Wow, thanks for taking the time to write all of that!
Looking at the part about pitching the Jays could have signed in the off-season, I suppose one big advantage of an in-season trade is that you know how well the guy is pitching during that season. If Berrios was having a terrible season, then Toronto probably isn't interested.
True. It also potentially gives them a head start on retaining him. If he likes the team, likes working with Pete Walker, finds he likes the city, and the Jays can offer competitive money it becomes an easier pitch to get him to stay (provided no unforeseeable struggles or injuries happen next season). The Jays are used to having difficulty attracting top shelf free agents because they've usually been a middling to poor team and because of the whole 'but boo hoo hoo it's Canada and it's
different" thing, but a year and a half of getting him into a comfortable groove in the Jays' culture and environment might make the decision easier. He seems to be the type it might work on too given how bummed he was about leaving Minnesota. It would seem that continuity is a thing he values.
It's the same reason I'm hopeful about Robbie Ray. He's now had parts of 2 seasons of unparalleled success with this team and I believe he cited working with Pete Walker as a big reason he signed up with the Jays again after 2020. Granted this is his year to cash in as big as he can, but if the Jays can give him a roughly market value deal they might have the tiebreaker over other clubs coming in at a similar money slot. It's not like the days of having to back the money truck up to AJ Burnett and BJ Ryan and beat the market by a significant amount just to get them across the border.
Perhaps my thinking comes from closely following NHL/NBA, where draft picks have higher chances of success (at least high picks). If a prospect or prospects in general are seen as less likely to work out then then it makes sense teams are more willing to move them. Plus the development time is generally longer even when they do work out. It will be interesting to see how the Jays approach their pitching staff in the coming winter.
NBA prospects are a weird bunch because like you said high picks have generally good success, but the value drops precipitously after that and sometimes you're lucky to get a half-decent rotation player if you're picking 10th or later. And a warm body for the end of the bench if you're picking beyond 20th.
But MLB is unparalleled in how much it burns through young talent before they ever make the big leagues.
Just looking at the Jays, let's start 5 years ago with 2016
2016 draft
41 players drafted, 29 of which signed.
5 of them have played in MLB games (12% of the total class)
Total accumulated bWAR of 13.2 (average of 2.6 per player). Almost all of that is from Bichette and Biggio. The other 3 are two guys getting their feet wet (Palacios and Snead) and the mostly-failure of 1st rounder TJ Zeuch
Of the guys who haven't reached the majors the only one who looks halfway intriguing is Chavez Young and maybe potential reliever Josh Winckowski (who is now in the Red Sox org)
2015 draft
40 players drafted. 33 signed
3 have made the majors (7%)
Total bWAR is 1.8 (0.6 per player average). All 3 contributing players are OK relief pitchers (unsigned 2nd round pick Brady Singer who was re-drafted, Travis Bergen, and current Jay Tyler Saucedo)
Unless you think Justin Maese is suddenly going to explode to relevance, there's nothing else in this class to look forward to
2014 draft
41 draftees, 27 signed.
9 have made it to the majors (21%)
But only for a total bWAR of 4.2 (0.5 per player average)
More than half of that total belongs to Jordan Romano. The rest of it is mostly on a variety of iffy relievers not with the Jays and replacement-level outfielder Lane Thomas
2013 draft
40 picks, 28 signed
15 have made the majors (37%)
Accumulated a total of 23.2 bWAR (1.5 per player)
Most of that belongs to Matt Boyd and Kendall Graveman. Danny Jansen picks up a distant amount of 3rd place slack and then it's mostly in the hands of an assortment of OK-to-poor relievers, Rowdy Tellez, and Jonathan Davis
2012 draft
44 picks saw 7 make it to the majors (15%) accumulating 19.6 bWAR (2.8 average) but almost all of that is Marcus Stroman. Beyond him there's Borucki and a bunch of replacement-level guys or fungible relievers.
2011 draft
55 players were picked and a quarter of them graduated to the bigs for a whopping 68 bWAR (4.9 average). Unfortunately almost half of that is unsigned 22nd rounder Aaron Nola, who was a hope & prayer HS flier that didn't work out. Most of the actual Jays contribution came from the Kevin Pillar lottery win and the out-of-organization moderate successes of Joe Musgrove and Anthony DeSclafani. 1st rounder Tyler Beede didn't sign and has mostly not worked out elsewhere. Daniel Norris has mostly been a disappointment given his lofty prospect status. Dwight Smith Jr was a supplemental round pick and was pretty much (to draw a classic Raptors comparison) a Mike James All-Star with the Orioles in that he looked good for a bit by stuffing his stat line on regular playing time while actually not being that good. Beyond that there's a lot of junk.
I'm not going to keep going but I think you get the point. Yes this is probably on the Jays not drafting terribly well for a while in the mid 2000s to early 2010s but they still selected close to 300 players, probably signed about three quarters of them into the developmental system and at the end of the day walk away with
2 legitimate star level players in Stroman and Bichette
about 7 or 8 solid regulars (Biggio, Pillar, Boyd, Graveman, Romano, Musgrove, and DeSclafani. Maybe Jansen if you want to stretch it a bit because catcher is usually a black hole of suck around the league) where there's still a wide range of what counts as "solid regular" in here from Pillar at the top end to shorter track record guys at the bottom.
a raft of maybe useful but replaceable spare parts guys like Rowdy, Davis, and all the relievers or guys that got to the bigs and couldn't cut it.
and a whole lot of nothing.
Even if we were to say that the only signed about 2/3rds of their picks (which is way undershooting it) that means that out of nearly 200 signees they still only got 2 high end talents and less than 30 guys that range from being good everyday MLBers to kinda OK fungible middle relief or 24th/25th man on the roster types. So it's potentially a 1% hit rate on stars and a 10% hit rate on anything that has some semblance of positive value.
And though I didn't highlight all of it, the only 1st round (including supplemental 1st) pick of significant consequence was Marcus Stroman. And the only other one of even minor consequence was Joe Musgrove:
1sts and supplemental 1sts, 2011-2016
Tyler Beede
Jacob Anderson
Dwight Smith Jr
Joe Musgrove
Kevin Comer
DJ Davis
Stroman
Matt Smoral
Mitch Nay
Tyler Gonzales
Phil Bickford
Jeff Hoffman
Max Pentecost
Jon Harris
TJ Zeuch
that's 15 players and you got 1 great major leaguer and 1 good one.
And while this is probably on the bad end of things for any given team, The overall success rate in the 1st round in totality isn't great. The 2011 1st round had 60 picks between the normal and supplemental set and out of that batch there's maybe 6-8 star players (Cole, Bauer, Rendon, Baez, Springer, Storey are the ones that jump out) another handful of very good players (Bradley Jr, Gray, Kolton Wong, Jose Fernandez, Blake Snell briefly) and then a lot of guys who top out as middling success stories down to failures and abject busts.
It's not pretty. The MLB draft and development system is a meat grinder.
