Rank the #1 Draft Disappointments

[now]

1 hour ago, Redskins Rick said:

I agree, I could never call a guy that played in the big leagues a bust.

Just because they didn't pan out to the hype they were selected with, mean they were a bust.

Why put Wieters on this list and ask if he was a bust, isnt very funny. 4 times AS, 2 GG, and a career war of 18, which a 4.1 and 5.2 season. Which is hardly replacement level. I think the thing with catchers is how much abuse their body takes.

 

Bust is maybe a poor choice of words for the title. Really I wanted to see who was most disappointing (busted expectations).

BTW, multiple choices are possible, so you can pick both ways. 

[glenn__davis]

Rowell for me, because Hobgood at least has the excuse of being injured.  Rowell just wasn't good.

[DrungoHazewood]

Just now, now said:

Bust is maybe a poor choice of words for the title. Really I wanted to see who was most disappointing (busted expectations).

I kind of hate that wording.  That plays right into the Wieters sucks crowd.  Here's a guy who's among the 100 or so best catchers of all time, and he gets stuck with the disappointing label because he wasn't a 12-time All Star with an MVP or two.

[now]

9 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I kind of hate that wording.  That plays right into the Wieters sucks crowd.  Here's a guy who's among the 100 or so best catchers of all time, and he gets stuck with the disappointing label because he wasn't a 12-time All Star with an MVP or two.

Sure. So you lean on the objective assessment, fair enough. For this exercise I give equal scope to the subjective side of fandom. To me Wieters was always disappointing because I expected the Savior (Bundy too). Same with your Al Kaline example, if I was a Tigers fan and bought into the Next Ty Cobb hype.

[Redskins Rick]

16 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I kind of hate that wording.  That plays right into the Wieters sucks crowd.  Here's a guy who's among the 100 or so best catchers of all time, and he gets stuck with the disappointing label because he wasn't a 12-time All Star with an MVP or two.

AMEN!!!!

[backwardsk]

35 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

You can't complain too much about a draft that included Brian Roberts and Erik Bedard.  But then you remember Roberts was their 7th first round pick that year.   Larry Bigbie was by far the best of the first six, and three of them never appeared in the majors.  The first pick, Mike Paradis, had consecutive full seasons at Bowie with identical 6.41 ERAs, and the third year he took it up a level and had a 6.14.  Their 3rd rounder (catcher Jon Kessick) had all of 688 PAs in the low minors before quitting baseball.

They should have drafted your boy JR House in the third if they were intent on selecting a catcher.

[DrungoHazewood]

6 minutes ago, backwardsk said:

They should have drafted your boy JR House in the third if they were intent on selecting a catcher.

That would have been nice for the Rochester/Ottawa/Norfolk fans.  Knowing the Orioles of that era they would have moved him to third, then LF, then first and he would have gotten hurt and played just about as much for the Orioles as he actually did in real life.

[TonySoprano]

55 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

You can't complain too much about a draft that included Brian Roberts and Erik Bedard.  But then you remember Roberts was their 7th first round pick that year.   Larry Bigbie was by far the best of the first six, and three of them never appeared in the majors.  The first pick, Mike Paradis, had consecutive full seasons at Bowie with identical 6.41 ERAs, and the third year he took it up a level and had a 6.14.  Their 3rd rounder (catcher Jon Kessick) had all of 688 PAs in the low minors before quitting baseball.

7 picks out of the first 51. Paradis was the first selection.  Roberts, by comparison, turned out to be the blind squirrel and acorn pick.

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, TonySoprano said:

7 picks out of the first 51. Paradis was the first selection.  Roberts, by comparison, turned out to be the blind squirrel and acorn pick.

Don’t forget that Bedard was a 6th rounder!    I recall doing some math a few years ago and concluding that we got an above average yield out of that draft (55.9 rWAR) even considering the yield one would expect from having all those first round picks.   In fact, I think we’ve never gotten a higher yield since, IIRC.

[Ohfan67]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

You can't complain too much about a draft that included Brian Roberts and Erik Bedard.  But then you remember Roberts was their 7th first round pick that year.   Larry Bigbie was by far the best of the first six, and three of them never appeared in the majors.  The first pick, Mike Paradis, had consecutive full seasons at Bowie with identical 6.41 ERAs, and the third year he took it up a level and had a 6.14.  Their 3rd rounder (catcher Jon Kessick) had all of 688 PAs in the low minors before quitting baseball.

Yes, I was remembering the first/bonus round. 

[now]

1 hour ago, now said:

Sure. So you lean on the objective assessment, fair enough. For this exercise I give equal scope to the subjective side of fandom. To me Wieters was always disappointing because I expected the Savior (Bundy too). Same with your Al Kaline example, if I was a Tigers fan and bought into the Next Ty Cobb hype.

This deserves a further response. I don't think anyone on here is saying Wieters sucks. Fairer to say "it sucks" that as good as MW was, he couldn't outhit Jesus--because that was the hype. IIRC, he and Bundy both were seen as generational talents, like Ben McDonald before them. And they shone in the minors, Wieters at 1.003 OPS and Bundy 2.59 ERA. Those MLB numbers dip to .725 and 4.63. That falloff doesn't mean they suck, but it is disappointing, given their promise.

The other group, the Hopgoods and Rowells, were high school phenoms that flamed out in the low minors. The great majority of poll respondents so far have found this type more disappointing (or the bigger "busts"). So be it: the people have spoken!

Even Elias has his draft fails along with the successes. Let's pull for our next true superstar with this next one!

[DrungoHazewood]

35 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Don’t forget that Bedard was a 6th rounder!    I recall doing some math a few years ago and concluding that we got an above average yield out of that draft (55.9 rWAR) even considering the yield one would expect from having all those first round picks.   In fact, I think we’ve never gotten a higher yield since, IIRC.

I think that given historical draft performances, an average draft would have seen those seven first rounders give the O's about 21 rWAR total, through arb.  If Roberts would have been a free agent after his 7th year, then they got 22.  19.8 from Roberts, 2.5 from Bigbie, and negative or zero from everyone else.

Average seems disappointing given that they only got one good player out of seven, and three of them were never even close to being major leaguers.

The other way to look at this is that between Mike Paradis and Brian Roberts the only players of consequence taken by anyone were Alex Rios, Jason Jennings, and Colby Lewis.

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think that given historical draft performances, an average draft would have seen those seven first rounders give the O's about 21 rWAR total, through arb.  If Roberts would have been a free agent after his 7th year, then they got 22.  19.8 from Roberts, 2.5 from Bigbie, and negative or zero from everyone else.

Average seems disappointing given that they only got one good player out of seven, and three of them were never even close to being major leaguers.

The other way to look at this is that between Mike Paradis and Brian Roberts the only players of consequence taken by anyone were Alex Rios, Jason Jennings, and Colby Lewis.

Right - the performance of the first rounders (as measured by total WAR) was about on par with the average of those spots in the draft over time (almost entirely due to Roberts), and then the performance of our picks after the first round was above average, thanks to Bedard.    

[DrungoHazewood]

37 minutes ago, now said:

This deserves a further response. I don't think anyone on here is saying Wieters sucks. Fairer to say "it sucks" that as good as MW was, he couldn't outhit Jesus--because that was the hype. IIRC, he and Bundy both were seen as generational talents, like Ben McDonald before them. And they shone in the minors, Wieters at 1.003 OPS and Bundy 2.59 ERA. Those MLB numbers dip to .725 and 4.63. That falloff doesn't mean they suck, but it is disappointing, given their promise.

The other group, the Hopgoods and Rowells, were high school phenoms that flamed out in the low minors. The great majority of poll respondents so far have found this type more disappointing (or the bigger "busts"). So be it: the people have spoken!

Even Elias has his draft fails along with the successes. Let's pull for our next true superstar with this next one!

I think the lesson here for MLB is to quit having minor league systems below AAA.  Don't have anything to do with anyone who isn't almost MLB ready.  Then you just buy the players you need.  If Kalamazoo has a hot shortstop prospect a team (sometimes, yes, the Yankees) can purchase him, or trade for him.  But busts go from like 90% to 20%.  And costs fall off by however many $millions it takes to operate six or seven levels of minor league teams.  Almost all the player development cost and risk is transferred to someone else.

Sure, it assumes independent minor leagues can be financially viable and that the team in Bakersfield won't blow up every arm they get in a vain attempt to win the Cal League pennant.  But... the Orioles woudn't have to care and feed for Mike Paradis and Richard Stahl any more.

Of course Bakersfield might ask for $60M for Matt Wieters after he OPSes 1.000, and someone would pay it.

(Edit: by "lesson" I mean random thought experiment that probably will never happen.)

[Frobby]

40 minutes ago, now said:

This deserves a further response. I don't think anyone on here is saying Wieters sucks. Fairer to say "it sucks" that as good as MW was, he couldn't outhit Jesus--because that was the hype. IIRC, he and Bundy both were seen as generational talents, like Ben McDonald before them..  And they shone in the minors, Wieters at 1.003 OPS and Bundy 2.59 ERA. Those MLB numbers dip to .725 and 4.63. That falloff doesn't mean they suck, but it is disappointing, given their promise.

The other group, the Hopgoods and Rowells, were high school phenoms that flamed out in the low minors. The great majority of poll respondents so far have found this type more disappointing (or the bigger "busts"). So be it: the people have spoken!

Even Elias has his draft fails along with the successes. Let's pull for our next true superstar with this next one!

In my opinion, it’s tough to say that a no. 5 or no. 4 draft pick was seen as a “generational talent” on draft day.   You can sort of make the case with Wieters, who arguably slipped to no. 5 because of Scott Boras’ expected demands, and did receive a higher bonus ($6 mm) than the no. 1 pick, David Price ($5.6 mm).    It’s harder to make that case for Bundy, who had three pitchers drafted ahead of him, two of whom (no. 1 Gerritt Cole and no. 2 Danny Hultzen) received more money than he did (no. 3 Trevor Bauer didn’t).

But to me at least, on draft day Wieters wasn’t up there at the level of Ben McDonald, Stephen Strasburg or Bryce Harper in terms of hype.   Wieters’ hype increased exponentially during his 2008 MiL season.