Reviewing the Draft: Joe Jordan Year One - 2005

In order to better understand the current failures of the Orioles, as well as to see what the future will hold, it is useful to review the performance of our club officials.  Let's begin with Joe Jordan, Director of Scouting, by taking a comprehensive look at the draft results of the Orioles during his tenure.

Jordan was hired by the Orioles as scouting director in November of 2004.  Jordan had previously been a member of the scouting departments of the Montreal Expos and Florida Marlins.  He began his scouting career in 1997 as an area scout for the Expos before being named Midwest Supervisor in 2001. He moved into the same capacity with Florida when most of Montreal's front office staff moved to the Florida organization in 2002, and he was named National Crosschecker a year later.

Before that, Jordan was drafted as a catcher in the 19th round of the 1985 draft by San Francisco. He batted .213 for Everett, the Giants' Class A team in the short-season Northwest League in 1985, but was injured the following spring and was released at the end of spring training. He returned to his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, received his degree in 1987 and spent three years as an assistant baseball coach for the Sooners, 1988-90.  He spent seven years in the financial investment business before returning to baseball as a scout for the Expos in 1997.

Jordan was hired by the Orioles by former Executive Vice President for Baseball Operations Jim Beattie.

• The Orioles total budget for the 2005 draft was $4.2 million. 
• The Orioles failed to sign 26 of their 51 picks, including three of their top 20 picks.
• Of the 25 players who the Orioles signed, 10 are still with the organization (Snyder, Reimold, Erbe, Pope, Spoone, P. Figueroa, Hernandez, Moore, Abreu, D. Figueroa).
• Of the 26 players who the Orioles failed to sign, four were redrafted by the Orioles - Chad Thall, Pat Egan, Josh Faiola and Chris Vinyard.
• Of the players who the Orioles failed to sign, four were redrafted by other organizations - John Raynor, selected by the Marlins in round 9 in 2006; Carlos Hernandez, selected by the A's in the 35th round in 2006; Tanner Scheppers, who was selected by the Pirates in the second round in 2008 and did not sign and who was taken in the supplemental first round in 2009 by the Rangers and signed, and Harrison Bishop, drafted by the Pirates in the 17th round in 2007.  Scheppers is now in AAA and is a top 50 prospect in all of baseball.  Since Jordan took over as scouting director, no other unsigned draft pick has improved his stock to the degree that Scheppers has.
• Of the 51 players selected, 22 were college players, 16 were high schoolers, and 13 were from junior college.
• Of the 26 players who were not signed, 12 were from high school, nine were from junior college, and five were from college.
• To date, the four players from the Orioles 2005 draft class who have been in the majors (Olson, Reimold, Raynor, and Hernandez) have produced a career WAR of 0.7.  Reimold is the only one of the group to produce a season of more than 1 WAR.

Obviously, it is difficult to draw conclusions from a single draft class. particularly the first class of any scouting director.  But these trends are ones which will be important as we review the job that Jordan has done as our scouting director for the past six seasons.