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Trent Baalke and knee injuries


pwny

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It's no secret that Trent Baalke loves his players coming off of major knee injuries. And as the Jaguars drafted multiple players coming off of knee injuries, I thought it would be a good time to review those players and their success in the league.

Below are a list of the players that Baalke drafted who were coming off of significant knee injuries, as well as their AV in the league. For the purposes of this exercise, I will only include players that he drafted while he was the primary decision maker for the team, and not while he had other significant roles on the team but wasn't the primary decision maker. In speaking with some 49ers fans, his tenure as the lead decision maker began in 2010 when he was named VP of Personnel, and continued through his time as GM from 2011 to 2016.

In talking with @N4L and @Forge, they identified 7 players from 2013 through 2016 that Baalke drafted with knee injuries. This article when Baalke was fired making note of all the Twitter jokes about Baalke and ACL injuries also notes that there were seven players he selected with knee injuries. The list below appears to be the full list during Baalke's tenure.

2013 - 40 - Tank Carradine, IDL
2013 - 131 - Marcus Lattimore, RB
2014 - 100 - Brandon Thomas, IOL
2014 - 170 - Keith Reaser, CB
2014 - 245 - Trey Millard, FB
2015 - 132 - DeAndre Smelter, WR
2016 - 68 - Will Redmond, S

At least at the surface, this is quite clearly not a great list.

So let's dive in.

Tank Carradine - Career AV of 6 - Played in 44 games, started in 8
In total, the average career AV of the next 10 draft picks after Tank was 31.0
The next IDL taken was Kawaan Short, with a career AV of 42. In total, three IDL were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 38.

Marcus Lattimore - Career AV of 0 - Never played a single snap
The average career AV of the next 10 draft picks was 5.5. This includes two other players with a career 0AV.
In total, five RBs were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 9.8.

Brandon Thomas - Career AV of 0 - Never played a single snap
The average career AV of the next 10 draft picks was 16.0. This includes one other player with a career 0AV.
In total, three OL were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 22.0. In fairness, the next two OL after that full round also have career 0 AVs.

Keith Reaser - Career AV of 1 - Played in 30 games.
The picks directly surrounding this one are mostly pretty big flops as well. There's a lot of 0's, 1's and 2's. There's a couple outliers here that really skew the average so I won't give that, but the median of the next 10 picks is 2 career AV. 
In total, five CBs were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 5.6. This includes one other with a 0 career AV.

Trey Millard - Career AV of 0 - Never played a single snap.
Of the 11 players drafted after him until the end of the draft, 7 of them have a 0 career AV. Pretty normal waste of a late 7th round pick.

DeAndre Smelter - Career AV of 0 - Played 50 snaps, with one touch in his NFL career
The average career AV of the next 10 draft picks was 12.8. This includes two players with a career 0AV, one with a 1, and 2 with 2.
In total, five WRs were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 14.6. This includes one other with a 0 AAV, as well as Stefon Diggs who will assuredly continue to pile on to his career AV.

Will Redmon - Career AV of 3 - Never played for the 49ers, but did get healthy and has become a member of the Packers.
The average career AV of the next 10 draft picks was 15.8. This includes fellow CB KeiVarae Russell, who has a career AV of 1.
In total, four CBs were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 10.5.

 

I had planned to compare Baalke's other draft picks of similar range to these "high risk, high upside" players to get a reference point to compare that against, but these results are so terrible that the data does even need to be discussed. I will simply note that Baalke drafted 13 players in the 2nd and 3rd round. Of the 10 that aren't listed above, their average AV is 15.7.

 

 

Summary

Baalke took seven players with knee injuries in his time with the 49ers. Those seven players combined for 10 career AV. For reference of what a number in this range means, Taven Bryan has a career AV of 9.

The combined average of the next ten picks averaged 83.1, over 8 times the value of Baalke's knee injury selections.
The combined average of players at the same position over the course of the next round totaled 100.5, ten times higher than that of Baalke's picks.

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3 hours ago, pwny said:

It's no secret that Trent Baalke loves his players coming off of major knee injuries. And as the Jaguars drafted multiple players coming off of knee injuries, I thought it would be a good time to review those players and their success in the league.

Below are a list of the players that Baalke drafted who were coming off of significant knee injuries, as well as their AV in the league. For the purposes of this exercise, I will only include players that he drafted while he was the primary decision maker for the team, and not while he had other significant roles on the team but wasn't the primary decision maker. In speaking with some 49ers fans, his tenure as the lead decision maker began in 2010 when he was named VP of Personnel, and continued through his time as GM from 2011 to 2016.

In talking with @N4L and @Forge, they identified 7 players from 2013 through 2016 that Baalke drafted with knee injuries. This article when Baalke was fired making note of all the Twitter jokes about Baalke and ACL injuries also notes that there were seven players he selected with knee injuries. The list below appears to be the full list during Baalke's tenure.

2013 - 40 - Tank Carradine, IDL
2013 - 131 - Marcus Lattimore, RB
2014 - 100 - Brandon Thomas, IOL
2014 - 170 - Keith Reaser, CB
2014 - 245 - Trey Millard, FB
2015 - 132 - DeAndre Smelter, WR
2016 - 68 - Will Redmond, S

At least at the surface, this is quite clearly not a great list.

So let's dive in.

Tank Carradine - Career AV of 6 - Played in 44 games, started in 8
In total, the average career AV of the next 10 draft picks after Tank was 31.0
The next IDL taken was Kawaan Short, with a career AV of 42. In total, three IDL were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 38.

Marcus Lattimore - Career AV of 0 - Never played a single snap
The average career AV of the next 10 draft picks was 5.5. This includes two other players with a career 0AV.
In total, five RBs were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 9.8.

Brandon Thomas - Career AV of 0 - Never played a single snap
The average career AV of the next 10 draft picks was 16.0. This includes one other player with a career 0AV.
In total, three OL were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 22.0. In fairness, the next two OL after that full round also have career 0 AVs.

Keith Reaser - Career AV of 1 - Played in 30 games.
The picks directly surrounding this one are mostly pretty big flops as well. There's a lot of 0's, 1's and 2's. There's a couple outliers here that really skew the average so I won't give that, but the median of the next 10 picks is 2 career AV. 
In total, five CBs were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 5.6. This includes one other with a 0 career AV.

Trey Millard - Career AV of 0 - Never played a single snap.
Of the 11 players drafted after him until the end of the draft, 7 of them have a 0 career AV. Pretty normal waste of a late 7th round pick.

DeAndre Smelter - Career AV of 0 - Played 50 snaps, with one touch in his NFL career
The average career AV of the next 10 draft picks was 12.8. This includes two players with a career 0AV, one with a 1, and 2 with 2.
In total, five WRs were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 14.6. This includes one other with a 0 AAV, as well as Stefon Diggs who will assuredly continue to pile on to his career AV.

Will Redmon - Career AV of 3 - Never played for the 49ers, but did get healthy and has become a member of the Packers.
The average career AV of the next 10 draft picks was 15.8. This includes fellow CB KeiVarae Russell, who has a career AV of 1.
In total, four CBs were taken over the course of the next round, with an average career AV of 10.5.

 

I had planned to compare Baalke's other draft picks of similar range to these "high risk, high upside" players to get a reference point to compare that against, but these results are so terrible that the data does even need to be discussed. I will simply note that Baalke drafted 13 players in the 2nd and 3rd round. Of the 10 that aren't listed above, their average AV is 15.7.

 

 

Summary

Baalke took seven players with knee injuries in his time with the 49ers. Those seven players combined for 10 career AV. For reference of what a number in this range means, Taven Bryan has a career AV of 9.

The combined average of the next ten picks averaged 83.1, over 8 times the value of Baalke's knee injury selections.
The combined average of players at the same position over the course of the next round totaled 100.5, ten times higher than that of Baalke's picks.

Great research appreciate it.

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5 minutes ago, JaguarCrazy2832 said:

So this is a little concerning right

I don't think so personally, no.

We took two guys who had high end pedigree. ACLs aren't career diminishing. Just more funny than anything that he seems to have a fascination about it, even though Little seems more like an Urban pick based on his background with him and Coach Shaw.

One of the players listed for sure had questions on even being able to play again in Lattimore. His injury was WAY more than an ACL.

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1 hour ago, .Buzz said:

I don't think so personally, no.

We took two guys who had high end pedigree. ACLs aren't career diminishing. Just more funny than anything that he seems to have a fascination about it, even though Little seems more like an Urban pick based on his background with him and Coach Shaw.

One of the players listed for sure had questions on even being able to play again in Lattimore. His injury was WAY more than an ACL.

There’s definitely reason to be excited about these and think they might be different. In the case of Little, he’s had over a year to rehab already and the team has been able to see him work out post-rehab. Cisco was far enough along in his recovery that he was able to start workouts again the week leading up to the draft.

I think the bigger concern is that after 7 straight duds, it’d fairly obvious that he doesn’t know how to eval guys coming off knee injuries and assess their value. Its very possible that if there was something that could be missed regarding the, he missed it. After all, these guys didn’t drop well below where their talent would lead you to believe they should go because rehab from the injuries don’t come with high risks. 

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2 hours ago, pwny said:

There’s definitely reason to be excited about these and think they might be different. In the case of Little, he’s had over a year to rehab already and the team has been able to see him work out post-rehab. Cisco was far enough along in his recovery that he was able to start workouts again the week leading up to the draft.

I think the bigger concern is that after 7 straight duds, it’d fairly obvious that he doesn’t know how to eval guys coming off knee injuries and assess their value. Its very possible that if there was something that could be missed regarding the, he missed it. After all, these guys didn’t drop well below where their talent would lead you to believe they should go because rehab from the injuries don’t come with high risks. 

Oh, I'm not saying these guys will hit or anything. Just that these previous misses seem more like bad evaluation/development? Just like these could end up being too. But I also think Urban had a massive hand based on all the connections he had with most every pick outside of Cisco/Smith.

A kid coming off an ACL is worrisome in my mind just due to the lack of game tape. As I said in the Draft thread, you have a guy like Marvin Wilson who was viewed as a top 10 pick in this year's draft prior to the college season last year then completely flopped and may not even make a roster next year. That very well couldve happened with Little and Cisco too, who knows. 

Taking these guys definitely presents risk (same goes for Tufele, as although he's not coming off an injury it's still a year off), but had they played you very well could have had zero chance and/or had to take them where you took Etienne and Campbell. It's a risk/reward, but I'm a-ok taking that chance with a mid 2nd/3rd for that type of upside. Just depends what you prefer.

I also don't think, looking at that list, that those players outside of Tank and Lattimore (who again, I'd put in a different category probably with what he went though) were as highly viewed/had the type of hype Little or Cisco had (top 10 for Little, round 1 for Cisco while being out of Syracuse), but maybe I'm wrong.

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1 hour ago, .Buzz said:

I also don't think, looking at that list, that those players outside of Tank and Lattimore (who again, I'd put in a different category probably with what he went though) were as highly viewed/had the type of hype Little or Cisco had (top 10 for Little, round 1 for Cisco while being out of Syracuse), but maybe I'm wrong.

Brandon Thomas and Will Redmon were pretty comparable the hype around Cisco, from what I remember. Tank on the level of Little, where he was supposed to be a cornerstone of a franchise if he was healthy. 

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5 hours ago, .Buzz said:

I don't think so personally, no.

We took two guys who had high end pedigree. ACLs aren't career diminishing. Just more funny than anything that he seems to have a fascination about it, even though Little seems more like an Urban pick based on his background with him and Coach Shaw.

One of the players listed for sure had questions on even being able to play again in Lattimore. His injury was WAY more than an ACL.

I mean, things have come a long ways over the years...but an ACL can absolutely still be a career changer.  It can be especially impactful at such a crucial transition point of a player's career - moving from the college game to the pros.  Which can also partially obscure just how much of a factor it is...if you never really get the "fully healthy" player ever again...vs it just being a case of a player not translating in general.

 

It offers an interesting risk/reward proposition.  Clearly Baalke views it as a means to obtain "higher pedigree" players at "discount draft value".  And at times, it really can be.  But the notion of a risk/reward proposition inherently contains risk.  And as those compiled numbers illustrate...Baalke certainly doesn't appear to have a crystal ball for seeing how knee injuries are going to come out the other end.

 

The thing with a significant knee injury, is that the repairs may be getting better and better...it's still not just a bionic "better than ever" replacement.  It still has downsides and a lot of "less than 100%" restorations.  But more than just the physical aspect of repairing and rehabilitating it, those kind of significant injuries can have a heavy mental component.  Happens all the time, where you see players come back from an injury like that...and are never quite the same, never quite trust it the same, or whatever the individual case may be.  Even if the "repair" is medically sound and should be good to go.

 

It's a lot to get excited about, and on draft day especially...it's easy to look like an absolute goldmine of "free bonus value".  But you always have to remember with these type of injury risk guys who "slip" a bit...that if it weren't a notable risk factor, everyone would be scooping them up before Baalke gets the chance.  The fact they've slipped to where they have...is a reflection of how 31 other Teams evaluate and assess the risk/reward balance point.

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7 hours ago, Tugboat said:

I mean, things have come a long ways over the years...but an ACL can absolutely still be a career changer.  It can be especially impactful at such a crucial transition point of a player's career - moving from the college game to the pros.  Which can also partially obscure just how much of a factor it is...if you never really get the "fully healthy" player ever again...vs it just being a case of a player not translating in general.

 

It offers an interesting risk/reward proposition.  Clearly Baalke views it as a means to obtain "higher pedigree" players at "discount draft value".  And at times, it really can be.  But the notion of a risk/reward proposition inherently contains risk.  And as those compiled numbers illustrate...Baalke certainly doesn't appear to have a crystal ball for seeing how knee injuries are going to come out the other end.

 

The thing with a significant knee injury, is that the repairs may be getting better and better...it's still not just a bionic "better than ever" replacement.  It still has downsides and a lot of "less than 100%" restorations.  But more than just the physical aspect of repairing and rehabilitating it, those kind of significant injuries can have a heavy mental component.  Happens all the time, where you see players come back from an injury like that...and are never quite the same, never quite trust it the same, or whatever the individual case may be.  Even if the "repair" is medically sound and should be good to go.

 

It's a lot to get excited about, and on draft day especially...it's easy to look like an absolute goldmine of "free bonus value".  But you always have to remember with these type of injury risk guys who "slip" a bit...that if it weren't a notable risk factor, everyone would be scooping them up before Baalke gets the chance.  The fact they've slipped to where they have...is a reflection of how 31 other Teams evaluate and assess the risk/reward balance point.

I'm not trying to say it has absolutely nothing to do with a drop, but I think it has much more to do with lack of tape or if it happens late and may affect being able to get in those off-season workouts/training camp as a rookie which are vital. Little was already working out with Stanford last year and only optd'd out because of season cancellation. He should be more than 100%. Cisco's happened 6-7 months ago and although he's still working his way back, should be ready before long to get going.

Obviously you don't know how long it'll take them mentally to trust it, but with us being that far past going under the needle and getting their medicals while having very good connections at both schools with medical staff (and HC in Stanford's case) I'm sure they have a pretty accurate idea of what the doctors views are.

I don't see how the ACL had anything to do with Littles drop and all to do with lack of knowing progression. That's the only explanation for Tufele being there in round 4 as well because the tape screams higher than going day 3, albeit the beginning of the day.

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11 hours ago, pwny said:

There’s definitely reason to be excited about these and think they might be different. In the case of Little, he’s had over a year to rehab already and the team has been able to see him work out post-rehab. Cisco was far enough along in his recovery that he was able to start workouts again the week leading up to the draft.

I think the bigger concern is that after 7 straight duds, it’d fairly obvious that he doesn’t know how to eval guys coming off knee injuries and assess their value. Its very possible that if there was something that could be missed regarding the, he missed it. After all, these guys didn’t drop well below where their talent would lead you to believe they should go because rehab from the injuries don’t come with high risks. 

Exactly, thats my concern. I know ACLs aren't a death sentence the way they were when I was a kid but the fact he is 0-7 isnt exactly a good indication he can tell the good from the bad

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53 minutes ago, JaguarCrazy2832 said:

Exactly, thats my concern. I know ACLs aren't a death sentence the way they were when I was a kid but the fact he is 0-7 isnt exactly a good indication he can tell the good from the bad

Guess it depends how large of hand you think Urban and his staff had in the evaluation and who was chosen.

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5 hours ago, .Buzz said:

I'm not trying to say it has absolutely nothing to do with a drop, but I think it has much more to do with lack of tape or if it happens late and may affect being able to get in those off-season workouts/training camp as a rookie which are vital. Little was already working out with Stanford last year and only optd'd out because of season cancellation. He should be more than 100%. Cisco's happened 6-7 months ago and although he's still working his way back, should be ready before long to get going.

Obviously you don't know how long it'll take them mentally to trust it, but with us being that far past going under the needle and getting their medicals while having very good connections at both schools with medical staff (and HC in Stanford's case) I'm sure they have a pretty accurate idea of what the doctors views are.

I don't see how the ACL had anything to do with Littles drop and all to do with lack of knowing progression. That's the only explanation for Tufele being there in round 4 as well because the tape screams higher than going day 3, albeit the beginning of the day.

Lack of tape for little is a factor too, for sure. Obviously, it’s a different scenario when a guy comes back from a knee injury and puts some tape out there indicating they’ve returned or are well on the way to returning to form. 
 

But that’s not the case here, with Little or Cisco. Neither has put film out there showing that they’re “back on track”. That’s where the risk comes in. You don’t know. Nobody can really know. 
 

Hopefully it works out. And obviously this was a weird year with unusual circumstances, so you have to modify your approach a bit. You do what you can and hope for the best. 
 

But there’s very clearly a link between significant pre-draft injuries without post-recovery tape, and “falling” draft stock. Every year, not just this one. 
 

I don’t think it’s just about opting out at all. Tufele has other elements that pushed him to where he went. And there are a bulk of opt out guys from this past year who I’d reckon went right about where you’d expect.

 

I’m sure there were teams out there penalizing these guys for “lack of compete” or some other such Coughlin-esque nonsense. And obviously for a very incomplete player, not having an extra year of development on tape is gonna hurt them, relative to their “hypothetical tape” showing “expected development” for that year. But that’s comparing against a hypothetical trajectory, which doesn’t really mean a lot of anything. Just like draft rankings a full year out. Teams draft the player they’ve seen on the football field, and how they think that projects. 
 

It’s just a universal theme, year after year...that the day after the draft, you’re going to get the most “pedigree value” by selecting a cadre of injured players who haven’t got back to playing, or character red flags. This year wasn’t special in that regard at all. 
 

But Baalkes numbers running these sort of gambles with the Niners illustrate how winning the day after the draft, isn’t always winning the long game. 
 

I hope these things work out for us. And there are reasons for optimism that they will. But it’s not an ingenious foolproof way of mining extra value out of the draft by simply hand waving away injury concerns that have clearly impacted other teams evaluations and projections of that players likely outcome and “value”. It’s...gambling. Just hopefully, in a calculated, educated way. Though the track record here doesn’t necessarily show that to have been the case with Baalke in the past. 

Edited by Tugboat
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It’s definitely concerning that he took 4 players who were supposed to be premium players on a discount; Tank, Lattimore, Thomas, Redmon and the 49ers got a whole 6 AV out of it, combined. Three of these supposed to be premium players never played even one down for the 49ers. 

That’s disastrously bad. Three guys who never played a single snap, and one guy whose career has had less value than Leon Jacobs; a guy who has played on 16% of the defensive snaps since he’s been on the team and primarily gets his value from being an mid-average special teams player. 

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Since I somehow forgot to put this in the OP, here's the list of the next two players at the same position for all of the picks being discussed.

Tank Carradine - Kawaan Short (42AV), Johnathan Hankins (39AV)
Marcus Lattimore - Denard Robinson (8AV), Stepfan Taylor (3AV)
Brandon Thomas - Bryan Stork (10AV), Russell Bodine (29 AV)
Keith Reaser - Kenneth Acker (5AV), E.J. Gaines (15AV)
Trey Millard - N/A
DeAndre Smelter - Rashad Greene (2 AV), Stefon Diggs (53AV)
Will Redmond - Justin Simmons (31AV), Miles Killebrew (5AV)

 

 

It's also worth noting that the ACL isn't the only injury that Cisco had. He had another undisclosed lower body injury that caused him to miss 3 games in 2019 as well. He's extremely risky, imo.

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16 hours ago, .Buzz said:

Guess it depends how large of hand you think Urban and his staff had in the evaluation and who was chosen.

You would also hope that when asked "in what ways did you fail in san francisco?" baalke wheezes out more than "it was that damned jim harbaugh" and instead wheezes "I took too many risks on injured players" (seriously, have you heard this guy talk? sounds like hes 110 year old man who smokes cigars everyday)

I will never forgive Baalke for the AJ Jenkins pick in 2012. We went to the NFCCG and we were one player away. He never had a single catch for us, and we lost the superbowl by 5 yards the following year. Literally anyone else could have put us over the top. 

We were a stacked roster on the cusp of potentially multiple superbowl rings. Patrick Willis in his prime. Navarro Bowman before that brutal knee injury. Justin Smith. Aldon Smith. Ray Mcdonald was fantastic 3/4 DE who finally put it all together. Ahmad Brooks finally got his head in the game and reached his potential. Hard hitting secondary. Frank Gore. Good OL. Good depth at a lot of spots. We had three losses three years in a row by the slimmest of margins. (ahmad bradshaw fumbled, crabtree was held, and kaep turned the ball over 3 times in the second half)

We were flush with draft picks. We had been accumulating future draft capital in the later rounds. So baalke decided to cash all of this in by drafting injury prone players that he could stash on IR for "next year". Would have been better off pulling a new orleans and trading up to go get quality players. Instead, he wasted his bullets.

Then it all came crumbling down in a house of cards once he got in a power struggle. Bad news all around on that front, but he was absolutely a big cause as to why all of that drama happened. He is not a people person and no one in the building got along with him, apparently. 

Keep in mind this list is just guys with ACL injuries. lol. He had a knack for choosing guys who had issues staying healthy. 

You would have thought you would have had the pick of the litter for GMs. Who wouldnt want a fresh slate with a lot of picks plus trevor freaking lawrence? and yet.... you hired trent baalke of all people. gross. 

Good luck to you guys. See ya in a couple months. Get ready for another butt whoopin like we gave ya in 2017. Hah!! 

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