Ranking the 10 Worst MLB Draft Busts of the Past 10 Years
When the 2015 MLB draft kicks off on June 8, it will mark the first time in three years that a team other than the Houston Astros will have the honor of making the first overall selection. That honor goes to the Arizona Diamondbacks, who last had the top spot in the draft in 2005, taking outfielder Justin Upton.
Upton may not have realized his full potential in a Diamondbacks uniform, but he was certainly a productive player in Arizona, which is something that a handful of teams can't say about their top picks over the past 10 years.
Revisiting past drafts can be a painful experience, especially if your favorite team swung and missed on their selection. The pain only increases when you look at some of the names selected after your favorite team's pick, leaving us to wonder "what if?"
So here we are, breaking down the worst of the worst. The only criterion for inclusion on our list is that a player was a top-15 selection between 2005 and 2014.
Sadly, there were more than enough misses in that pool of talent to choose from. When it comes to ranking those failed picks, we'll look at three things: where a player was picked, how he performed and who a team could have selected instead. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
With that, here's a look at the 10 worst picks—the biggest busts—of the past decade.
10. SP Kasey Kiker, Texas Rangers
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A hard-throwing left-handed starter, Texas drafted Kasey Kiker out of Russell County High School in Seale, Alabama, with the 12th overall pick in the 2006 draft. He'd spend parts of six minor league seasons in the organization, pitching to a 4.53 ERA and 1.54 WHIP and never advancing past Double-A, before being released in 2011.
But as general manager Jon Daniels told Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News in 2010, Kiker wasn't supposed to be the team's selection:
"On draft day, we had already pulled (Tim) Lincecum’s name and were ready to call it. When the Giants drafted, his draft number started with an ‘R’ for ‘Redraft’ and then there was zero and three more digits. When the Giants started to call the number and there was no zero and I thought we got him. Then they called the name. I remember asking our guys if we could have the pick nullified for not calling the zero. Apparently, you didn’t need to call the zero in the draft number.
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While no big-name stars were selected after the Rangers selected Kiker, a handful of players that went on to have varying degrees of success in the big leagues were still available, a list that includes Ian Kennedy (21st), Hank Conger (25th) and Joba Chamberlain (41st).
9. RP Daniel Moskos, Pittsburgh Pirates
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Pittsburgh opted to select hard-throwing left-handed reliever Daniel Moskos out of Clemson University with the fourth overall pick in the 2007 draft not because they felt he was a superior talent to the other players available, but because he was going to be far easier—and less expensive—to sign.
"Matt Wieters should have been a Pirate," team president Frank Coonelly told fans at PirateFest in 2009, per Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who noted that Scott Boras, Wieters' agent, and Dave Littlefield, Pittsburgh's general manager at the time, didn't like each other.
Instead of Wieters—or Madison Bumgarner or Jason Heyward—the Pirates took Moskos, who pitched to a 2.96 ERA and 1.56 WHIP over 24.1 innings of relief in 2011 and was last seen toeing the rubber for the Los Angeles Dodgers' Triple-A affiliate in 2014 before being released in early May.
Over parts of eight minor league seasons, he posted a 4.48 ERA and 1.50 WHIP.
8. 3B Billy Rowell, Baltimore Orioles
3 of 10Baltimore made Billy Rowell the first high school position player to come off the board when it selected him with the ninth overall pick in the 2006 draft, handing the youngster a $2.1 million bonus.
He'd go on to hit just .261 with a .718 OPS over parts of six minor league seasons—including three full years with High-A Frederick—and was slapped with a 50-game suspension for a second failed drug test in 2012, which Rowell later admitted was for marijuana.
After trying unsuccessfully to reinvent himself as a pitcher—arm soreness kept him off the field for the entire 2012 season—Baltimore finally released the then-22-year-old, who hasn't hooked up with another team since.
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7. SP Barret Loux, Arizona Diamondbacks
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Selected with the sixth overall pick in the 2010 draft, Barret Loux was all set to take his physical, sign his contract—which included an agreed-upon $2 million bonus—and begin his professional career as a pitcher in Arizona's farm system.
Except he never got past the physical part of the plan, as Yahoo Sports' Jeff Passan wrote:
"In the Diamondbacks’ eyes, Loux is damaged goods. Their medical staff’s customary MRI on Loux’s arm turned up two red flags. The first: Loux has a tear in his labrum, a shoulder injury that has ended careers. The second: Loux’s elbow, which had bone chips taken out in 2009, showed signs of eventually needing Tommy John surgery.
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Thanks to what was at the time a relatively new MLB rule—one that allowed teams to obtain a compensatory selection the following season if they didn't sign a first-round pick—the Diamondbacks chose to withdraw their offer based on the medical reports and take the extra draft pick in 2011.
While that compensatory pick wound up becoming Archie Bradley, taken seventh overall in the 2011 draft, the D-Backs could have selected fellow starters Matt Harvey or Chris Sale, who went seventh overall to the New York Mets and 13th overall to the Chicago White Sox, respectively, instead of Loux.
Additionally, a handful of players that are just getting their careers going at the major league level were still available, a list that includes Nick Castellanos, Aaron Sanchez, Noah Syndergaard and Christian Yelich, among others.
6. SS Tim Beckham, Tampa Bay Rays
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While he's currently on the disabled list with a strained right hamstring and hasn't been impressive in his first chance at regular playing time in the majors, hitting .213 with a .692 OPS over 37 games, Tim Beckham is only 25 years old and still has a chance to become a useful part of Tampa Bay's roster.
That's the only reason Beckham isn't higher on this list—he still has a chance to prove his detractors wrong.
Still, he's failed to come even remotely close to meeting the expectations that come along with being the first overall pick in the 2008 draft, a selection that only looks worse for the Rays when you consider that they could have taken Eric Hosmer, who went third overall to Kansas City, or Buster Posey, who went fifth overall to San Francisco.
5. 3B Josh Vitters, Chicago Cubs
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Before there was Kris Bryant, the next star third baseman in Chicago was going to be Josh Vitters, selected by the Cubs with the third overall pick in the 2007 draft.
Unlike some of the other players on this list, injuries didn't end Vitters' career, and he put up semi-decent numbers over parts of eight minor league seasons, hitting .272 with a .757 OPS and 80 home runs. But he was a disaster defensively and never lived up to expectations.
When he did get a chance in the big leagues with the Cubs back in 2012, he was a disaster, hitting only .125 with 33 strikeouts in 99 at-bats. Vitters and the club would finally part ways after the 2014 season, and he signed a minor league deal with Colorado back in February.
While the 2007 draft wasn't incredibly deep, Madison Bumgarner, Jason Heyward and Matt Wieters were among the players that Chicago could have opted for instead of Vitters.
4. SP Wade Townsend, Tampa Bay Rays
7 of 10While players selected in the 2004 draft aren't eligible for this list, it's worth noting that Wade Townsend, selected by Tampa Bay with the eighth overall pick in 2005, was also the eighth overall pick in 2004 by Baltimore. However, Townsend opted to return to Rice University for his senior year rather than sign with the Orioles.
It was a decision that would ultimately cost Townsend any shot of reaching the majors, as he'd be overworked at Rice (a trend that ESPN's Keith Law noted in a series of tweets back in 2013) and battle injuries throughout his professional career.
He'd never advance past Double-A and finished his career with a 5.68 ERA and 1.59 WHIP over parts of five minor league seasons before retiring. He's since found his calling as a professional poker player.
According to Jim Callis, writing for Baseball America, Tampa Bay's scouting department were big fans of a high school outfielder out of Florida named Andrew McCutchen, who'd be taken 11th overall by Pittsburgh, but upper management wanted the team to take a more experienced player.
3. C Jeff Clement, Seattle Mariners
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What do Ryan Braun, Jay Bruce, Andrew McCutchen and Ryan Zimmerman all have in common? Aside from the fact that they're All-Stars, any one of them could have been drafted by the Seattle Mariners with the third overall pick in the 2005 draft.
And one of them almost was a Mariner. But, as Jim Callis wrote for Baseball America in his final mock draft of 2005, the club switched gears late in the process and opted to go with USC slugger Jeff Clement instead:
"The Mariners were expected to take Tulowitzki as recently as Friday, but they're looking for a catcher and a power bat. Clement fits the bill on both counts, and as a bonus he's lefthanded. Seattle would gladly snap up (Justin) Upton or (Alex) Gordon if one of them falls to No. 3. Rumors persist that the Mariners are considering Stanford first baseman John Mayberry Jr., their unsigned 2002 first-rounder, but he would be a huge reach.
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In hindsight, even the Mayberry Jr. selection would have been better than taking Clement, who hit a combined .218 with a .648 OPS over parts of four seasons for Seattle and Pittsburgh and would bounce around the minor leagues before announcing his retirement at the start of the 2014 season.
2. SP Greg Reynolds, Colorado Rockies
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For a very short time, Colorado's decision to draft Stanford University's Greg Reynolds with the second overall pick in the 2006 draft didn't look so bad. He'd begin his first full professional season with Double-A Tulsa, pitching to a 1.42 ERA and 0.81 WHIP before a right shoulder injury ended his season.
He was never the same afterward, however, making a total of 33 major league appearances for three different teams—Colorado, Tampa Bay and Cincinnati—finishing his career with a 7.01 ERA and 1.65 WHIP over 123.1 innings of work. He last pitched for the Seibu Lions in Japan in 2014.
The worst part of the whole situation? Reynolds wasn't even supposed to be Colorado's pick.
During a 2012 interview on 850 AM WKOA's Dave Logan Show, co-owner Dick Monfort and then-GM Dan O'Dowd revealed that the team's scouting department was ready to select Evan Longoria, but were overruled by ownership, who believed that the team already had too many third basemen.
In what turned out to be a draft loaded with front-line pitching, Colorado could have taken future award-winners Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum and Max Scherzer, among others.
1. CF Donavan Tate, San Diego Padres
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Some will point to the fact that Donavan Tate was represented by Scott Boras as the reason why San Diego chose to lavish the third overall pick of the 2009 draft with a franchise-record $6.25 million signing bonus, but as MLB.com's Corey Brock recalled in 2013, the Padres were convinced that Tate was a star:
""We've kind of said, worst-case scenario, maybe a Mike Cameron ... somebody that hits .240, .250, a lot of punchouts maybe, but big bombs and plays as good a defense as you get. Durable, athletic, steals a lot of bases," former Padres director of player development Grady Fuson said in 2009.
"Best-case scenario, you got the whole ball of wax. You got an Andruw Jones or something in his best years."
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To say Fuson was way off would be a gross understatement.
Tate underwent sports hernia surgery in October 2009, suffered a broken jaw and cuts to his face after an ATV accident in November 2009 and missed the start of the 2010 season after spraining his left shoulder in spring training.
But wait, there's more!
He'd then proceed to receive a 50-game suspension for a second violation of baseball's drug policy in June 2011, which was eventually cut in half due to substance-abuse counseling that he underwent, and he'd miss all of the 2014 season due to a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Now in his age-24 season, Tate is hitting .243 with a .674 OPS over 18 games for San Diego's High-A affiliate, Lake Elsinore.
Zack Wheeler (sixth overall), Mike Leake (eighth), Drew Storen (10th), A.J. Pollock (17th), Shelby Miller (19th) and James Paxton (37th) were all still available for the Padres to select instead of Tate. So was a high school outfielder that lasted until the 25th pick named Mike Trout, who you may of heard of.
Unless otherwise noted, all draft information and statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.
Hit me up on Twitter to talk all things baseball: @RickWeinerBR
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