Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
I admittedly don't know anything about baseball, so help me out here with carrying your analogy a little further. I assume that the decision within the game made by the team to go for the home run or to hit a double will depend upon a variety of factors including the stage of the game, the score, and the implications from the outcome for the rest of the season, etc. Would you make the decision to go for a double in the first inning of a scoreless game with no outs, and no hitters on base?
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Interesting angle. I was thinking baseball just from the perspective that a draft pick, like an at bat, is not an all or nothing proposition - it may not turn out as well as you'd like but it may still turn out OK. I read into others' posts that the Jankowski pick was not just not ideal but (therefore) wasted which doesn't necessarily follow for me.
Back to the baseball analogy, though, there's no question that the late inning game-winning home run is exciting - where were you when Joe Carter won the World Series? - but I think prevailing wisdom in baseball is that when you're down a few runs and struggling to get anything going what matters is getting runners on base. You can't score three runs on a homer if the bases are empty. Even within an inning, you'll take chances stealing a base with no or on out but rarely with two out.
I'm not sure this analogy holds up to much scrutiny, so I'll just go back to my main point that draft results are not binary star/bust but more of a continuum. It remains to be seen where Jankowski ends up on that continuum. With other picks there is (and probably was) less uncertainty about where they would end up.