TOWER GROVE — The last bundle of mail exchanged between readers and the Cardinals vice president of player procurement and farm director Jeff Luhnow featured some of the finer-tuned questions in this couple weeks of PostCards.

Of specific interest to readers is the idea of cost-benefit analysis when it comes the draft. There were many questions about it over the past two weeks and I tried to capture the repetition by selecting a few representatives. Below is one that strikes at the core of the issue — the need to weight money invested in a draft pick now to save a team from wading into the pricey free-agent market later.

Think of it this way.

It took a seven-year deal to land Barry Zito and an extension of the same for the Mets to complete the deal for Johan Santana. C.C. Sabathia could also net a massive deal, and even the Carlos Silva, Gil Meche, Etc. of the free-agent market are scoring five-year deals. An average drafted player is essentially entering into a locked a “12-year contract” (three years pro before 40-man, three option years on 40, three years as zero-to-3 to arbitration, three more to free agency). It never works out that way. Players rise quicker, score MLB service time in gulps or nibbles, etc. Now the trend is for a team to offer security in exchange for arbitration years.

Does it make sense to invest the $6 million in signing bonus now on the bet you save the $45-million contract later?

As Luhnow’s answer shows, it’s not an easy calculation. The problem with presenting it as a straight contrast of tech stock vs. Fortune 500 investment misses the key element of that comparison — track record has a price tag. Free agents have done it, at the big-league level. The analysis isn’t only investment now vs. free agency plunge later. It’s known quantity vs. potential quality.

Production vs. Projection.

Thanks to all who sent in questions. The conclusion of correspondence with Luhnow:

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Q: The Cardinals rarely take high school pitchers early in the draft and there are well-documented reasons for it. This year is unusual in the sense that two highly-regarded high school pitchers are from areas close to St. Louis which would potentially allow for you and your staff to see these players perform more than highly-regarded players from other parts of the country. My question is if you think a high school pitcher needs to rank substantially higher in your own internal rankings compared to a college pitcher for you to select a high school pitcher in the first few rounds of the draft? Thanks.

– Lee

Luhnow: In 2005 we took Tyler Herron in the first round and Josh Wilson in the 2nd round. Tyler is now in AA and considered a prospect by most pundits that study these things. Josh is having a good year in Quad Cities, despite having had several injuries in his short professional career. In 2006 and 2007 we took several high school pitchers, but not until later in the draft.

We have scouted all the top high school pitchers for this year’s draft, including the local players. We wouldn’t waste our scouts’ time if we didn’t want to have these players in our system. I can’t specifically answer your question for a variety of reasons, but there are various scenarios where we end up selecting a high school pitcher in the top part of the draft.

DG ASIDE: This was mentioned in a comment somewhere ’round this blog. In last year’s draft, the Cardinals were set to select a high school pitcher with the 18th pick of the draft, but Texas prep star Blake Beavan was selected by Texas, the team the Cardinals identified as their rival for the right hander.

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Q: A few questions: 1) What did you (and/or John Mozeliak) learn from the 2004 draft? 2) Are there inefficiencies in the draft market anymore? 3) Without giving away secrets, what kind of modeling does your team do to weigh the cost/benefit of certain players at certain slots/bonus demands (e.g., was there an expected price at which you would have taken Porcello, and if so, how do you arrive at that number)? Thanks for the consideration.

– Ryan, Chicago, Ill.

Luhnow: We learn something from every draft. The 2004 draft did not live up to expectations for our organization and all of us on the baseball side have reflected on how we could have done better. Some of the specific observations and conclusions are now baked into our methods of running the department. That is how it should work … continuous improvement. For every player towards the top of the draft, there is a value figure that we attempt to calculate and below which we would be excited to draft and sign that player.

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Q: Mr. Luhnow, Thank you for accepting questions from the fans — it is much appreciated. Here is my question: How significant is the issue of aluminum bats when a team is trying to determine the potential of a hitter? If there is a problem in translating a prospect’s batting average with an aluminum bat to what can be expected using a wooden bat, has MLB ever considered supplying college teams with wooden bats or in some other way making a contribution so that colleges can afford wooden bats? It would seem like a worthy investment for teams to make in the future. Your thoughts? Thank you.

– Lynda P. Domino

Luhnow: That is an interesting question Lynda. A few years ago, the scouting directors got together and discussed this very topic. It is a cost issue, so we looked into what it would take to replace the college bats with wood. There are many complications with respect to this issue, and needless to say nothing has been done yet. I will say that many among our group are proponents of having MLB contribute to an initiative like the one you suggest.

DG ASIDE: Lynda, each summer there are several wood bat leagues, including the prestigious Cape Cod League, where college players go to show scouts how they do with the wood bat. If you recall, one of the knocks on the Cardinals high-profile pick Kyle Russell last season was that he struggled with a wood bat. That swing he had that produced the NCAA-leading total of home runs was not as powerful and was far more prone to K with a wood bat. That was something the Cardinals took into account. It’s interesting because the aluminum factor usually gets a lot of attention for hitters — but it’s also a factor when scouting pitchers. The aluminum bat can render some pitches that are ruthlessly effective against wood bats less so because of the expanded sweet spot and the neck that won’t snap. 

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Q: Mr. Luhnow, Thank you for being available to the fans as much as you are. My question refers to major league free agents vs. high-signing-bonus draftees: A league-average starting pitcher or full-time position player seems to cost $5 million per year or more, usually for at least 3 years. The average draftee who is considered to have “signability issues” seems to be wanting $1-1.5 million, or even more. If 10 additional kids were signed for a collective $15 million over 3 years, only 2 would need to pan out to get more productivity per dollar spent vs. free agents. Is the risk-reward of drafting and signing $15 million dollars’ worth of kids (above and beyond a team’s normal draft expenditures) superior to signing one fairly ordinary player for $15 million for a 3 year contract? It seems the Red Sox and Yankees have used this general approach to upgrading their minor leagues with elite talents. Thank you.

– Steve N.

Luhnow: Steve, you are doing the analysis the same way that we do it, so you probably could work for us! There are a few factors that I would add to your analysis that might affect the answer. First, we have to draft these players in a specific order and theoretically we only get one of the top 30 players. If we could take the top 10 players and pay them each $1.5 million every year, that might work out as you suggest. But there is a quality curve in each draft that is downward sloping, and as you get later in the draft the number of players who might be worth a significant investment drops quickly. We are trying to find players who are among the 500 best in the world from a very large pool. That is not easy to do. Also, remember that major league free agents are expensive for a reason. They have already demonstrated that they can perform at the highest level. That is worth a significant amount.

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Q: Can you say how big an impact the ‘Classic Mechanics’ study will have on the upcoming draft for the Cardinals? Are the Cardinals the only team that will be using its findings as part of player evaluations?

– Joseph E. Gallagher

Luhnow: I don’t really know what the other teams are doing in the area of mechanics. We study all elements of the pitchers, including mechanics, and they all contribute to our assessment. Most clubs do this, but we may have differing opinions about the model we want to achieve and how much deviation is allowable (in other words, what can be changed or fixed by player development?).

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Q: Thanks for taking our questions Jeff, As a St. Louisan relocated to the Quad Cities, I was curious which River Bandits would be making an impact on the Cards in the future. Who should I be watching more carefully?

– Kris

Luhnow: Well, Chris Perez played in Quad Cities during 2005 and is now in St. Louis, so feel free to cheer for him! There will be more. Rasmus, Anderson, Garcia, Walters, Boggs, Martinez, Greene, Mortensen are just some of the names that went through Davenport.

DG ASIDE: Spoke with Quad Cities manager Steve Dillard on Wednesday and there are some players now worth watching — starting with last year’s No. 1 pick, shortstop Pete Kozma. Tommy Pham, another prep star, is playing center field for the Bandits and he recently led off a series of games with home runs to win the Midwest League’s player of the week honors earlier this month. Athletic prospect D’Marcus Ingram just went on the disabled list, but he’ll have time in Quad Cities this season. Pitching-wise, there’s Nick Additon, Blake King (one of the last draft-and-follows, and kin to Mickey Mantle), and Chuckie Fick.

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Every week during the regular season, The Post-Dispatch’s baseball writer Derrick Goold will answer fans’ emails in a mailbag blog called PostCards, a spin-off of Bird Land. Cardinals vice president Jeff Luhnow agreed to answer a batch of questions submitted last week, and his answers have been reproduced here in three different entries on the blog.

Next week, the standard mailbag returns. To comment and discuss the mailbag visit the PostCards blog on StlToday.com. To submit questions write PostCards@post-dispatch.com or file them as a comment on this blog. With all questions please include your name and hometown.

PostCards will run online exclusively at StlToday.com.

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