MLB Draft Value

Expected career WAR by draft pick range

Signed selections from the 1996–2021 drafts.

Horizontal bar chart of fitted expected career WAR by MLB draft pick range. Picks 1 through 5 lead at 12.35 WAR, falling below 1.0 after pick 100. — Expected WAR uses a weighted monotonic fit across 28,309 eligible signed selections.

Reading the chart

Draft position carries a steep value curve

The fitted expectation declines from 12.35 career WAR for picks 1–5 to 0.97 for picks 101–150. Later rounds still produce major leaguers, but the average expected return per signed selection is much smaller.

Sources and tools

Draft selections: MLB Stats API. Identity crosswalk: Chadwick Register. Career WAR: JEFFBAGWELL historical WAR (2025 snapshot).

Built with Python and Pillow from the reproducible MLB Draft Intelligence Lab methodology.