Number One Mistakes
Kevin Goldstein, formerly of BA and now with BP, has a feature in the NY Sun today, on recent Yankees Number One Picks:
1997: Tyrell Godwin, outfielder. Godwin didn’t sign, choosing instead to go to college. He was a career minor leaguer until he got into three games with the Nationals last year.
1998: Andy Brown,outfielder.18-year-old, 6-foot-7-inch man-child from Indiana had power, but couldn’t hit. Struck out 182 times in 2000 and was released in 2004 with a career average of .228.
1999: David Walling, RHP. Polished college pitcher dominated at lower levels, but had ERA above five after A-ball. Released in 2002.
2000: David Parrish, catcher. Son of eight-time all-star backstop Lance, the kid didn’t have dad’s power, hitting 24 home runs in 489 minor league games before the Yanks gave up on him.
2001: John-Ford Griffin, outfielder. Griffin hit .450 in his final year at Florida State, but was never able to duplicate that as a pro, and he spent barely a year in the system before moving to Oakland as part of the complicated Jeff Weaver deal in 2002. Now in Triple-A with the Blue Jays and going nowhere fast.
Clueless picks, indeed.
Post-Jeter, pre-Hughes, the Yankees didn’t draft well. This is a fact. But you know what? Many other teams made horrible mistakes, too. The draft is a crapshoot, and you can spend all day looking at past drafts and thinking, “Wow, so-and-so was still on the board for X team — imagine if they drafted him instead!” No one knows for sure who’s going to work out. Pujols, Smoltz, Piazza — the list of guys taken in the 20th, 30th, 60th round goes on and on.
Yankee fans should just be happy that the Yankees have turned their drafting philosophy/understanding around and got an absolute steal in Hughes. Hughes isn’t the best pitcher from that draft — you have to go with Verlander — but you can’t argue with this pick. I know people are down on C.J. Henry, but he’s just the type of kid you want filling up your minor-league rosters — athletes with high upside.
Plus — and this is a bit of an excuse — the Yankees have worked the international free-agent market beautifully. Mely, Cano and Wang came to us that way. And so did Tabata, who has all the talent in the world.
You could say that about most #1 picks. Tough game, that baseball…
In the Yankees defense in 2001, John-Ford was picked accidentally. Their real pick was actually supposed to be Stewie Griffin who had been destroying everything in sight during recess in preschool. Yes, he was real young…but he had had tremendous UPSIDE and was very PROJECTABLE!
Unfortunately, something was lost in translation and they ended up with John-Ford instead.
Wasn’t Walling the kid who had problems dealing with the “pressure” (that apparently started with wigging out with runners on base and not being able to hold them on and evolved into something even more incapacitating)?
C J Henry is looking like another bust. He has already turned 20 though just drafted out of HS last year. He’s hitting .221 with a sub .700 OPS in low A ball.
As for Phil Hughes, nice prospect but right now that is all. Too soon to tell one way or another.
Year-in, year-out, the Yankees do a lousy job.
Cano? Well his offensive stats are pretty poor right now, what is he really? I can’t tell; although his defense seems to have improved.
Wang has not impressed me so far. Let’s see Wang pitch a big time game vs. the Bosox.
C.J. was hurt to start the year. No kid in his SECOND YEAR OF PRO BALL can be called a bust. That’s idiotic.
What about Gardner? What about Austin Jackson? What about J.B. Cox? What about Tabata (who was an IFA)? What about Melky (another IFA)? What about Tyler Clippard, who came out of nowhere?
I’ll admit that the 90s were a bad time for the Yankees’ draft, but things have turned around and the players in the minors prove it.
And your assessment that Hughes is a good prospect but nothing more is borderline incomprehensible. That’s what these kids are — prospects. Until they’re out of the minors, they’re living on potential. But choosing a kid and seeing him do well, seeing him display talent, is what you want. No draft pick proves his worth — even if he’s only been in the minors two years — until he’s up in the pros? Then how can you judge any of them as busts or successes?
Hey Don,
Over the last ten years, the Yanks have done a pretty crappy job with the draft, I’d agree but they’d turned things around the last couple of years. Of course, Poterson, to me, has been one of the biggest busts in all of baseball recently but Henry has been nowhere near as bad and I’m still holding out hope for him (but not at SS).
Of course, they also picked up Austin Jackson in the 8th and Brett Gardner (in the 3rd, I think) last year so you’ve got to give them credit for that and the Yankees do quite a bit better with the international signings (Vech, tabata) so hopefully, they can keep that up as well. It’ll be interesting to see what they do and of course, as with any draft, we’re going to have to wait a couple years to pass judgement.
I said C J Henry is looking like a bust, not is a bust. And he is, looking like a bust, for the reasons I mentioned. He is already 20 and only one year out of HS. Those guys have to show something fast as they usually do become busts. Since he is more mature than an average HS grad one year removed from HS his showing so far in 2006 is a red flag.
His stats in low A ball are pretty awful, as I alluded to. Right now I suspect, barring a resurgence, a trip to Staten Island is likely for CJ.
As for Ty Clippard, mid level prospect.
Vech is right now a low level prospect.
Cox, well he’s sort of a slinger or sidearm guy, if memory serves when I watched the college WS last year. Not sure if he’s more then a specialist in MLB. Could prove useful so we’ll see.
My remarks re: Phil Hughes were appropriate since you called him a “steal”.
As for Gardner et al, I never said the Yankees didn’t have any prospects. Sheesh…..