ANALYSIS: Trent Baalke vs. NFL's Other Top GMs in the Draft

Originally posted by jreff22:

Originally posted by crake49:
I believe he was the VP of Player personnel, so he had to have a lot to do with the draft that year.

Sing wanted the beef up front. I'm sure he pushed hard for Davis and Iupati.

And Taylor Mays!!

Originally posted by crake49:

Originally posted by KID9R:

The thing is, if don't use 2010 because he wasn't actually the GM yet and it was widely rumoured that Singleterry had a major hand in that draft. Then his success rate takes a HUGE hit. And the other pro bowler/ all pro now plays on the Raiders. And besides Kilgore who's only started seven games, he's failed to draft a starting offensive linemen in 50 pics (5years).

I believe he was the VP of Player personnel, so he had to have a lot to do with the draft that year.

Ya, he was. But I still remember thinking Singleterry having way more pull in the draft then he should have. I'm pretty sure that's why we drafted 2 linemen in the first. For his "hit em in the mouth mentality".

Originally posted by RishikeshA:
Why has Baalke never drafted a burner at wideout? If we had one during the Harbaugh era we win one maybe two Super Bowls.

Right. It's just that easy! This of course explains why when the Niners had Montana and Rice, they won the championship every single year!

Originally posted by KID9R:

Originally posted by crake49:

Originally posted by KID9R:
The thing is, if don't use 2010 because he wasn't actually the GM yet and it was widely rumoured that Singleterry had a major hand in that draft. Then his success rate takes a HUGE hit. And the other pro bowler/ all pro now plays on the Raiders. And besides Kilgore who's only started seven games, he's failed to draft a starting offensive linemen in 50 pics (5years).

I believe he was the VP of Player personnel, so he had to have a lot to do with the draft that year.

Ya, he was. But I still remember thinking Singleterry having way more pull in the draft then he should have. I'm pretty sure that's why we drafted 2 linemen in the first. For his "hit em in the mouth mentality".

Singletary was a very strong personality and I'm sure you're right - he probably had a lot of input and influence.

Originally posted by WINiner:
There is more to being a GM than drafting. While this years crop of FA's was a bust, in previous seasons he's done very well. We normally get great value in the FA market.

Agreed. Like hiring and firing coaching staffs. What marks do we give Baalke for terminating Harbaugh and his staff and replacing it with Jim Tomsula and his crew? Let me rank it for you.

1) Top GM
...
(rest of league)
...
32) Baalke

My question is, if the 49ers go 4 and 12 does he keep his job? You can blame Kap all you want, but Baalke hand picked Martin, Devey, and Pears, when he had the cap room to sign better players. He just tries too hard to find a deal, and the team has been suffering for it. I'm done with Baalke and don't foresee any success if he is still in charge of the roster.

Originally posted by KID9R:

Ya, he was. But I still remember thinking Singleterry having way more pull in the draft then he should have. I'm pretty sure that's why we drafted 2 linemen in the first. For his "hit em in the mouth mentality".

not because our o-line sucked perhaps?

Originally posted by thl408:

Thanks for doing the legwork, OTC. For the most part, I agree with Baalke's drafting philosophy. He pretty much acknowledges that it's a crap shoot and looks to increase ammo for more shots. His actual drafting has room for improvement. So the draft day execution needs to get better, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. I think drafting injured players is okay, but any injured player should get a 2-3 round penalty. Meaning if he was projected to go 1st round, but ripped up his knee, then he should be taken no earlier than the 3rd round. It doesn't seem like Tank will be anything more than a rotational guy so that's disappointing.

I'm still cautious about what makes his defensive draft picks good. How much did the old defensive staff (Fangio and company) have to do with the good defensive picks? Now that there's a new defensive staff in, will those defensive picks look worse (AA, Tartt, Eli).

Well, he did find Aldon and Bowman before Fangio was around, both were All-Pros one year. But it's TBD if he can sustain his reputation as a good defensive guy. Overall, I trust him with defensive picks -- on Tank I think he banked too much on him being able to grow into the mold of player we use here. Just hasn't panned out. But that's just one guy early.

My biggest beef is the failure for three to four straight years to get playmakers on offense. It's hard to totally rip Baalke though, when you look at everything. Some things did happen that weren't his fault. That stuff plus some of the big mistakes made things look worse. But at the same time he has big hits previously. So if you get rid of him, you could be ousting a good GM that just had a few misses and some bad breaks.

For what it's worth, I don't see Jed firing Baalke. Not yet at least.

Originally posted by BSofSF:
Agreed. Like hiring and firing coaching staffs. What marks do we give Baalke for terminating Harbaugh and his staff and replacing it with Jim Tomsula and his crew? Let me rank it for you.

1) Top GM
...
(rest of league)
...
32) Baalke

perhaps we should open a "I hate Baalke"-thread in order to get rid of users like you in threads like this one, hm?

Guys, if you don't want to discuss on rational basis instead of an emotional one, plz stay out of this thread. Thank you.

Originally posted by crake49:
Singletary was a very strong personality and I'm sure you're right - he probably had a lot of input and influence.

Of course the coaching staff has a say in it. See Kaepernick, LMJ or Mays.
A GM has to find the right mix between a) getting the players the staff wants, b) getting the players that fit the system and c) ignoring wishes for certain players aka convincing the staff to forget about Kapernick in round 1 or Mays in round 2, 3, 4 or forever.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:

All right. So I was researching this topic because I really want to see the validation of opinions in this area. What I wanted to do was see how Baalke compared to other top GMs in terms of successful drafts.

Pre-qualification:
GM has been around at least five years for their team, and has to be considered one of the better GMs in the NFL.

Time frame:
2010 to 2014.

Six GMs to be compared:
Ozzie Newsome (BAL), John Schneider (SEA), Ted Thompson (GB), Kevin Colbert (PIT), Mickey Loomis (NO), Thomas Dimitroff (ATL)

My initial impressions before comparing:
I can see that Baalke has done very well at getting defensive talent, but offensively? Not so much. Outside the first round, my general thoughts before looking at the data lead me to believe Baalke is simply not good at getting value on offense.

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Data Analysis:
Here below, you'll find links to the raw data for each of the GMs we're evaluating in this comparison. These charts show the following: 1st Team All-Pros, Pro Bowlers, and whether or not the player has been a primary starter for at least one year (Note on this though: several of these numbers will change obviously by the end of this season).

Baalke (SF): http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/sfo/draft.htm
Newsome (BAL): http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/rav/draft.htm
Schneider (SEA): http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/sea/draft.htm
Colbert (PIT): http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/pit/draft.htm
Thompson (GB): http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/gnb/draft.htm
Loomis (NO): http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nor/draft.htm
Dimitroff (ATL): http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/atl/draft.htm


From 2010-2014, Primary Starters Selected:
1. Schneider (SEA) - 19
T2. Newsome (BAL) - 13
T2. Colbert (PIT) - 13
T2. Dimitroff (ATL) - 13
5. Thompson (GB) - 12
6. Baalke (SF) - 10
7. Loomis (NO) - 9

From 2010-2014, Pro Bowlers Selected:
1. Schneider (SEA) - 7
T2. Baalke (SF) - 4
T2. Colbert (PIT) - 4
4. Loomis (NO) - 3
5. Thompson (GB) - 2
T6. Newsome (BAL) - 1
T6. Dimitroff (ATL) - 1

From 2010-2014, 1st Team All-Pros Picked:
T1. Baalke (SF) - 3
T1. Schneider (SEA) - 3
T1. Colbert (PIT) - 3
4. Loomis (NO) - 1
T5. Newsome (BAL) - 0
T5. Dimitroff (ATL) - 0
T5. Thompson (GB) - 0

What these results show: Okay, so it would seem Baalke by these numbers isn't bad at all in terms of finding good players. But let's dig deeper... Some of these teams had much less picks than others, so let's look at percentages for the starters and pro bowlers. That will show us who's truly performing well. Let's look at the findings.

Numbers of Starters / Number of Picks = %Success Rate Drafting Starters:
1. Schneider (SEA) - 39.6%
2. Dimitroff (ATL) - 36.1%
3. Loomis (NO) - 32.1%
4. Newsome (BAL) - 31%
5. Colbert (PIT) - 29.5%
6. Thompson (GB) - 26.7%
7. Baalke (SF) - 20.8%

Findings: Baalke finishes last and well behind the pack of top GMs in terms of overall success rate for finding starters.

Numbers of Pro Bowlers / Number of Picks = %Success Rate Drafting Pro Bowlers:
1. Schneider (SEA) - 14.6%
2. Loomis (NO) - 10.7%
3. Colbert (PIT) - 9.1%
4. Baalke (SF) - 8.3%
5. Thompson (GB) - 4.4%
6. Dimitroff (ATL) - 2.7%
7. Newsome (BAL) - 2.4%

Findings: Baalke finishes among the better GMs in terms of percentage of "big hits" on player.


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Concluding thoughts: Baalke really is a mixed bag. He's had some luck finding some star players, but in the grand scheme of things, the lack of impact players in the long run is the most troubling. Overall, I ultimately find myself totally unsurprised. This is precisely my biggest beef with Baalke. He has never drafted for best overall value on the board and in the long run the team suffers because of his "tunnel vision targeting" style. This style is where they only have specific targets within a separate smaller board and do not deviate unless it's an extreme high value on their overall Big Board. With this methodology you occasionally get the big hit, but most of the rest of your draft suffers because you ignore BPA.

Bottom line: To nab one star but have them surrounded by a bunch of duds ultimately leaves the team overall in a very poor state, which is what we're seeing now. Baalke has not done a good job obtaining overall value across his picks so it is my determination, based on the evidence, that Baalke falls among the "average" tier of GMs, or slightly above the median at best in terms of his draft success as the GM.

OTC, you're the man, great break down, appreciate the work

Originally posted by vermonator:
My question is, if the 49ers go 4 and 12 does he keep his job? You can blame Kap all you want, but Baalke hand picked Martin, Devey, and Pears, when he had the cap room to sign better players. He just tries too hard to find a deal, and the team has been suffering for it. I'm done with Baalke and don't foresee any success if he is still in charge of the roster.

Handpicked? I think he just took the best OL on the scrapheap. I don't think he knew AD was going to retire, and I am assuming it didn't look like we'd have $ for Iupati (which later changed after releasing Raymac, Aldon, Willis retiring, etc...). Not stoked about Baalke right now but no point piling on with stuff that isn't true.

Originally posted by BSofSF:
Agreed. Like hiring and firing coaching staffs. What marks do we give Baalke for terminating Harbaugh and his staff and replacing it with Jim Tomsula and his crew? Let me rank it for you.

1) Top GM
...
(rest of league)
...
32) Baalke

This post is so stupid it hurts. It's pretty obvious at this point the real problem was with Jed and Harbaugh.

Originally posted by shmuck:

Originally posted by BSofSF:
Agreed. Like hiring and firing coaching staffs. What marks do we give Baalke for terminating Harbaugh and his staff and replacing it with Jim Tomsula and his crew? Let me rank it for you.

1) Top GM
...
(rest of league)
...
32) Baalke

This post is so stupid it hurts. It's pretty obvious at this point the real problem was with Jed and Harbaugh.

Mmm...I've read conflicting reports on that one. So, if we agree that swapping the Harbaugh staff for the Tomsula staff was not a good move, then either A) Baalke had a hand in the decision, or B) Baalke was too weak to talk Jed York out of making a foolish decision. Either way, Baalke looks highly complicit in one of the most stupid front office moves in the history of sports. I think it's relevant to this thread, since a GM does more than draft players and sign free agents. You can't rank Baalke without taking into consideration his hand in this monumental blunder. And you know York ain't going to take the fall for it.

Originally posted by communist:

Originally posted by BSofSF:
Agreed. Like hiring and firing coaching staffs. What marks do we give Baalke for terminating Harbaugh and his staff and replacing it with Jim Tomsula and his crew? Let me rank it for you.

1) Top GM
...
(rest of league)
...
32) Baalke

perhaps we should open a "I hate Baalke"-thread in order to get rid of users like you in threads like this one, hm?

Guys, if you don't want to discuss on rational basis instead of an emotional one, plz stay out of this thread. Thank you.

It's rational. You can't put a number on it. But chasing off a culture of winning and a quality coaching staff is as impactful as his drafts. Bum Phillips once defined a great coach as (paraphrasing) a guy who can beat you with his'n, then swap sides and beat you with your'n. That's the type of coach that Harbaugh was. Baalke had a role in chasing him out of town. It counts.