The Angels Draft History

[Docwaukee]

With the first day of the 2018 draft set for Monday, June 4th, why not take a look back at previous years to see who were/are the best and worst  

This year Trout took the WAR lead from Tanana and now has the highest total for 1st round picks.  Granted, Trout has accumulated that solely as a halo.  

Trout was 1(25) 2009.  Other  notable 1st rounders include Weaver 1(12) 2004, Troy Glaus 1(3) 1997, Erstad 1(1) 1996, Abbott 1(8) 1998, Brunansky 1(14) 1978, Tanana 1(13) 1971.  Andy Messersmith was the best from the second phase 1(12) 1966.  Chuck Finley was taken 1(4) 1985 in the secondary phase of the january draft which stopped occurring after 1986.  

There have 64 1st round picks of which only 13 have not reached the majors at some point (not including Adell, Thaiss and Ward).  Of the 13 that didn't make it, three of them were from the 2010 draft (Bolden, Lindsey, Clarke).  Chevy Clarke is still playing independent ball (or at least he did in 2017) for the Vallejo Admirals.  He had a .783 ops last year with 24 sbs.  He's still only 25 and can play RF.  Any takers?  

The highest pick to not make the bigs was Billy Taylor 1(7) 1973.  An OFer who never got out of A ball.  

The worst of those who have made it is Brandon Wood 1(23) 2003 who accumulated -3.8 bWAR. 

As IP has pointed out, the catcher spot is tough to come by via the early part of the draft.  Our best 1st round catcher is Hank Conger with 2.1 WAR.  Mathis is 2nd with 1.1 WAR.  

Our best 2nd round pick is John Lackey 2(68) 1999.  Who's still out of a job.  Maybe he wants a spot in our bullpen.  Other notables - Washburn 2(31) 1995.  

3rd round has been pretty kind historically although not for awhile.  Salmon 3(69) 1989, Lansford 3(49) 1975, Joyner 3(67) 1983.  

4th round - Garrett Anderson 4(125) 1990, Mike Witt 4(92) 1978. 

5th round - the famous Bobby Jenks 5(140) 2000 with his 8.3 WAR

6th round - Devon White 6(132) 1981, Percy 6(179) 1990

7th round - Jim Edmonds 7(169).  Edmonds holds the current record for most WAR by an angel draftee at  60.4 bWAR.  Trout has 59.5 bWAR so give him a week.  

8th round - We drafted Wallach but he never signed with us.  Kole Calhoun 8(264) and his declining 11.7 bWAR leads the pack.   

9th round - Mark McLemore 9(218) 1982. 

10th round - Howie Kendrick 10(294) 2002.  

11-20th rounds - Mike Napoli 17(500) 2000 leads the pack with 27.4 career bWAR by a fairly large margin over Trumbo 18(533) 2004 (8.9 WAR)

21st and beyond - Sid Monge 24(569) 1970 (8.5 WAR), Andy Hassler 25(581) 1969 (6.9 WAR),  Martin Maldonado 27(803) 2004 (5.1 WAR),  Damien Easley 30(767) 1988 (20.5 WAR), Scott Shields 38(1137) 1997 (12.1 WAR), Chad Curtis 45(1157) 1989 (14.0 WAR).  Chad wins the award for best late draft pick by the halos and horrible creepy awful person.  

So it's all about the first 10 rounds historically.  

The best players with the 17th pick - Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Gary Matthews Sr., Charles Nagy, Jeromy Burnitz, AJ Pollock. 

The halos have had the 17th pick 3 other times taking Dennis Rasmussen, Eduardo Perez, and CJ Cron. Fingers crossed we do a bit better than that.  

 

[greginpsca]

What time does the draft start tomorrow?

 

[UndertheHalo]

Any predictions ? Seems like it’ll probably be a pitcher if we go with the best player available strategy. 

[GrittyVeterans]

In other words, the Angels are pretty bad at drafting historically. I wow it's bad other than hitting on Trout

[Tank]

16 minutes ago, GrittyVeterans said:

In other words, the Angels are pretty bad at drafting historically. I wow it's bad other than hitting on Trout

meh, no better or worse than other teams.

lots and lots and lots of serviceable players all throughout the draft.

[Inside Pitch]

1 hour ago, GrittyVeterans said:

In other words, the Angels are pretty bad at drafting historically. I wow it's bad other than hitting on Trout

https://www.mlb.com/news/5-mlb-teams-with-most-1st-round-draft-success/c-235346730

The Angels draft history is actually pretty impressive.  They rank 4th overall with 155.7 WAR out of their 1st round picks since the 30 team era.   Even if you take Trout out they would rank in the upper third all time.   The Trout draft class is considered by many as the greatest single draft by any team ever.  Trout, Skaggs, Richards, Grichuk and Patrick Corbin.

What Doc 's list (and the linked article), show is just how difficult it is to draft well.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Inside Pitch

[101halo]

21 minutes ago, Inside Pitch said:

https://www.mlb.com/news/5-mlb-teams-with-most-1st-round-draft-success/c-235346730

The Angels draft history is actually pretty impressive.  They rank 4th all time with 155.7 WAR out of their 1st round picks since the 30 team era.   Even if you take Trout out they would rank in the upper third all time.   The Trout draft class is considered by many as the greatest single draft by any team ever.  Trout, Skaggs, Richards, Grichuk and Patrick Corbin.

What Doc 's list (and the linked article), show is just how difficult it is to draft well.

What's crazy is that over 38% of those 155.7 WAR are from a single player, who may just keep accumulating more (maybe). 

I'll let you all guess who that is, I know the answer isn't totally obvious or anything, so don't feel bad if you don't get it on first guess.