I know the Padres have drafted pretty college-heavy over the last few years, but I just wanted to see the numbers for myself. Figured I’d count ‘em up using Baseball America’s great draft archives. I started with the ‘05 draft because that was Alderson’s first draft with San Diego. Anyway, I counted junior college and community college picks as “college picks” and I didn’t consider whether or not the player ended up signing with the Padres (hint: quite a few of the high school picks did not). So here we are:

2005 – first 10 picks
HS hitter: 0
HS pitcher: 0
C. hitter: 5
C. pitcher: 5

2005 — overall
HS hitter: 6
HS pitcher: 10
C. hitter: 17
C. pitcher: 19

2006 – first 10
HS hitter: 2
HS pitcher: 0
C. hitter: 4
C. pitcher: 4

2006 — overall
HS hitter: 8
HS pitcher: 9
C. hitter: 17
C. pitcher: 13

2007 – first 10
HS hitter: 1
HS pitcher: 1
C. hitter: 5
C. pitcher: 3

2007 — overall
HS hitter: 8
HS pitcher: 1
C. hitter: 18
C. pitcher: 15

2005-07 – first 10
HS hitter: 3
HS pitcher: 1
C. hitter: 14
C. pitcher: 12

2005-07 — overall
HS hitter: 22
HS pitcher: 20
C. hitter: 52
C. pitcher: 47

What have we learned in this simple little exercise? Not much, imo. Over the last three years, they’ve drafted slightly more hitters, overall (about 7 more). Overall, they select a college player ~70% of the time. In their first 10 picks, they are even less likely to go with a high school player (13% of the time). You wouldn’t pick it up from what I just posted above, but they stock up on the HS picks late in the draft, in general (for instance, in ‘05, 8 of their last 11 picks were of the high school variety; in ‘06, 12 of their last 13 were from HS).

It’s also tough to get a real sense of what this means without looking at other teams. I really don’t know how most teams draft (is it 50/50 split between HS and college? … 50/50 split between pitchers and hitters?).

I once sent a question to BA’s Jim Callis about the Padres draft strategy (about a college vs. high school philosophy). He basically said you have to take it case by case, player by player. Is Will Venable really a “college pick,” having spent much of his time in college concentrating on basketball. Or what about junior college guys who faced inferior talent? The only thing all of these guys have in common is that they are baseball players. Regardless of all the floating philosophies on how to draft (btw, I have to re-read Jazayerli’s draft study from a few years back), the goal is still pretty simple: find good baseball players. Hopefully, they can find some in this year’s draft, whether they come from high school, college, or Paul DePodesta’s USB flash drive.