Home Run Derby

When an MLB franchise selects a player with the #1 overall pick in the Amateur Draft, the team is expecting to have that player make a significant contribution to the team for years to come.

In unrelated news, earlier this season, the Padres released Matt Bush, the #1 Pick in the 2004 MLB Draft … before he ever played a game in the Major Leagues.  I hope no one actually bought a Matt Bush Padres Jersey.

Bush was a High School Shortstop from the San Diego Area who the Pads selected over the likes of Jered Weaver and Stephen Drew.   Bush’s career batting average in the minors is a robust .219 (in nothing higher than Class A ball) … so let’s just go and call him a bust.  The Padres have.

This got me to thinking … who else has flopped after being picked first in the MLB Draft? 

Brien Taylor, P – 1991 (New York Yankees)

Under advisement by Scott Boras, Taylor held out until the Yankees caved and gave him an unprecedented $1.55 Million signing bonus.  

Mind you, after his first two seasons in the minors … he looked like he might be worth it.  In Class A in 1992, he had 187 K’s in 161 innings and in 1993 went 13-7 with 150 K’s in AA Albany.

But in December 1993, he separated his shoulder and tore his labrum in a fight in a trailer park – does anything good ever happen in a trailer park?  Dr. Frank Jobe described the injury as one of the worst shoulder injuries he’d ever seen. 

Taylor never posted an ERA under 6 the rest of his minor league career and never sniffed the Majors.

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The 2007 Baseball Winter Meetings begin this week, which means that the Rule 5 Draft is about to happen. 

What’s the Rule 5 Draft?  Why, it’s the draft after the Rule 4 Draft.

Seriously, the Rule V Draft was enacted in order to keep talented MLB teams from stashing young prospects in the minor leagues when other teams might give them a chance to play in the majors right now.  So if a player isn’t on your 40-man roster, he can be picked off by another team.

The catch?  The player has to be on the drafting team’s 25-man MLB roster for all of the following season.  Quite often the draftees get traded back to the original team.

There’s been a lot of crappy players selected under the Rule 5 Draft.  But there’s also been a lot of good players … and a few studs. 

In no particular order, here’s some of the best players ever selcted in the Rule 5 Draft …

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