MLB Draft Hits and Misses

FixMLB.org ^ | 06/01/12 | FixMLB

[thurmant]

With the Major League Draft just days away (June 4-6), I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the draft booms, busts, and never-were’s.

[ConservativeStatement]

Looking back, after Griffey, Jr., the Pirates drafted a player named Mark Merchant with the #2 pick. The difference of one draft position.

[saganite]

Josh Hamilton came very close to being one of the biggest draft busts in baseball history.

[csmusaret]

I don’t think you will find anyone in the entire history of baseball who was as big a bust as the NFL’s Ryan Leaf.

[Third Person]

Leaf... the big bust that keeps on getting busted.

[Third Person]

Leaf... the big bust that keeps on getting busted.

[Third Person]

And I’m the poster that keeps on posting.

[woodbutcher1963]

DICE K

[barmag25]

I think draft picks are a shot in the dark. For all sports. Ryan Leaf was a sure thing, remember? Pete Rose was an awful prospect and went undrafted, then signed a minor league deal with his home town team.

We all know how those playing careers turned out.

[barmag25]

Its a good thing Ken Griffey Sr. picked baseball over football.

Junior may have never existed. His dad had a football scholarship to Marshall and would have been on the plane when it crashed.

[ConservativeStatement]

Senior was a pretty good player. Beating out infield hits was a specialty. Too bad he lost the batting title on the last day of the season but a 7-0 Playoffs and a World Championship made up for it.

[Buckeye Battle Cry]

I remember that day well. He lost out to Bill Madlock of the Pirates.

[ConservativeStatement]

Do you remember the last inning of the final game of the Series against the Phillies? That was emblematic of the Big Red Machine.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN197610120.shtml

[BookmanTheJanitor]

the worst pick in the last 10 years has been Matt Bush by the Padres as the 1st pick in 2004. The 2nd pick was Justin Verlander. Doh!

[THX 1138]

The NFL and MLB drafts are like night and day.

With football, you can make a reasonable approximation of how players will perform at the pro level as opposed to how they did in college. Granted, "sure things" and "can't misses" flop all the time, and guys come out of nowhere to do well.

But drafting high school and even college kids, and trying to project how they will handle big league pitching, or whether pitchers will be able to get big league hitters out, is a total crapshoot.

The thing that makes NFL and MLB projections totally different is the basic difference in the games. There is nothing that compares to the individual confrontation between pitcher and hitter. That is the toughest thing to project.

[barmag25]

1 Pete Rose 3B
2 Ken Griffey RF
3 Joe Morgan 2B
4 Tony Perez 1B
5 George Foster LF
6 Johnny Bench C
7 Dave Concepcion SS
8 Cesar Geronimo CF
9 Gary Nolan P

Now that’s a lineup.

[copaliscrossing]

The thing that makes NFL and MLB projections totally different is the basic difference in the games. There is nothing that compares to the individual confrontation between pitcher and hitter. That is the toughest thing to project.

You are absolutely correct at least in the pitching department. Hitting seems to be a little more predictable.

Another big difference is the dilution of talent in college baseball because some of the top end high school talent "go pro" instead of college.

My son was drafted out of high school and decided to go to college instead because he was a good student and sees the value of the education. When he was being recruited by a particular college, the coach said the saddest thing is a kid that goes pro out of high school then washes out in the first year. They cannot play the game anymore since their college eligibility has been forfeited. Sometimes the pro teams will guarantee your tuition and books once you "wash out" or finish your pro "career".

[Marathoner 244]

The Pirates have had several bad first round picks sad to say. In football the Raiders pick of JaMarcus Russell was pretty bad too.

[Night Hides Not]

No doubt that the Big Red Machine was a great team, but they sure were surprised by th 1972 A's.

The 72-74 A's were supremely underrated. Their stats weren't gaudy, but they knew how to win the close games. IMHO, Catfish Hunter was one of the greatest "money" pitchers in major league history.

[ConservativeStatement]

I see where Dan Driessen is going into the Reds’ Hall of Fame during this season. That is questionable. But why isn't Fred Norman in the Hall? Other than Pete Rose, he is the only real extended contributor not in the team's Hall. He was as consistent as they came.