Who is a 1st Rounder?

        The MLB Draft took place about a month ago.  Much of what we read and see about the players drafted centers around their physical skills- hitting ability, fastball velocity, spin rates, exit velo, etc.  Unsurprisingly, the top round is littered with highly skilled players.  But who are these players?  Who are they beyond the metrics?  Scouts, player development staff, mental skills coaches, and others do a deep dive into the character of the players leading up to the draft.  Not a lot is specifically written about the topic, but we know it can factor into the decisions made by organizations.  With that, I came up with the idea of looking up articles on each of the 2020 first-rounders to see if there were common themes.  Here's how it worked.

         I initially searched for articles about each player on The Athletic.  For some players, there were solid articles.  For a couple, there were even more than one.  Others did not have much of anything so I also did a Google search.  Sometimes I would add the word "makeup" or one of the player's coach's names to see if I could find comments about them.  This was hardly a study with validity or reliability at all.  Just want to be clear about that.  While reading the articles any time there was a comment from a coach, scout, or scouting director about the player I put the basic terms into a spreadsheet.  When I was done I looked through the spreadsheet and created a master list of every term used.  Close terms like "desire," "passion," and "motivated" were combined into one.  This resulted in about sixty different terms or term groupings on the master list.  Next, I tried to group them into categories.  Hardly scientific again, but I came up with the following:  General Personality, Preparation/Motivation, Learning/Growth, Performance, Teammate, and Other.

        Finally, I looked to see which on the list came up the most often.  I divided common traits into three groups.  *** traits came up with ten or more players.  ** traits came up with seven to nine players.  * traits were common in four to six players.  Here they are listed with the themed category as well.  The number of players referenced is in parenthesis:

*** Traits:
Preparation/Motivation:
Desire/passion/motivated/drive to be the best/determined/devoted (11)
Focused/purpose driven/meticulous/present/diligent (10)
Hard worker/work ethic (15)
Performance:
Competitive (13)

** Traits:
Preparation/Motivation:
Routine/process/prepared/has a plan (7)
Performance:
Confidence (9)
Loves the big game/moment/stage/spotlight/rises to the occasion (7)
Teammate:
Leader (8)
Other:
Influence of parents/great family (7)

* Traits:
General Personality:
Great kid/good person (5)
Makeup (4)
Mature (4)
Preparation/Motivation:
Tries to improve/looks for ways to improve/never satisfied/maximizes opportunities (6)
Learning/Growth:
Tries new things/dives into change/makes adjustments/coachable (5)
Asks questions/curious (4)
Self-aware/knows self (5)
Performance:
Moxie/poised/even-keeled/nothing fazes (5)
Teammate:
Helps teammates/pushes teammates/makes others better (4)

        So what does any of this actually mean?  Maybe nothing.  I can't drive home enough the lack of scientific value this process gives.  At the same time, it's clear there are common traits that most coaches would want players to have regardless of their first round ability or the scientific value of the list.  I happen to think each can be developed as well.  I also think the ability for organizations to get a solid grasp of players' having some of these traits can help in decision-making and in their development if chosen.  Just opinions for sure.  Speaking of opinions, there were several players who stood out to me based on the traits mentioned.  Below they're listed along with the traits used to describe.  Asa Lacy and Ed Howard were by far my two favorites.  The others are not in any particular order:

Asa Lacy:  attentive, loves to learn, passion, soaks up info, intuitive, curious, purpose-driven, student of the game

Ed Howard:  winner, great person, humble, confident, good teammate, worker, great family, mature, character, resilient, leader, competitor, going to love him, loves the big moment, enjoys it

Bryce Jarvis: wants to learn everything, into building self, meticulous, know self, maximizes opportunities to improve, incredible competitor, has earned it, loves the big stage, work ethic, accountable, process, helped teammates get better

Nick Gonzales:  hard worker, family influence, prove others wrong, competitive, compassion, motivated, wants it, obsessed, loves to work, heart, great kid

Zac Veen:  internal obsession, looks for ways to get better, routine, determined, wants big moment, works hard, asks questions

Mick Abel:  self-aware, purposeful, drive, good person, no red flags, diligent

Austin Martin (Wild Card- he had a unique list):  free spirit, confidence, loud, competitive, helps teammates, leader, hates to lose, great feel for others, pushes teammates, wants to help team

*This list was really hard.  Another 5-7 really stood out as well.  Some I liked more because of other aspects of what was said about them than the specific list of traits themselves.  Interestingly, there was one player that I could not find anything about as far as makeup goes.  This was kind of bizarre.

        How about some takeaways?  The first, for me, was how little your personality matters.  Traits that I would consider general personality didn't make it until the * list, and really the only specific characteristic was maturity.  The two big separators seem to be preparation and approach to performance.  This is not any shock at all, but there are hints peppered in the traits to help really anyone to improve their craft.  From a personal standpoint, I found myself favoring a lot of the college players in making the list of players who stood out to me.  This makes sense because they have had longer to develop as people and are in a different developmental stage as a whole.  One more finding that was interesting was the influence of parents and family members.  Parents were mentioned as being really supportive, being role models, and helping their kids to develop.  Overwhelmingly, the kids were the driving force though.  No labs for creating first rounders were discussed.  One really cool specific mention was Nick Yorke was taught how to hit by his mom who was an All-American softball player.  Anyway, this is just something I felt like doing for fun, but it makes me curious about doing a deeper dive and seeing what is out there.  I hope you enjoyed reading and welcome any feedback or thoughts you may have.

All the best.

- Ben