopher Grueler
4. Adam Loewen
5. Clint Everts
6. Zach Greinke (I'm being generous because he's still so young)
7. Prince Fielder
8. Scott Moore
9. Jeff Francis
10. Drew Meyer

NBA
1. Yao Ming
2. Jay Williams (almost definitely would have had a good career if he wasn't fucking stupid)
3. Mike Dunleavy Jr. (a tough call, but I'll give it to him for doing a little of everything)
4. Drew Gooden
5. Nikoloz Tskitishvili
6. DaJuan Wagner
7. Nene Hilario
8. Chris Wilcox
9. Amare Stoudemire
10. Caron Butler

NFL
1. David Carr (another tough call, but he can only blame his OL for so long)
2. Julius Peppers
3. Joey Harrington
4. Mike Williams (career derailed by Hostess snack cakes)
5. Quentin Jammer
6. Ryan Sims
7. Bryant McKinnie (insert sex boat scandal joke here)
8. Roy Williams
9. John Henderson
10. Levi Jones

2003-

MLB
1. Delmon Young (like Greinke, I'm cutting him slack for being so young)
2. Rickie Weeks
3. Kyle Sleeth
4. Timothy Stauffer
5. Christopher Lubanski (has good minor league numbers, but has progressed too slowly)
6. Ryan Harvey
7. Nick Markakis
8. Paul Mahom
9. John Danks
10. Ian Stewart (better than Lubanski in the minors and has flashed power in the bigs)

NBA
1. LeBron James
2. Darko Milicic (all you can really say is... oof)
3. Carmelo Anthony
4. Chris Bosh
5. Dwyane Wade (I almost labeled him a bust for this)
6. Chris Kaman
7. Kirk Heinrich
8. T.J. Ford
9. Michael Sweetney
10. Jarvis Hayes

NFL
1. Carson Palmer
2. Charles Rogers
3. Andre Johnson
4. Dewayne Robertson
5. Terence Newman
6. Jonathan Sullivan
7. Byron Leftwich
8. Jordan Gross
9. Kevin Williams
10. Terrell Suggs

Total busts:
MLB- 34
NBA- 18
NFL- 20

After a glance or two, I'm reasonably confident the same trends continue if you look at the whole first round, whole draft, or go back further into history. So, no, Dayn. You don't see the same levels of success or failure in the first ten picks across all three sports. In fact, it's not even close. But wait- there's more!

The third point? Certainly, the existence of the minor leagues means that MLB draftees have a longer wait than their NFL and NBA counterparts. However, it's not quite as long as you might think. Consider that as recently as 2005 we had these names called early on: Justin Upton, Alex Gordon, Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, Jay Bruce, Jacoby Ellsbury, Matt Garza, Travis Buck, and Clay Buchholz. Needless to say, that's an impressive first-round haul — and one that's already making a serious impact in the majors.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that those are household names. Every one of those guys, even those not playing in big media markets, have received a significant amount of press. But how many are actually making "a serious impact" in the majors? Upton, Gordon, Garza, Buck, and Buchholz certainly aren't. Bruce and Ellsbury look good but haven't even played full seasons yet. Tulowitzki was awful before getting hurt this year and Zimmerman has a great glove but a mediocre bat. From that list I'd say that only Bruan has made an impact that could be characterized as anything close to serious. And I'm worried that I might be biased even in making that claim. Although I'm personally not Jewish like Braun, many of my best friends are, so sometimes I get caught up in the massive amounts of hype they pile onto any Jewish athlete. He's... he's actually legit, right?

In conclusion, Dayn Perry has done nothing to convince me of his claim that the MLB draft is the victim of several unfair misconceptions. It's still boring because even big NCAA baseball fans haven't heard of half the players. It's still a gargantuan crapshoot, much moreso than the NBA or NFL drafts. And even when it produces big stars, it still takes them an extremely long time to develop.

But after all that, here's the pathetic conclusion- since I'm no longer employed, I still watched the whole damn first round last Thursday. Damn you, hype. Your siren song always ends up costing me money, time, or both.

STOP

Everyone seems to have an opinion about whether or not Joba Chamberlain should move from the Yankee bullpen into their rotation. So let me give you mine: this is the stupidest, most worthless, most ridiculous, most rage-inducing sports story of the past five years. I cannot think of a single "talking point" - not one - that is more of a waste of the public's time than this. The first time I heard it brought up (probably immediately following New York's loss to Cleveland in the ALDS) absolutely needed to be the last. I don't care how popular the Yankees are; until he steps onto a mound to actually make his first start, this is the very definition of a non-story. Holy fucking balls, media. Stop it. Now. Stop stop stop. Fucking stop it before you make another generation of America's youth think that no matter where they live, they're required to be either Yankees or Red Sox fans. (Watch the Little League World Series this August and take notice of the kids' profiles if you don't know what I'm referring to.)

As an aside, another thing that needs to stop is the national media referring to players (or execs, for that matter) strictly by their first name. I'm tired of hearing about "Joba," "Hank," "Manny," or "Pedro." Well, the last two I might be able to stomach, since those are kind of those dudes' nicknames. But headlines like "Hank Starts Storm Over Joba's Role" are flagrantly tabloidish. The reason trashy celebrity magazines refer to "Britney" and "Angelina" in the way that they do is to try to bring the stars closer to their audience and make them feel like they actually know famous people on some level. That kind of imaginary friendship is intended to add fun, by way of drama and sensationalism, to the lives of those readers. But sports are already fun and sensational enough on their own. Fans don't need empty stories presented in a tabloidish format to stay interested.

I'm off to write another post that will contain significantly less bitching!