2010 MLB Draft Results: Five Teams That Didn't Do Enough

For MLB teams not named Yankees or Red Sox, the draft is arguably the most important three days of the year. 

When top-flight free agents don't come knocking at the door every off-season, the draft is the only way for small-market teams to compete with the giants of the world.

Just ask those who do it best, Minnesota and Tampa Bay.

These are the teams that missed on this year's opportunity.

Chicago Cubs

If there is one rule in drafting, it is that reaches in the first round don't usually pay off (see Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis).

Projected to be a fourth or fifth round selection, the Cubs took Southern Arkansas' Hayden Simpson at No. 16 overall. 

The Division II left-hander was ranked by Baseball America as the 191st prospect in the 2010 class and pegged as a future middle-reliever.

Yes, Chicago does have major bullpen issues (they even stuck Carlos Zambrano in the pen in an attempt to fill up the need), but organizations don't tend to go into the first round thinking, "Let's see if I can get a real good 7th inning guy here."

Seattle Mariners

The Mariners only had one first day pick and that was all the way down at No. 43 overall.

Entering Monday 7.5 games back of first place in the division, Seattle still needs more pieces of the puzzle to compete. 

With top pitchers at the front of its rotation like Cliff Lee, Erik Bedard and Felix Hernandez, I thought Seattle would go with a position player.

Instead, the Mariners took a high school pitcher in Taijuan Walker that will most likely take three or four years of seasoning until he can help out the club at the big league level. 

Arizona Diamondbacks

With only one pick in the top 55, Arizona chose Texas A&M right-hander Barret Loux at No. 6 overall. 

The D-Backs needed pitching badly, and I applaud management for taking a college arm instead of the always risky high school pitcher, but Loux was not the answer.

Left on the board were Georgia Tech's Deck McGuire and Florida Gulf Coast's Chris Sale. 

Either would have been a better option. 

Loux might have even been available for Arizona to pick with their second round selection.

Los Angeles Dodgers

In financial uncertainty because of its owners' pending divorce case, the Dodgers selected the most difficult to sign player of the first round in prep pitcher Zach Lee.

Many teams backed off Lee when numbers started to fly around about what it would take for him to sign.

The right-hander could easily decide to return to the draft later and begin his career playing football at LSU.

LA needed to fix its starting pitching woes with a solid college arm that would be in the big league sooner rather than later.

San Francisco Giants

With a stellar pitching staff in hand, the Giants tried to shore up their offense by taking Cal State Fullerton center fielder Gary Brown at No. 24 overall. 

Brown has below-average arm that may need to be hidden in right field if he wants to play above the minor leagues. 

At the plate, Brown doesn't offer much power to a Giants team that so desperately needs it (No. 24 and No. 25 in team home runs and team RBIs, respectively).

Think of him as a Juan Pierre-type addition.

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