A Look at the Draft Record of Fired Scouting Director Tom Allison

Written by Amit Lal | 08 October 2010

On Wednesday, the Diamondbacks announced the firing of Scouting Director Tom Allison, who has been offered another job within the organization. This move came just after the team announced the hiring of Kevin Towers as General Manager and Jerry DiPoto as Senior Vice President of Scouting and Player Development. Allison had presided over the team's drafts from 2007-2010, which brought in talents such as Jarrod Parker, Barry Enright, and the strong class of 2009. Let's take a more detailed look at the drafts under Tom Allison.
 

Overall, the 2007 Draft was not a very good one for the Diamondbacks. First Round pick Jarrod Parker was a good selection, and is expected be a key member of the starting rotation by late 2011. After that, 2nd Round Pick Barry Enright is also expected to be a major league starter, but that's about all from the 2007 draft. The only other players still considered prospects are probably Josh Collmenter, Wes Roemer, Sean Coughlin, and Bryan Augenstein. It is clear that the team made a point of drafting college players in 2007, as 24 out of the first 28 players were from four year colleges. But the only potential star from the entire draft is high schooler Jarrod Parker.

The 2008 Draft was also not a very strong one for the Diamondbacks. There is still hope that Wade Miley will be a major league starter, and Bryan Shaw and Kevin Eichhorn still have potential, but this group as a whole is quite weak.

The 2009 Draft was easily the best of Allison's tenure as Scouting Director. The Diamondbacks had seven picks in the first two rounds, and did an excellent job of rebuilding a very weak farm system. Players such as Matt Davidson, Bobby Borchering, Marc Krauss, Chris Owings, Eric Smith, Paul Goldschmidt, Ryan Wheeler, and Charles Brewer have all had good success in their first two minor league seasons, and many are rated among the Top 20 prospects in their respective leagues (California League, Midwest League).

The 2010 Draft will probably not turn out to be one of the Diamondbacks' success stories. Most analysts felt the team over-drafted on the first two selections, Barret Loux and J.R. Bradley, and then Loux ended up not signing with the club due to injury. In Allison's defense, the Loux selection was probably more on Josh Byrnes and Jerry DiPoto than on Allison.  There is definitely a lot of upside in many of the high school pitchers drafted this year, but aside from Kevin Munson, most of this draft class is several years away, at best.

Conclusions
The overall draft record for Tom Allison is not that strong. The only player drafted during the four year stretch from 2007-2010 who is contributing at the major league level right now is SP Barry Enright. Even worse, there aren't any drafted players at the AA or AAA level who are considered among the Top 20 Prospects in their league. What's make this even worse is that the team drafted mostly college players in 2007 and 2008, who should have been able to advance through the minors quickly. In Allison's defense, SP Jarrod Parker does look like an excellent selection, and a few of the drafted players (DSchlereth, RWhite) were involved in trades that brought in major leagues such as Edwin Jackson and Aaron Heilman. And the 2009 draft does look good, but those players are mostly still at the Class A level. Overall, the lack of major league production from these four drafts has been a problem for the Diamondbacks, and was a key factor in Tom Allison's firing.