I was fortunate enough to be able to ask Chris Long, Padres’ Senior Quantitative Analyst, a few questions on the Padres’ recent amateur draft. You may remember Mr. Long from around these parts, as he answered some of my questions earlier this season about his role with the Padres. Once again, big thanks go out to Chris for taking time out of his busy schedule for some draft talk.

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Friar Forecast: We discussed it a little in our last chat, but can you describe to us your role in the draft process?

Chris Long: My primary role is in the analysis of college players to determine which are the most likely to develop into legitimate prospects.  That one sentence spans a broad and deep spectrum of techniques and creative possibilities.  My secondary role is the broader area of general draft analysis, including the best way to incorporate scouting and medical evaluations. Much more difficult, much more interesting.

FF: What’s your role as the draft is actually taking place? When the Padres are on the clock, is the pick basically decided, or does it sometimes go right down to the wire?

CL: Our strategy is determined before the start of the draft, so I’m more of an observer at that point.  However, deep in the draft, when nearly all of the players of interest are gone, I’ll occasionally get asked about the remaining players.

FF: The Padres have put a heavy emphasis on selecting college players over the last few years. By my count, the Pads only took 6 high schoolers in the ‘08 draft. Can you explain the organizational philosophy a bit in this area?

CL: You have much more information about college players, so they’re more projectable.  There’s a consequence here that you need to be careful about, however.  The posterior distribution will be tighter for a college player than for a typical high school player.  That is, if you have a high school player and a college player that both have the same likely average level of professional performance, the college player will be less likely to be a flop, but also less likely to be a star.

FF: You’ve got more data, both from a scouting and statistical perspective, on the college side, right?

CL: The top high school players typically get seen about as many times as the top college players.  We have high school statistics of course, but the main problems are the sample sizes are small, the level of competition and parks unmeasurable, plus the players are younger and developing far more rapidly.  They should ultimately be used, but there will still be a large amount of fuzziness. Jaff Decker is one example where high school performance was too good to be ignored (something around a 2200 OPS).

FF: In analyzing the numbers of college players, can you tell us a few of the things that you try to adjust for?  It’s hard enough projecting the future of major leaguers; how do you go about doing it for 21 year old college players?

CL: It’s well known that the two major areas are park effects and strength of competition.  D-I schools will occasionally play D-II, D-III and NAIA schools, so you also need to account for this.  All told, that’s hundreds of schools and parks, plus tens of thousands of games.  This is one of the reasons my workstation has 8 CPU cores and 20 gb of ram.

FF: Has there been any progress on fielding statistics in college, or is that basically 100% scouting at this point?

CL: You’re only getting the most basic data, plus fielding statistics are notorious for requiring lots of time to converge.  Scouting evaluations, together with some notion of speed, is the best most teams are going to do.

FF: Outside of the Padres’ picks, were there any players you really loved, who the Padres didn’t (or couldn’t) draft for whatever reasons?

CL: There were many very good college hitters this year - Alonso, Smoak, Wallace, Posey, Beckham, Cooper, Komatsu, Thames, Giavotella, etc.

FF: Alright, everyone wants to concentrate on the first pick. Tell us a little about Allan Dykstra, the big first baseman from Wake Forest.

CL: Dykstra is a great college hitter.  He hit well every single year, and his final appearance in the Cape was excellent.  His advanced understanding of the strike zone, coupled with his raw power potential, were an intriguing combination to several teams.  My nickname for Allan, incidentally, is “The Shortest Path” (a triple entendre).

FF: Dykstra stands at 6-5, but after that, as Geoff Young has noted, the Padres took a few (relatively) shorter players. What kind of role does size play in projecting a player’s future performance?

CL: Height certainly does have an impact on future power potential, but frame is even more important.  As an example, consider Kellen Kulbacki. It’s also not as critical for middle defenders (SS, 2B, CF).  You might want to take another look at the size of those players, incidentally, they’re not all that small.

FF: Reading various blogs/web sites, a lot of people seem impressed with Logan Forsythe and James Darnell, a couple of third basemen taken 46th and 69th, respectively. Can you tell us a little about them?

CL: Both are players I really like.  Forsythe has a great understanding of the strike zone; his power isn’t outstanding, but his defensive flexibility makes him a very interesting player.  Darnell also has a solid understanding of the strike zone; he strikes out more than Forsythe, but he also has more power.  Comparatively, I’d say they’re similar in value as prospects out of the draft.

FF: Dykstra plays first and those two guys play third.  In making selections, how much consideration is given to who is currently playing the player’s position on the big league club (Gonzalez and Kouzmanoff, of course) and to the positions of top prospects (like, say, Blanks and Headley)?  A lot can happen in three or four years, right?

CL: Very little this year - we recognized that there was an unusual amount of value in the college hitters this year, and targeted them on the first day of the draft.  Generally speaking, you should primarily draft for value, but of course you need to keep in mind that they all have to play somewhere in your organization, so you need to be careful that’s you don’t run out of minor league spots.

FF: Okay, I won’t ask you about every player ; ) How about the rest of the draft, in general?  Any sleepers you really like in the later rounds?  How much do you think the Padres improved, as an organization, through this draft?

CL: From Day 2 keep an eye on Beamer Weems, Robert Musgrave and Dean Anna. Assuming we sign all of these players, I’m as excited as I’ve ever been. It’s really a great group of hitters, and some very good pitchers, as well.  It’s unfortunate that our fans don’t get to see and appreciate the process involved.  It’s really amazing; participating in the draft has been one of the great experiences in my life.

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ed. note — I formed these questions a while back (before the Dykstra issues, the Forsythe injury, etc.), so if a few of them seem a bit funky, well, that’s why.