Kris Bryant to the Astros and the Biggest MLB Draft 'What Ifs' Since 2010
With the 2021 Major League Baseball draft due up on July 11, now's a good time for a reminder that every team will eventually have a few regrets about how their draft went.
They just better hope these regrets aren't as painful as the ones we're about to discuss.
We cranked up the ol' "What if..." machine and looked back on critical miscalculations that teams have made with high draft picks since 2010. This involved looking back on picks that could have happened and—save for one notable exception—indeed should have happened.
For simplicity's sake, we'll proceed in chronological order.
What If the Pirates Had Chosen Manny Machado in 2010?
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Actual Pick: Jameson Taillon at No. 2
Going into the 2010 draft, it was obvious that noted Sports Illustrated cover model Bryce Harper was the top talent available. Accordingly, it was equally obvious that he would go No. 1 to the Washington Nationals.
It was up to the Pittsburgh Pirates, then, to decide which player was the draft's second-best talent. They eventually settled on two high schoolers: a right-hander out of Texas named Jameson Taillon and a shortstop out of Florida named Manny Machado.
"I can go back and tell you, 'Man, I really loved Jameson. And I absolutely loved Manny.' Both are true," Greg Smith, Pittsburgh's scouting director at the time, told Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic.
Whether it was because slugging third baseman Pedro Alvarez was already skyrocketing through their system or some other reason, the Pirates ultimately leaned toward Taillon with the No. 2 pick. Alas, his pro career quickly came to be defined by health issues, including two Tommy John surgeries.
Machado, meanwhile, went to the Baltimore Orioles at No. 3 and has been one of baseball's five best players since his debut in 2012. Who knows? With him in the fold alongside MVP Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh's playoff runs in 2013, 2014 and 2015 might have actually yielded a series victory.
What If the Royals Had Chosen Chris Sale in 2010?
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Actual Pick: INF Christian Colon at No. 4
With Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas already rising within their farm system, the Kansas City Royals nabbed another promising young infielder when they drafted Christian Colon fourth overall in 2010.
But whereas Colon entered the Royals' system with the potential of one day becoming a .300 hitter with power, he stopped appearing in top-100 prospect lists after 2011 and has still yet to find any footing in the majors. In just 161 career games, he's a .249 hitter with one home run.
If only the Royals had drafted Chris Sale instead.
Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus—and later the Houston Astros—liked Sale for the Royals in theory. According to Andy McCollough of The Athletic, so did some of Kansas City's scouts and executives. What steered the team away from Sale, though, were concerns over "the body, the delivery, durability concerns."
Sale went to the Chicago White Sox at No. 13 and was in the majors by August, thereby beginning a career that's thus far netted him seven All-Star berths. And while the Royals eventually won the World Series in 2015 even without Sale, they might also have won the 2014 Fall Classic if he'd been leading their rotation.
What If the Mariners Had Chosen Anthony Rendon in 2011?
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Actual Pick: LHP Danny Hultzen at No. 2
The 2011 season was merely the latest in a long line of disappointments for the Seattle Mariners, but it wasn't without silver linings.
For one thing, Felix Hernandez was well established as one of baseball's premier aces after winning the AL Cy Young Award in 2010. Youngsters Dustin Ackley and Michael Pineda, meanwhile, both enjoyed strong rookie seasons in Seattle's lineup and rotation, respectively, in 2011.
The Mariners seemed to land yet another long-term building block when they used the No. 2 pick in that year's draft on Danny Hultzen. He put up 1.37 ERA for Virginia that season and was generally regarded as the draft's best left-hander.
However, selecting Hultzen meant passing on Rice third baseman Anthony Rendon. Though Jack Zduriencik, Seattle's general manager between 2008 and 2015, told Corey Brock of The Athletic in 2019 that the club really liked Rendon, at the time he was vocal about his concerns about Rendon's medical history.
Ironically, it was actually Hultzen's pro career that was derailed by injuries. As he eventually developed into an All-Star, MVP contender and World Series hero for the Washington Nationals, Rendon surely would have done more to help the Mariners snap a playoff drought that's been going since 2001.
What If the Diamondbacks Had Chosen Lindor or Baez in 2011?
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Actual Picks: RHP Trevor Bauer at No. 3 and RHP Archie Bradley at No. 7
Even though they were en route to a 94-win season at the time, the Arizona Diamondbacks went into the 2011 draft with two top 10 picks.
They used the No. 3 pick on Trevor Bauer, who proved to be a bad fit and was out of the organization by 2012. They then used the No. 7 selection on Archie Bradley, who's otherwise had a modest career outside of one brilliant season in 2017.
The 2011 draft's next two picks were both used on shortstops, with Francisco Lindor going to Cleveland at No. 8 and Javier Baez going to the Chicago Cubs at No. 9. They now rank second and seventh, respectively, among shortstops in wins above replacement since 2015.
Even though Baseball America had him mocked to Arizona with the No. 7 pick at one point, there doesn't seem to be any real evidence linking Baez to the Snakes. According to Goldstein, however, Lindor's workout for the organization in 2011 that was so good that it was "hard seeing them pass on him twice."
A decade later, it's hard not to imagine what the Diamondbacks might have done with Lindor or Baez alongside Paul Goldschmidt in the mid-to-late 2010s. If nothing else, the club's playoff run in 2017 might have lasted beyond the division series.
What If the Astros Had Chosen Kris Bryant in 2013?
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Actual Pick: RHP Mark Appel at No. 1
A year after using the No. 1 pick in the 2012 draft on future AL Rookie of the Year Carlos Correa, the Houston Astros again had the first selection in the 2013 draft.
With it, they tabbed Stanford right-hander and Houston native Mark Appel. For him, it was vindication after he had turned down a $3.8 million bonus from the Pittsburgh Pirates the year before. For the team, then-general manager Jeff Luhnow called it "a great opportunity for us."
However, Appel struggled so badly in the minors that he was basically a lottery ticket by the time Houston traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies in December of 2015. This one didn't pay off, as Appel continued to struggle and retired in 2018. He's only now attempting a comeback.
Instead of Appel, the Astros might have chosen San Diego third baseman Kris Bryant at No. 1 in 2013. But as Luhnow told Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times in 2016, the team passed on the eventual 2016 National League MVP because it wanted an "impact pitcher" and was willing to gamble accordingly.
To be fair, the Astros enjoyed a three-year stretch between 2017 and 2019 in which they won 100 games annually and went to two World Series. But with Bryant, they would have had that much better of a chance of repeating as champs in 2018 and 2019 after winning the Fall Classic in 2017.
What If the Astros Had Chosen Carlos Rodon in 2014?
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Actual Pick: LHP Brady Aiken at No. 1
As they really were that committed to rebuilding from the ground up, the Astros once again had the No. 1 pick in the draft for a third straight year in 2014.
By this time, the writing was already on the wall that Appel wasn't the pitcher the Astros hoped. So, they narrowed their sights on two left-handers for the No. 1 pick in the '14 draft: San Diego high schooler Brady Aiken and North Carolina State's Carlos Rodon.
So enthused was Luhnow with Rodon, in fact, that he even drove 10.5 hours to watch him pitch in March of 2014. Yet he was ultimately more enthused with Aiken, deeming the young southpaw as "the most advanced high school pitcher I've ever seen in my entire career."
But pretty much as soon as the Astros chose Aiken at No. 1, things started to go awry. An MRI on the lefty's elbow raised red flags, prompting Houston to lower its bonus offer from $6.5 million. As a result, Aiken refused to sign.
The Astros were vindicated when Aiken underwent Tommy John surgery the following March. Yet, it's actually just as well that they didn't draft Rodon instead. They got the No. 2 pick in the 2015 draft as compensation for failing to sign Aiken, and used it on a talented college infielder named Alex Bregman.
What If the Diamondbacks Had Chosen Alex Bregman in 2015?
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Actual Pick: SS Dansby Swanson at No. 1
By the time the 2015 draft was approaching, the Diamondbacks had moved on from the regime that had whiffed on Lindor and Baez in 2011.
Now it was Tony La Russa and Dave Stewart in charge. They zeroed in on a potential franchise shortstop when they plucked Dansby Swanson out of Vanderbilt, who scouting director Deric Ladnier called a "perfect pick," with the No. 1 selection.
As it happened, though, Swanson spent mere months in the Arizona organization before he was sent to Atlanta as part of the Shelby Miller trade in December of 2015. That deal quickly became a notorious misfire on Arizona's part, though it was merely one factor behind Stewart's firing the next October.
As for who the D-backs might have drafted in Swanson's place, Bregman was notably there for the taking. But while the team had genuine interest in him ahead of the 2012 draft, Nick Piecoro of AZCentral.com reported in 2018 that the team "never put much consideration" in him as its No. 1 pick in 2015.
This is actually why Bregman chose to wear the No. 2 after falling to the Astros with the second pick. He promptly became an All-Star and an MVP contender in 2018 and 2019, seasons in which the Diamondbacks began to fall into disrepair after making the playoffs in 2017.
What If the Phillies Had Chosen Kyle Lewis in 2016?
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Actual Pick: OF Mickey Moniak at No. 1
Is it too soon to render any kind of fair judgment on the 2016 draft? Considering that it's been only five years...probably, yeah.
Even still, the Philadelphia Phillies would probably like a do-over on their No. 1 pick from that year.
In the days leading up to the draft, there was actually some mystery as to which player the Phillies favored for the top selection. But according to Keith Law of ESPN and Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com, among those in play was Mercer center fielder Kyle Lewis.
Instead, the Phillies sided with a California high schooler named Mickey Moniak. Amateur scouting director Johnny Almaraz had high hopes for him, saying: "I think you'll have a Gold Glove center fielder who will hit in the middle of the lineup and be a leader on the team."
In actuality, Moniak never got hot in the minors and is now an afterthought in the team's plans under new boss Dave Dombrowski. Lewis, meanwhile, shrugged off injury issues to become the AL Rookie of the Year for the Mariners in 2020. As they seek to avoid a ninth straight losing season, the Phillies sure could use him in center field right now.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference.
