Is 50-50 good?

I heard two different sports radio hosts last week make the proclamation that taking a quarterback in the first round was a 50-50 proposition. One went down the list of the guys taken in the last ten years and figured that 8-10 of the 18 players on the list were busts. Another looked at all of the quarterbacks taken number one overall and came to the same conclusion.

It's an exercise I've engaged in myself, but it misses the main point. Even if you take the 50-50 measure as gospel, how does that compare to draft choices at other positions?

To answer that question, I looked at all of the first round draft choices from 1979-2003 -- a twenty-five year period that excludes guys who are too young to pass judgment on, and here's what I found.

1) The overall success rate for first round picks is 59 percent. That's how many of the players drafted went on to spend at least five season as a starter. Thirty-seven percent of the first-round picks went to at least one Pro Bowl.

2) Running backs are the riskiest pick, but they're boom or bust. Only 41% of them taken in the first round spend five seasons as a starter -- the lowest for any position. However, the highest percentage of them go on to become Pro Bowl players.

3) Quarterbacks are boom or bust, too. Fifty percent don't make it, but you've got a better chance of getting a superstar at quarterback than any other position. Forty percent go on to become Pro Bowl players. What's more, eight percent of QBs taken in the first round go on to the Hall of Fame, and that number's deflated when you consider that there were at least three HOF-caliber QBs active last year (Favre, Manning, Brady).

4) Teams use more picks on defensive linemen than any other position. Over the 25 year period, they accounted for 21.3% of all first round picks -- even though they only account for 3 or 4 of the 22 starting positions. The success rate for them (62% 5-year starters, 32% Pro bowlers) isn't much better than average, suggesting that teams make more reaches at these positions than any other.

5) Teams use fewer picks on offensive linemen, even though they are by far the safest pick. Seventy percent of them become five-years starters, by far the highest total for any position. It's 72% for guards, 70% for centers, and 69% for tackles. Only 17% of first round picks are used on offensive linemen, even though they account for almost a quarter of the starters.

6) Defensive tackles are also overlooked. Seventy percent become starters, and 43 percent of the DTs taken in the first round end up going to at least one Pro Bowl.

7) Kickers and punters shouldn't go in the first round. Two teams have used a first round pick on them in the past 25 years. The Raiders selected kicker Sebastian Janikowski in 2000, and the Saints tabbed punter Russell Erxleben in 1979. Neither guy ever went to a Pro Bowl, which seems like the bare minimum you can ask for a kicker taken in the first round. (I hate to play the "who else could they have picked" game, but Erxleben went two spots ahead of Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow, and Janikowski went two spots ahead of RB Shaun Alexander.)

Here's the raw data:

    Percentage by Position    Total
    ProBowl  5+ St    HOF     Picks
OL   37.9    70.2     3.2      124
LB   38.8    66.3     2.5       80
TE   39.1    65.2     4.3       23
DL   31.8    62.3     1.3      154 
DB   38.9    61.1     2.8      108
WR   35.0    52.5     2.5       80
QB   40.0    50.0     8.0       50
RB   41.6    40.6     3.0      101
K/P   0.0     0.0     0.0        2

Tot  37.2    59.0     2.9      722

I think it's important to point out that this is not predictive data... it doesn't mean that every team should take an offensive linemen, because there are never going to be 32 linemen worthy of being drafted in the first round. This is historical data that should serve to provide some parameters for what constitutes success. Thirty percent of O-Linemen are busts, fifty percent of quarterbacks, and sixty percent of running backs. Let the buyer beware.

Athletes and Taxes

It's income tax day across America, and if it's not your favorite day of the year, just be thankful you're not a professional athlete. A recent article in the LA Times explains that 20 of the 24 states with major league franchises (the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball) have laws that require visiting athletes to pay state income tax for each game they play there. Kevin Baxter of the Los Angeles Times took an in-depth look at the issue.

Considering that top-level athletes in football, basketball, hockey and baseball now make an annual average salary of $2.9 million, that means big bucks for states such as California. Home to 15 major professional teams, the state raked in $102 million in taxes from visiting athletes in 2006-07, the last year for which records are available.

Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies will play in 16 different states this year, plus the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of Ontario. How'd you like to be the accountant in charge of that tax return?

"The book's like this big," says Angels' pitcher Darren Oliver, holding his thumb and index finger a couple of inches apart, says of the tax documents he filed this year. Each April, he pays a small army of accountants to file more than a hundred pages of returns -- and sometimes checks -- to as many as a dozen states and one province in Canada, covering taxes on income he earned on the road.

Award Winner

Word came earlier this week that my book, The Pro Football Historical Abstract, has won the Nelson Ross Award. It's presented annually by the Professional Football Researchers' Association for "outstanding achievement in pro football research and historiography." I'm grateful and humbled by the honor, particularly since it comes from a group of dedicated folks who really know their stuff.

Why Million Dollar Athletes Go Broke

Warren Buffett is good at managing his money. So is Bill Gates, apparently, and so is Mike Bloomberg.

You know who's not great at managing their money? Guys who leave college to play pro sports.

Sports Illustrated has a great piece this week about how and why these guys who sign million dollar contracts almost always end up broke. We've all read the anecdotes. Just this year, ex-Broncos running back Travis Henry was jailed for failure to pay child support. Panthers receiver Mushin Muhammad put his house up for sale after being sued for outstanding credit card debts. Saints running back Deuce McAllister filed for bankruptcy protection for the Mississipi based car dealership he owns.

In his article, Pablo Torres goes beyond the random stories and compiles some hard data:

• By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.
  
• Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke.
  
• Numerous retired MLB players have been similarly ruined, and the current economic crisis is taking a toll on some active players as well.
  

Torres documents scores of Major league players who have lost their savings or had their assets frozen because of fraudulent investment gurus like Bernie Madoff and Robert Allen Stanford. But it's not just the big crooks who come after the athletes. These athletes fall prey to "advisors" that come recommended by friends, many of whom are completely unqualified. According to the NFL Players Association, at least 78 players lost a total of more than $42 million between 1999 and 2002 because they trusted money to financial advisers with questionable backgrounds.

Aside from shaky investments, what are the other reasons why most pro athletes end up broke? Some of it is just lavish spending. Young kids with little impulse control suddenly have more money than they ever imagined. They buy cars and Rolex watches and spend $20,000 on a big night out at a nightclub. Many of them find it hard to say no to friends and family members who want to share in the newfound prosperity.

But Torres relates a story told by Raghib "Rocket" Ismail, who described a conversation he had with Panthers' owner Jerry Richardson, a former NFL player turned succesful businessman. "What's the most dangerous thing that could happen to us financially?" he asked. "Without blinking an eye," Ismail recalls, "Mr. Richardson said, 'Divorce.'"

In a survey reported by the financial-services firm Rothstein Kass in December, more than 80% of the 178 athletes polled—each with a minimum net worth of $5 million and two thirds under the age of 30—said they were "concerned about being involved in unjust lawsuits and/or divorce proceedings." By common estimates among athletes and agents, the divorce rate for pro athletes ranges from 60% to 80%. In divorce proceedings, of course, husbands routinely lose half of their net worth. But for athletes there is an aggravating factor: when the divorce happens. Most splits occur in retirement, when the player's peak earnings period is long over and making a comparable living is virtually impossible. Such timing is no accident.

It's a great piece, and I think it helps to explain why, in an era when guys can earn hundreds of millions of dollars in their careers, none of them ever end up on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans.

The Difference Between Bloggers and Journalists

Newspapers are dying.  The closing of the Rocky Mountain News last week was a sign of how bad things have gotten in the business.  I spent five years writing for the New York Sun before they stopped printing last September, and like it or not, many other and bigger papers will suffer the same fate.  The current economy doesn't help, but the root cause of the problem is a business model that just doesn't work any more.  Paper and ink dailies just don't make sense.

But I firmly believe that journalism is still vitally important, and that there will continue to be a market for good writing, good reporting, and that inquisitive drive to chase down a story.  Too many bloggers are just guys that stay at home and spout their opinions. There's a role for that, I suppose, just like there's a role for local sports radio call-in shows.  But we need people like Selena Roberts who will travel across the country to ask questions.  We need folks like Alan Schwarz who'll pursue a story that nobody else is giving a voice to.  We need writers like Jeff Pearlman, who will do the leg work to tell a story that gives depth and context to current events.

Pearlman filed a story for Sports Illustrated today, a kind of sidebar to the tragic story of three friends who presumably drowned in a boating accident over the weekend, two of whom were active NFL players.  He recalled a story that hadn't made it into his book about the 1986 Mets, where one of that team's young pitchers had been involved in a similar incident.

Over the past few days, as news outlets relay the saga of the four athletes recently lost in the waters off of Clearwater, Fla., a handful of people have found themselves sent back through time, to a nightmare eerily similar in geography and circumstance to the one of present day.

On Feb. 28, 2009, two NFL veterans, Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, along with former University of South Florida players Will Bleakley and Nick Schuyler, were anchored 38 miles offshore, fishing, when rough waters capsized their 21-foot boat.

On Oct. 30, 1983, three Red Sox minor leaguers, [Tony] Latham, John Mitchell and Scott Skripko, along with Mark Zastrowmy, a native Floridian and owner of the boat, were roughly 10 miles offshore, fishing, when rough waters capsized their 17-foot boat.

In 2009 three of the men were apparently lost, while the fourth, Schuyler, survived by holding on to the side of the boat for more than 30 hours.

In 1983 two of the men, Latham and Zastrowmy, were lost. Skripko, an outfielder, survived by holding on to a cooler for 20 hours, while Mitchell, a pitcher, survived by holding on to a bucket for 22 hours.

It's a gripping story in it's own right, but it helps to bring the tragedy of this weekend's events into sharper focus.  Pealrman goes a step further at his own website, talking about how the events in Florida this weekend jogged his memory about that incident 25 years ago, and how he did the research to build that into a story.  Starting with just the name of one person, he worked the phones until he tracked down the players involved and their surviving relatives.  He describes each of the steps he took to go from the kernel of an idea to a fully-formed story.

STEP 8: I again turn to Nexis, and look up people named “Latham” in Robersonville, N.C. Forty-three names pop up. I call the first, ask if she’s related to a Tony Latham who played baseball. “I wish,” she says. “I could use the money.” I call the second. An older woman answers. “My name is Jeff Pearlman,” I say, “and I write for Sports Illustrated’s website. I am looking for anyone related to a baseball player named Tony Latham.”

“Well,” says the woman, “I don’t know a Tony Latham—but Anthony Latham was my son.”

We proceed to speak for 30 minutes (or so). She is a wonderful interview—sad and reflective, good memory. She gives me the number of her second-oldest daughter, Vickie, who I call shortly thereafter. She, too, is excellent—and even provides photos.

In the span of, oh, an hour, I’ve gone from having nothing about Tony Latham, to having his entire life story.

Pearlman is a great writer, and he reminds us why good reporters will always find an outlet, even if (when) newspapers disappear completely.  At the end of the day, it's not about the medium.  It's about telling compelling stories.