The Major League Baseball amateur draft first came about in 1965. Since then, plenty of first overall picks have made a mark in the bigs, while many others have disappointed. Having already looked at the top selections from 2010-19, 2000-09, the 1990s, the 1980s and the 1970s, we’ll now turn our focus to the first five players who went No. 1 overall…
1965 – Rick Monday, OF, Kansas City Athletics:
You know you’re going back in time when you’re talking about the Kansas City Athletics, who moved to Oakland prior to the 1968 season. In any event, the KC version of the franchise made Monday the first No. 1 overall pick ever. Monday wound up as a very productive big leaguer with the A’s, Cubs and Dodgers from ’66 through 1984, during which he made two All-Star teams and batted .264/.361/.443 with 243 home runs and 31.1 fWAR. However, Monday may be best known for saving the American flag from being burnt by a couple of miscreants in LA in 1976. Take it away, Vin Scully.
1966 – Steve Chilcott, C, Mets:
- Chilcott’s one of the few No. 1s to never appear in the majors, thanks in part to injuries. He played in the minors with the Mets and Yankees from 1966-72, but could only muster a .569 OPS during that stretch. Speaking of the Yankees, you know who went one pick after Chilcott? Mr. October, Reginald Martinez Jackson. That should still sting for the Mets.
1967 – Ron Blomberg, 1B, Yankees:
- A fun bit of trivia: Blomberg was the first-ever DH, in 1973. In regards to the position, he told Bill Ladson of MLB.com in 2017: “I love the DH. I hate to watch the pitchers hit. It’s the most boring thing in the world, even in batting practice. The DH is like the three-point [shot] in the NBA and college basketball. It brought a lot of excitement to the game.” It’s a polarizing topic, but I totally agree with Blomberg, who had a wonderful career as a hitter when he was healthy enough to play. Although injuries limited Blomberg to 461 games and 1,493 plate appearances with the Yankees and White Sox from 1969-78, he hit .293/.360/.473 with more unintentional walks (140) than strikeouts (134).
1968 – Tim Foli, SS, Mets:
- Statistically, Foli – taken three picks before Thurman Munson – didn’t have a great impact. The defense-first infielder was a .251/.283/.309 hitter who hit 25 homers in almost 6,600 trips to the plate as part of a half-dozen different teams from 1970-85. Nevertheless, Foli made quite a mark on the game in transactions. The Mets traded him, Mike Jorgensen and Ken Singleton (arguably a Hall of Famer) to the Expos in 1972 for outfielder Rusty Staub, who became a Mets icon. Twelve years later, Foli was part of a Yankees-Pirates deal that brought Jay Buhner to New York. Buhner didn’t last long as a Yankee, to Frank Costanza’s chagrin.
1969 – Jeff Burroughs, OF, Washington Senators:
- We’re going so far back that Ted Williams was the Senators’ manager when they chose Burroughs, who debuted the next season. Burroughs ended up as a good major leaguer from 1970-85 with the Senators, Rangers, Braves, Mariners, A’s and Blue Jays, with whom he combined for a .261/.355/.439 line with 240 HRs and 18.3 fWAR. That said, the Senators may have been wiser to choose righty J.R. Richard, the No. 2 pick and someone who had a better career than Burroughs.
Why should Ken Singleton be in the Hall of Fame?
Harold Baines, Tim Raines and Mike Mussina are in.
Harold Baines is a terrible measure as he clearly doesn’t belong… if your gonna let in players based on that standard the HOF means nothing
Tim Raines is very deserving
All those guys had much more prolific careers than Ken Singleton.
I can’t find a reason. The guy was a good player, but he didn’t get even a single token vote in his lone appearance on the HOF ballot. It’s hard to “arguably” be a Hall of Famer if no one votes for you.
History suggests not every player should be judged by the limited and narrow mindset of particular voting panels. When he reached the ballot, his career was looked at far differently to what it is today – particularly considering the argument that he’s better than Harold Baines, who has made it in.
That’s true, but it’s a lot harder argument when someone has ZERO support. Even someone like Lou Whitaker, who should be in if Trammell is in, got some support on his lone ballot. Ken Singleton was possibly as good as Baines, although I would put him one tier below. I don’t really see any argument where he was BETTER than Baines. I don’t see how a guy who was a full time DH for most of his career can accumulate a negative defensive WAR. From 1993 to the end of his career in 2001 he played a grand total of 2 INNINGS on defense and the ball was never even hit to him once, but somehow he accumulated a total of -7.5 dWAR in that time. How is that possible? But I digress.
The point is that even if Baines and Singleton were similar players, Baines had him on longevity. Sure, some people like to knock guys for “hanging around” to accumulate stats, but MLB is ruthless when it comes down to it. They aren’t going to just keep a spot open for anyone to do that unless they were capable of still being an MLB player. Singleton only played 14 years. With a career that short, you need to be REALLY special to be a HOFer and Singleton just wasn’t. He was a very good player and deserves to be in the Orioles HOF and possibly is in the conversation for a Baltimore jersey retirement, but I don’t think he is even in the conversation for the Hall of Fame.
We can make a case that today’s voters are narrow-minded too. Just because the Veteran’s Committee (or whatever name they were called) made a bad call on Baines does not mean the door should be open for Ken Singleton or other undeserving players.
The narrow-minded BBWAA helped open the door to Baines in the first place. And they opened the door to many others.
Playing everyday at DH automatically comes with a negative dWAR. Positions start at different places, ie some start above or below zero.
I am fully aware of certain positions being punished and others rewarded with dWAR. That’s why I don’t take the statistic seriously in the first place.
But with a DH this is even more ridiculous. How can you negatively affect the defense if you don’t play defense? Did the DH hurt someone’s feelings in the dugout and cause them to make that last error? I mean does the manager start with a negative dWAR too? For that matter, do I have a negative dWAR? My seats along the 3rd base line are about as close to the field as a DH’s in the dugout.
Oh, I agree it’s stupid. I hate the positional adjustments in WAR and try to work around them.
Baines should be in the HOF. I think Fred McGriff should be in too. I think eventually he’ll get in by the veterans committee.
There ARE no reasons, hiflew, just statistics and the arguments devised around them. And the focus on statistics is what leads to the watering down of the selection process.
Agreed. Then Tim Salmon should be in the HOF. Very good players but not HOFers
The cardinals, Dodgers, giants, Indians, Red Sox, and Rockies have never had a first overall pick
I believe you can add the Jays and Reds to that list
Not in the current regular June draft, but the Cardinals and Reds had the #1 in the January secondary draft that ended in 1986. The Cardinals picked up Todd Stottlemyre there. The Indians, Dodgers, Giants, and Red Sox had the #1 pick at one time in the June secondary draft that ended in 1986 as well. The Red Sox got Marty Barrett and the Giants got Dave Kingman. The Blue Jays had the #1 pick 3 times in the regular January draft that ended in 1986 as well. And I guess the Rockies had the #1 pick in their expansion draft.
So everyone has had a first overall pick in a draft, but the Rockies are the only ones that didn’t have one in a regular draft.
Google is amazing, isn’t it? >=}
Yes it is, but I used Baseball Reference for the specifics. Although I knew about the other drafts from my childhood baseball card collection. It always listed when players were drafted.
I don’t know if I would say that J.R. Richard had a better career than Burroughs. Richard is definitely one of the great “what might have been” stories in MLB history. For those that don’t know, he suffered a stroke in the middle of his final season at age 30. He survived, but his career was effectively over. He was definitely great and possibly could have been a Hall of Famer,but we can only go on what really happened not what might have happened.
Burroughs was an AL MVP. Arguably, he had one of the worst statistical seasons of any MVP ever, but when all is said and done, he is still the MVP of the 1974 AL season. Burroughs’s problem was entirely defense. He only had 17.8 bWAR, but that after you factor in a MINUS 19.1 dWAR. Make him a full time DH from day one and he probably would be a borderline HOFer. To be honest, I have no idea why teams were reluctant to make him a DH. He played in 1287 games and only DH’d in 269 of them and the majority of his career was in the AL. Another good “what might have been” story, albeit a much less tragic one.
Tough call. Richard was dominant for 4-5 seasons. Burroughs played longer and had 4 really good seasons and a bunch of decent ones.
Rick Monday… wow, what a name. Is he the Micky Spilane of baseball?
His name is kinda weird. When I hear someone name Rick, it’s usually short for Richard. His name is Robert James Monday.
So, Rick James Monday. That’s pretty cool.
What if the Mets had chosen Reggie (#2) instead of Chilcott (#1)? Reggie in NYC from Day One? Wow! That would have been something.
They could have included him with Nolan Ryan in the deal to get Jim Fregosi. Then Reggie could have been an Angel even earlier.
Not only COULD they have included Reggie in that deal, but as a lifelong Met fan I’m pretty sure they WOULD have.
No mention of Foli winning it all with the ‘79 Bucs?!
Regarding HOF talk and Singleton, Whitaker, Burroughs, Baines, etc, put Parker in the Hall. The Cobra was better than all of those mentioned. There was never a point at which any of those guys were the best in the game.
Singleton is not remotely close to the HOF. He was a minor AS. He had a career 41.8 bWAR and a 3.2/650. Whitaker, for example, has a bWAR of 75.1 and 4.9/650. Reggie Smith has a 64.6 and 5.2/650. Grich has a 71.1 and a 5.6/650.
Harold Baines is Singleton’s only needed argument for the hall. I don’t really believe that because Baines shouldn’t be there either. Inducting him created a mess because now people can say players like Singleton should be in. Singleton is a great example of the Hall of Very Good.
Retire21 is correct. Dave Parker AND Dale Murphy were better than Baines. Singleton had an exceptional batting eye, but not a HOF career. I disagree with the above statement that claimed or alluded to that Tim Raines was not a HOFer, which I believe he was. Also, someone mentioned above that the Indians have never had a #1 draft pick, which I wouldn’t have believed because they have had some rough, horrible years. I had to look it up, but I thought Ted Simmons was a #1 overall pick for the Cardinals, which he wasn’t, but I did see that Simmons cracked the major leagues as an 18 year old, which is amazing, for a catcher.
I’m curious now. How did players get picked for teams before the draft started? There is only about 100 years or so before the draft began.
Mostly they signed as free agents, which means the decided where they started, but had no say in where thy went after that. I do know there was something called “bonus babies” at one point that related to signing big time prospects, but I don’t know the exact details. But the prospects back then were far less known. They just sent scouts around the country and hoped for the best.
Before the draft teams just signed whoever they wanted to.If the Yankees wanted you and you wanted to play for them you just signed with them. Free agency as you came into professional baseball, although you usually signed for peanuts and then were tied to that team for life, or until they were done with you.
Ken Singleton may have been an underrated ballplayer, his strengths were that he was an on-base machine who also could rip the homerun but he has less than 250 HR in his career. His keen eye was his greatest asset since he wasn’t brilliant on the field nor could he run well, but his switch-hitting stick was a valuable commodity. Ken’s HOF chances are weak at best. Good player but I prefer HOF to be great players.
Yeah Ken prolly doesn’t get in but he was one hell of a switch hitter and a class act! Thanks for the memories!
Riddle me this… How did JR Richard not make an All Star team ’76-’79?
Splits maybe? Maybe he did his best work in the second half? I don’t actually know because I didn’t look but my experience has been that this is usually the reason when you see exceptional production but no all-star appearances.
The arguement that the baseball DH is like the 3 point line in basketball is not accurate. Basketball having a “DH” would be more akin to stopping the game after every basket scored or change of possession to sub out your worst shooter when you were on offense. Stop trying to push the AL bias on NL fans.
That was a quote from Blomberg, champ…the first dh is entitled to an opinion on…the dh.
And then the author pushed his opinion.
Loved the whole series, thanks. Fun addition to have the videos here.
I did too. If no baseball comes back, maybe pick a random number and show how many successful players were picked in that spot. The #1 picks are fairly well known, but what about picks #58 or #128?
Burroughs won the MVP but you’d choose someone else?
Foli, gotta love the ring…
Sorry folks, a DH should never make the HOF, and I am a Red Sox fan. The designated hitter is not a player, they are just hitters. You really think Ortiz gets 550 hrs playing the field the last 20 years. He would have lasted only 8-10 years with those knees and feet, and he was a liability on the field when on it defensively. No hall of famer – that should be reserved for the great PLAYERS, not part time hitters.
If relievers can make it than DH’s should too.
I don’t REALLY think that’s a good argument because it seems at least as legitimate to say that Relievers shouldn’t be included.
But I do think relievers in rare situations should be included such as Dennis Eckersly and Mariano Rivera (though first round/100% was over the top) so I would also agree that especially exceptional DH’s should be considered as well.
I guess it comes down to whether you think being the best at 1 or 2 things is enough to make the HOF.
What about AL pitchers? Should they be excluded too? They play the other half of the game that DHs don’t play. If DHs are kept out, then the other half of that pairing should be too.