B-Ref Top Ten: Late Draft Picks
One of the best ways to waste time online is by digging around on Baseball-Reference. This series explores the top ten Baseball-Reference pages in a given category for the purpose of gawking in amazement, curiosity, and wonder. These are not necessarily the ten best ever, but they are the ten most fascinating. Other installments include Yankee teams, players over 40, batting champs, strikeout masters, and nicknames.
MLB took away my favorite part of the draft. I’m not an ardent draft follower, so I confess to not knowing much about most of the players selected. That makes the late-round picks all the more fun. Hardly anyone really knows much about these guys, so it’s a favorite pastime of mine to find something interesting about at least one late-round pick from each organization. (See here and here.)
That won’t happen this year, as the league reduced the draft from 40 rounds to just five. This will have a profound negative impact on minor league and collegiate baseball, but it will also reduce the talent pool in the major leagues. On average, each team drafts roughly three future major leaguers from rounds 10-40 each year. To memorialize the final 35 rounds, as well as MLB’s shortsightedness, this B-Ref Top Ten celebrates some of the best players selected after round five in MLB history.
10. Kenny Lofton, Round 17
Kenny Lofton’s late-round selection actually makes more sense than his one-and-done Hall of Fame ballot. At the University of Arizona, he was more renowned as a basketball player, reaching the 1988 Final Four. Two and a half months later, the Astros picked him 428th overall. Trading him to Cleveland for a part-time catcher in December 1991 was one of the most regrettable moves in franchise history. He would lead the AL in stolen bases in each of the next five seasons and win four Gold Gloves.
9. John Smoltz, Round 22
Much like Lofton, John Smoltz was a late-round gem traded away too early by his drafting organization. The Lansing, Michigan native would have been a fairy tale story had his hometown Tigers not sent him away. After picking him 574th overall in 1985, they shipped him to Atlanta for 36-year-old pitcher Doyle Alexander. He would spend 20 years with the Braves, winning the 1996 Cy Young and reaching the Hall of Fame in 2015.
8. Ryne Sandberg, Round 20
Maybe the theme of this article should just be bad trades. Ryne Sandberg was the 511th overall pick in 1978 by the Phillies, for whom he recorded one career hit. They traded him to the Cubs following the 1981 season, where he amassed 2,385 hits, as well as the 1984 MVP, nine Gold Gloves, 282 home runs, and 344 stolen bases. The Phillies did bring him back as a manager, but by then, the Cubs logo was already displayed on his Hall of Fame plaque.
7. Anthony Rizzo, Round 6
Never mind his career; getting drafted may have saved Anthony Rizzo’s life. Boston picked him 204th overall in 2007. A month into the 2008 minor league season, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Thankfully, he beat cancer and is in the midst of a stellar career. What would have become of him had he not been a minor leaguer under the Red Sox’s medical care?
6. Wade Boggs, Round 7
Even the Red Sox didn’t realize how special Wade Boggs was. After selecting him 166th overall in 1976, he toiled in the minor leagues for six years, hitting .318 with a .412 on-base percentage. They finally called him up to the majors in 1982, and he hit .349 as a rookie. He would finish his career with a .328 batting average, 3,010 hits, and five batting titles.
5. Jacob deGrom, Round 9
You’ve probably heard Jacob deGrom’s story by now. He was primarily an infielder at Stetson University. The Mets took a chance on him with the 272nd pick in 2010, deciding to convert him to a full-time pitcher. Ten years later, he’s the reigning back-to-back Cy Young winner.
4. Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Rounds 22, 24 (of the same draft!)
With the 594th pick of the 1990 draft, the Yankees grabbed Andy Pettitte off the Texas high school fields. Two rounds later, they named shortstop Jorge Posada 646th overall. The latter was moved behind the plate, and they became the battery that powered the Core Four to five championships.
3. Jim Thome, Round 13
The late rounds of the draft expose how little anyone really knows about baseball, especially with regard to player development. Cleveland drafted Jim Thome 333rd in 1989. In his first minor league season, he played 40 games at shortstop and hit zero home runs in 213 plate appearances. For whatever reason, the team decided not to cut this lanky slap hitter with no power and undoubtedly limited defensive range. A few decades later, he retired with 612 home runs and was elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
2. Mike Piazza, Round 62
In 1988, the Dodgers picked community college first baseman Mike Piazza with the 1,390th pick as a favor to his godfather, Tommy Lasorda. Most teams had given up on the draft by round 62; only seven players were selected in the round. He didn’t hit much in his first two years of pro ball, but in 1991 his power kicked in. He blasted 29 home runs that year in A-ball. He skipped a level in 1992, spending the year in triple-A where he hit .350 with 23 bombs. He would win the NL Rookie of the Year the following season, launching a career as the greatest hitting catcher in MLB history.
1. Albert Pujols, Round 13
In his first ten MLB seasons, Albert Pujols slashed .331/.426/.624 with 408 home runs and three MVPs. His legendary consistency and doninance earned him the nickname “The Machine.” Remarkably, the potential for such unmatched hitting prowess wasn’t remotely apparent until the 402nd pick of the 1999 draft. He would need only one season in the minor leagues, which he spent mostly in single-A, before bashing 37 home runs as a rookie in 2001.
How could one of the greatest hitters in living memory fall so far? MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez explains, “He thought the Rays would make him their second pick, after Hamilton, but they didn’t budge. He was told he could go within the first five rounds, but it never happened. He thought the Mets would get him in the ninth round, but his representative at the time, a lawyer-turned-agent who reportedly scared away teams with his financial demands, overplayed his hand. He thought the Red Sox would take him in Round 10, but they didn’t offer to pay for his schooling, which Pujols required as a fallback option if baseball didn’t work out. The Cardinals wound up getting him on a $30,000 signing bonus, with another $30,000 promised for a college tuition that Pujols ultimately never needed.”
Would there have been an Albert Pujols or a Kenny Lofton this year? Maybe. With the draft shortened to five rounds, we could be losing out on an irreplaceable piece of baseball history.
