The MLB Draft is a fickle thing, in that often times, because players take years to make the Majors, draft picks are made more on potential and even signability than pure talent projections.
Look back at the Braves’ first-round selections in the last 40 years or so, and while you’ll find key contributors from the past (Steve Avery) and present (Mike Soroka), perennial All-Stars here and elsewhere (Jason Heyward and Adam Wainwright) and even Hall of Famers (Chipper!), you’ll also find names Lucas Sims, Dan Meyer, and Jamie Arnold.
Not every pick is a home run, and in fact, some of those whiffs become sort of a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play when you look at some of the players the Braves could’ve had – like these seven examples the Braves will hope to avoid when the first round of the MLB Draft takes place tonight.
Five and change seasons may not be enough time to fully declare a bust, especially on a high school draft pick, but the Braves did release Davidson a few weeks ago so we’re calling it safe. That release ended a tenure that started with promise for the Asheville, N.C., native, but after hitting .213 from 2014-2018, never making it past High-A, and not playing at all in 2019, his Braves career is over.
Flaherty, meanwhile, has the sixth-best Baseball Reference WAR among the 25 players in the 2014 first round who have made it to MLB, and he has finished Top 5 in the Rookie of the Year voting (2018) and Cy Young voting (2019) in his two full seasons so far. He would look really good next to Soroka and others in a potential 2020 Braves rotation, no?
The Braves had a late first pick in 2010 – their actual pick went to the Mets as compensation for re-signing Tom Glavine, and the Mets took Ike Davis – but they were excited about Lipka, a speedy middle infielder who played on the Team USA 16U squad and projected as a possible center fielder.
Instead, they got a guy who showed his speed (37 steals at Lynchburg in 2013) but is, after a decade in the game, still a sub-.250 career hitter (.249, to be exact). Lipka went the full seven in the Braves organization, getting as high as Triple-A in 2016, but was let go as a minor-league free agent that winter. He has since played in the Rangers, Giants, and Yankees organizations, twice more reaching Triple-A, but has yet to make it to The Show.
Syndergaard, who was the Blue Jays’ next pick three slots later, has, though, and has been a thorn in Atlanta’s side for half a decade. Taijuan Walker and Nicholas Castellanos also went later in the round.
Another miss with divisional consequences here. Only seven of the 34 first-round picks in 1994 failed to make the Majors, but one of them was Shumate, a prep righty from Hartsville, S.C., who spent seven years in the system but never made it above Double-A, and was out of baseball after spending 2001 in the Brewers organization.
Payton, meanwhile, went to the Mets two selections later and became a full-time player in 2000, finishing third in the NL Rookie of the Year voting and helping those Mets reach the first and only Subway Series so far. Payton ended up as a .279 hitter over 12 seasons in MLB, and his .291-17-62 line was better than what the Braves got from Reggie Sanders (.232-11-37), Bobby Bonilla (.255-5-28), or anyone else who played alongside Andruw Jones and Brian Jordan on the 2000 Braves – the first Braves team, not counting the 1994 strike year, to not reach at least the NLCS in a decade.
To be fair, the Braves could have had anyone not named Brien Taylor in this draft, but Taylor’s story is actually more tragic than that of Kelly, an Arizona State outfielder who at least made it to The Show for parts of six seasons and can lay claim to being one of the original Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
He’s not exactly Manny Ramirez, though, who was one of 10 first-rounders (out of 44) in 1991 to achieve a double-digit career WAR. Imagine Manny being Manny next to Andruw Jones and Ryan Klesko in the ‘90s? Atlanta also could’ve had Shawn Green, Dmitri Young, or even Doug Glanville instead, too.
A theme here with Braves and No. 2 picks? Sure, the team has had quite a selection of first basemen over the last 30 years, but none of them have been the Big Hurt, a two-time AL MVP and Hall of Famer.
Could’ve had him (or Mo Vaughn, taken later in the round), but the Braves went with Houston, a high school catcher from Vegas who didn’t quite work out as well as Vegas’ next prep backstop turned top pick eventually did. Houston had a decent career, spending eight seasons in the league as a utility cornerman for six teams, but for Atlanta’s purposes, they got all of 33 games out of him in 1996 before dealing him for Ismael Villegas – who threw all of 2 2/3 career innings, all in an extreme mop-up capacity in a 17-1 Braves loss to Montreal in 2001. That one definitely is a Big Hurt.
Komminsk, who was a high school draft pick, hung around for parts of eight seasons and played 220 of his 376 games in Atlanta, but he was a career .218 hitter who was a tick worse (.217) in a Braves uniform.
Van Slyke, meanwhile, was a .274 hitter over 13 seasons, notably becoming a three-time All-Star, five-time Gold Glover, and two time Silver Slugger during his eight years in Pittsburgh. If it’s any consolation, sure, the Braves beat Van Slyke’s Pirates in two straight NLCS clashes…eh, maybe not.
A watershed year for baseball on many levels, 1977 wasn’t a great one for the Braves, who lost 100 games for the first time since 1935. Their draft wasn’t much of a consolation, as after seeing Harold Baines, Bill Gullickson, and Paul Molitor – two Hall of Famers sandwiching a near-Rookie of the Year – come off the board in the Top 3, they used their fourth overall pick on Cole, a prep lefty from Saugerties, N.Y., who never made it above Double-A in a 10-year career spent mostly in the Braves organization.
The remainder of the first round included five players with double-digit career WAR totals, including Terry Kennedy (sixth overall), Richard Dotson (No. 7), Wally Backman (No. 16), Bob Welch (No. 20), and Dave Henderson (No. 26).