No Hall of Famers Were No.1 Draft Picks

Reggie Jackson missed being the first and only No.1 draft pick to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame when the New York Mets drafted Steve Chilcott ahead of him in 1967 with Chilcott never playing in the major leagues.

You would think that the Baseball Hall of Fame would be full of No.1 draft picks in the 45 years since the first amateur draft in 1965.  However not one No.1 pick has been enshrined in the Hall of Fame in that span.

There is not a number one pick among pitchers that has won 200 games with Mike Moore leading with 161 wins and Andy Benes has recorded 155 wins.

Among four pitchers drafted No.1 since 1996 Luke Hochevar leads with only 13 wins.

There are more position players who may be inducted into the Hall of Fame in the future:

Most Likely to be Inducted

1987: Ken Griffey Jr.

1990: Chipper Jones

1993: Alex Rodriguez

Possible Hall of Famers in Distant Future

2000 – Adrian Gonzalez

2001 – Joe Mauer

Griffey and Rodriguez are surefire Hall of Famers while Chipper Jones doesn’t have the chance they do after his batting average dropped from .364 in 2008 to .264 in 2009 and is 594 hits short of 3,000 hits. He will be 38 next month so time is running out on him.

Reggie Jackson would have been the No.1 pick in 1966 but the Mets decided that Steve Chilcott was a better player than Jackson. Chilcott never played in a major league game while Jacskon hit 563 home runs and was enshrined into the Hall of Fame in 1993.

Note: My wife recently had extensive surgery which culminated with an emergency surgery and an eight day stay in intensive care and a 17 day hospital stay so have not posted much lately but plan to start posting more often now that she is back home.