2016 MLB Draft: Consensus Rankings 2.0

If all teams knew who the "BPA" on the universal big board was, the draft would be perfectly efficient, discounting for injury or tragedy. But take a look at the last few decades, even within the first couple rounds, and the draft is anything but. There are busts everywhere, and apples and oranges dance, clash and co-mingle.

It’s not just that each team has relative needs, and market inefficiencies change each year, but it’s also virtually impossible to justly compare the "best" players across position, age, experience, etc. Raw prepsters with "high ceilings" vs "safe" collegiate polish and "high floors." Recent injury histories vs forecasts of greater or lesser 'durability'. Description is always easier than prediction, and even our best descriptive performance metrics (like WAR) don’t themselves reliably assess players across position and context without substantial error bars.

In truth, I think we can speak to relative tiers of players, but zeroing in one "BPA" involves a significant fallacy of precision. The best we can do is take a wisdom-of-crowds approach, survey all the experts, and try to learn from the averages. Just as in polling, there's a tendency to "herd" at the end (ie, crib from your neighbor's test), but one can expect that front offices do a bit of the same, and when all is said and done, the early picks conform more to expectation than surprise on balance.

So this is what the "consensus big board" attempts to do – not predict outcomes based on team drafting philosophy and need – but rather create a directional stack-rank based on the composite of expert rankings and predictions. Today's update expands the board through the first two rounds, inclusive of compensation and competitive balance picks, and integrates the latest draft mock updates from MLB.com, Keith Law, John Manuel and others (15 boards in all). Take a look:

In this version of the board, we see a number of college pitchers ascending, particularly Justin Dunn, T.J. Zeuch and Jordan Sheffield – each of whom look like probable mid-first-round selections at this point. Meanwhile, some names expected to go in the early part of the first round, like Buddy Reed and Connor Jones, are sliding down the boards due to lackluster performances in conference or tournament play.

The two names most recently associated with the Angels, Alex Kirilloff and Dakota Hudson, are beginning to appear in the 10-15 range a fair amount, paired with some teams that pick just before the Angels, so they are no obvious locks to be available when the Angels choose at #16. Those two, along with Zack Collins, might be the types of top-15 talents the Angels hope fall to them, much as Newcomb did in 2014. I haven't heard the Angels namechecked with Collins, and he's likely to go by the time the Red Sox select, but he offers the sort of power-patience profile the club needs to consider as Pujols fades in the second half of his contract.

Looking at the range of talent available in the first two rounds of this draft makes me wish Anaheim had another sandwich pick between the first and second rounds. Of course, that's not an impossibility, as competitive balance picks are tradeable, and Atlanta has availed itself of this opportunity twice since the past draft, securing #40 and #76 in exchanges with the Marlins and Orioles respectively. If I'm Billy Eppler, inheritor of the worst farm system in the MLB, and struggling with an expensive sub-.500 team, I'm calling up Arizona GM Dave Stewart every day and seeing if he wouldn't be interested in one the Angels upper minor league arms – a Nate Smith, Victor Alcantara or Kyle McGowin – in hopes of securing that lottery round A pick of theirs. Three picks in the top 60 would allow the team to have a balanced selection of a couple prep and college bats, with a solid polished college arm thrown into the mix.

All that said, If the draft were to magically pan out as the consensus board is laid out above, it wouldn't be a poor result for the Angels. Justin Dunn is a fine right-handed starter with a four pitch mix, a mid-90s FB, and an excellent junior season behind him. Recent scuttlebutt has Dipoto's Mariners scouting him heavily for consideration at the 11th pick. Jake Fraley, meanwhile, is a speed-and-glove lefty leadoff type, who has the ceiling of a strong top-of-the-order threat, and the floor of a reserve OF. He has no power to speak of, but he's done nothing but produce for LSU, with 135 runs and 57 stolen bags in fewer than 600 ABs.

I'll follow up in the coming week with some picks of my own in advance of next weekend's draft, but Dunn-Fraley would be the sort of return one might expect in this draft if the Angels went the BPA route, and opted for high-floor college polish in 2016.