The draft can be a fool's gold mine

Sporting News, The, June 7, 2004 by Josh Lewin

Successful forecasts of the baseball draft are met with longer odds than Jessica Simpson on Jeopardy. Since the maiden free-agent draft in 1965 ("hey--they're drafting maidens?!"), every scouting director and general manager emerges "cautiously optimistic" having just panned for gold in a dark cave--some of them apparently having done so while wearing oven mitts.

In that first-ever draft of '65, the Mets, choosing second, grabbed the immortal Les Rohr, passing on, oh, let's see ... Johnny Bench and Graig Nettles, among others. The top six picks in the 1975 draft read not like a baseball Who's Who, but a baseball Who's That?: Danny Goodwin, Mike Lentz, Les Filkins, Brian Rosinski, Rich O'Keefe and Butch Benton. A hindsight suggestion on who should have been the top six: Andre Dawson, Lee Smith, Dave Stewart, Lou Whitaker, Carney Lansford and Keith Moreland.

In 1979, who'd have thought the draft's two best players would have been taken in Rounds 17 (Orel Hershiser) and 19 (Don Mattingly)? Or that in 1983, 18 teams would pass on Roger Clemens, letting him slide to the Red Sox? The two teams from the Lone Star state decided that Jeff Kunkel (Rangers) and Robbie Wine (Astros) filled more immediate needs. Clemens actually was the 11th pitcher selected in that draft; Tim Belcher went first but didn't sign with the team that selected him, the Twins.

Other high rollers who didn't sign with the team that first selected them: Mark McGwire, drafted by the Expos out of high school, and Carlton Fisk, chosen by the Orioles. The Brewers drafted Nomar Garciaparra in 1991, and the Braves drafted Randy Johnson in 1982; maybe if Atlanta had gotten the Big Unit's signature, he would have pitched that perfect game for the Braves rather than against them 22 years later.

No draft history lesson would be complete without a glance at the late-rounders who made everybody look bad for passing on them multiple times. Beyond the Hershisers and the Mattinglys, there were Jose Canseco (15th round), Ryne Sandberg (20th) and John Smoltz (22nd), not to mention 24th-rounders Richie Sexson, Rich Aurilia, Jorge Posada and Mark Grace. And of course, there's Mike Piazza, taken in the 62nd round in 1988.

Grace at least was a product of what many say was the deepest draft ever; the 1985 bonanza that included B.J. Surhoff, Will Clark, Barry Larkin, Rafael Palmiero and some guy named Bonds. Barry Bonds, in fact, went sixth overall in that draft, with the White Sox grabbing high school catcher Kurt Brown with the preceding pick. As the Mets would be happy to tell you, high school catchers going in the first round usually is a bad idea. (See 1966, Steve Chilcott over Reggie Jackson.)

Then again, Twins catcher Joe Mauer (No. 1 overall in 2002) looks like a potential star, while hard-throwing reliever Matt Anderson (first pick in '97, by the Tigers) now is throwing hard for the Toledo Mud Hens. In the immortal words of Joaquin Andujar, "Youneverknow."

Josh Lewin is the television voice of the Texas Rangers and a play-by-play announcer for FOX's Saturday Game of the Week.