Originally Posted by
Scrap Irony
You're right. My math was way off (though flagrant is more than a little hyperbolic).
Quick question: what other GM has been better than Jocketty in drafting All-Stars over the past 20 years or so?
Another way to tackle this:
If Jocketty were indeed a poor drafter, it should show up in his players inabilities to get to the major leagues, or, in the case of poor teams, perform poorly once they get there.
This past season, Jocketty-acquired draftees and minor league, post-draft free agent signees had a WAR of 17.9 for the Cardinals. (Five years later, btw, he's still "responsible" for almost half the St. Louis WAR from last season.) I'll add other picks he made that are currently playing for other teams (Daric Barton, Colby Rasmus, Pujols, Adam Kennedy) and his Cincinnati first-round picks as well (ie., Leake, Grandal, Alonso). I also include Aroldis Chapman, as he was a free agent. That's another 16.0 WAR. To round out the team with 25 players, we'll add Brad Boxberger's -0.1 WAR last season in San Diego.
That's a 25-man roster of players drafted/ developed under Jocketty with a WAR of 33.8.
I suspect few other GMs will come close to that. He's certainly in the top five.
(Fwiw, the entire Red team had a WAR of 48.3 last season.)
In short, Jocketty's tenure as a GM has shown an ability to draft well, trade well, and sign intelligently. He's a true triple threat GM and the Reds are lucky to have him. Jocketty is pretty much universally held as an upper echelon GM. His three Executive of the Year trophies corroborate that.