Deric Ladnier — Scouting Director

Value by position — where the value came from (descriptive)

Pos	Picks	fWAR	DVOS
P	48	139	+64.6
OF	14	87	+52.0
C	3	0	-2.1
IF	23	78	-18.6

Position from each player's primary MLB fielding spot; never-MLB picks excluded. This table is descriptive, not a skill ranking — per-position DVOS isn't reliable at this granularity (split-half ≈ 0 for P/OF, a small-sample mirage for C). The one reliable position cut is Hitter vs Pitcher: drafting hitters (C/IF/OF) above slot repeats (split-half +0.54, the KPI above), but drafting pitchers above slot does not (≈ 0) — so we rank Hitter DVOS and leave pitcher out.

Top picks — who drove the value

Yr	Ovr	Player	Pos	fWAR	Exp	DVOS
2002	6	Zack Greinke	P	72.3	12.6	+59.6
2005	2	Alex Gordon	OF	31.4	14.1	+17.3
2015	1	Dansby Swanson	SS	29.5	23.4	+6.1
2019	16	Corbin Carroll	OF	20.3	5.7	+14.6
2007	96	Danny Duffy	P	16.3	1.0	+15.2
2007	2	Mike Moustakas	3B	15.2	14.1	+1.1
2017	68	Daulton Varsho	OF	14.5	1.9	+12.6
2007	306	Greg Holland	P	11.8	0.3	+11.5
2006	1475	Jarrod Dyson	OF	11.7	0.1	+11.6
2008	3	Eric Hosmer	1B	11.0	11.0	-0.0
2006	1	Luke Hochevar	P	8.9	23.4	-14.5
2017	202	José Caballero	2B	6.7	0.8	+5.9
2004	14	Billy Butler	1B	6.3	5.7	+0.6
2018	39	Jake McCarthy	OF	6.1	2.8	+3.3
2019	56	Ryne Nelson	P	5.0	1.8	+3.3

By draft class

Year	Picks	fWAR	Expected	DVOS
2001	50	-0.4	19.8	-20.2
2002	50	72.6	26.0	+46.6
2003	51	3.1	24.5	-21.4
2004	53	11.6	24.5	-12.9
2005	50	30.6	26.6	+4.0
2006	50	21.2	36.8	-15.6
2007	50	50.0	25.7	+24.3
2008	51	18.2	27.2	-9.0
2015	40	30.4	36.2	-5.8
2016	40	4.6	14.2	-9.6
2017	41	21.4	23.0	-1.6
2018	41	10.4	18.8	-8.3
2019	45	27.2	28.3	-1.1
2021	21	3.4	26.2	-22.8
2024	19	0.0	9.7	-9.7
Total	652	304	–	-63.1

DVOS = Σ (a pick's career fWAR − the expected fWAR for that overall slot), credited to the scouting director SABR lists for that draft. We only attribute years with one unambiguous director on record; years where SABR lists multiple names (handoffs/overlaps) or none are left out, so a director's record here may skip years he was involved in — see the coverage note on the leaderboard. Single drafts are noise-dominated — one star swamps a class — so read the multi-year totals, not any one year. Full method on the DVOS page.