So in essence, you're saying :
Baumgartner is a solid pick but he'll need more work on his overall game
and
Devils were damn lucky to find Jesper Bratt
No, more like:
1) Late round draft steals are not found by targeting players with good analytic numbers, because the numbers could be skewed due to a litany of variables. Late round steals are more often found by targeting players with standout physical tools (Jesper Bratt, Connor Garland) and intangibles (John Marino, Ethan Bear) who are overlooked due to correctible flaws (ie: poor first step, trying to do too much on a poor team, positioning) or myths (ie: "player is too small for NHL" and the utterly ridiculous "defenseman who does not score enough").
2) The Devils may have drafted Baumgartner because of some standout analytic statistics. To me, he is a fine pick because his tool kit is decent and he has a nice motor, but he is not the quality of recent Devils late round (5th-7th rounds) picks because he lacks a standout physical tool (ie: Bratt, Gritsyuk) or standout intangibles (ie: Talvitie, Moynihan) and is not the type of player for whom the improvement of a simple correctible flaw could impel his entire skill-set to take off (ie: Pasic, Tyce Thompson).
3) This does not mean the Baumgartner pick was
a bad pick. There are no
bad picks in the 6th round. But there certainly are
good picks in the 6th round and a couple of them may have been taken soon afterwards.
Because as cute as we can get with the analytic numbers, none of them have proven as reliable as "Veeti Miettinen scored 42 goals in 52 games". Because, sure the Finnish juniors are not as strong as the Swiss men's league where Baumgartner played, but Miettinen is two years younger and quite frankly I'm impressed if someone scores 42 goals in 52 games in a beer league at Chelsea Piers. Or how about: "Evgeni Oksentyuk had 33 goals and 45 assists in 53 games with Flint of the OHL". Though Oksentyuk is also -- like Baumgartner -- an undersized overager (though Oksentyuk is one year younger), he's got unbelievable hands and really dominated in his first season in North America. To me, these would have been
good picks.
We can talk all day about "the percentage of high-danger scoring chances per game" Baumgartner created as a 20 year old in the Swiss league, but the fact is that this is a statistic which, we hope, will lead to point production at higher levels. But no statistic has correlated so well with "point production at higher levels" as much as "point production at lower levels" -- so why are we ignoring this for a kid coming off a draft+2 season of 7 goals and 2o assists in 37 games? The year before, in Swiss juniors (a lower level than Swedish juniors), Baumgartner had 26 points in 23 games.
Can Benjamin Baumgartner make the NHL? Of course he can. And I sure hope he does. Like I said, he has a nice motor and plays a passionate 200-foot game with some degree of skill. But with every pick you must weigh highest possible reward against lowest possible risk, and Baumgartner may not have been the best possible answer in either respect.
Yes, the Devils were lucky that Jesper Bratt fell to the 6th round in 2016. But it was also a great pick which we may not have made were we weighing the analytics over old-school scouting methods which indicated that -- despite posting so-so numbers in a men's league as a teenager -- Bratt was a terrific skater with elite or near elite hands, vision, and offensive instincts. The biggest knocks against him were his size -- which is ridiculous -- and his 200-foot play/physicality -- which is also ridiculous, considering he was an offense-first teenager playing in a men's league.
Last year, the Devils were lucky that a player with off-the-charts intangibles like Patrick Moynihan fell to the 6th round, and this year as an NCAA freshman he clearly out-performed NCAA freshman drafted in the 2nd/3rd rounds like Robert Mastrosimone, John Farinacci and Quinn Olson. Heck, he was superior to Matthew Boldy, who was drafted #12 overall! Will Moynihan wind up better than Boldy? It's highly unlikely -- Boldy's tool kit is ridiculous. But will Moynihan turn out better than Mastrosimone, Farniacci and Olson? Right now, it sure looks like it -- and that would make him one whale of a 6th round pick!
My criticisms concerning Baumgartner are ultimately not about Baumgartner at all, it's about getting away from what the Devils did to succeed in the late rounds between 2016-19. In the end, I wish Baumgartner the best and will root for him every step of the way. I hope he proves all of my doubts wrong and succeeds past anyone's expectations.