I warn you dear reader that the following description of the Phillies draft history is not for the faint of heart. It is disturbing, it is grotesque. If you are not prepared for the gross misuse of resources by your favorite ball club and its many generations of decision makers, please do not read on. Though I do not recommend it, if any children under the age of 32 decide to continue, please refrain from calling a Phillies obsessed parent to ask them about the likes of Anthony Hewitt, Greg Golson, or the dreaded 2016 draft as it might cause anger, convulsions, or even death.
The First Round
To set the mood, let’s take a look at the Phillies first round picks from 2003 to 2017 shall we?
| Year | Name | WAR |
| 2003 | None | |
| 2004 | Greg Golson | -.6 |
| 2005 | None | |
| 2006 | Kyle Drabek | -.1 |
| 2006-CB | Adrian Cardenas | -.3 |
| 2007 | Joe Savery | -.1 |
| 2007-CB | Travis d’Arnaud | 8.8 |
| 2008 | Anthony Hewitt | – |
| 2008-CB | Zach Collier | – |
| 2009 | None | |
| 2010 | Jesse Biddle | -.6 |
| 2011-CB | Larry Greene | – |
| 2012-CB | Shane Watson | – |
| 2012-CB | Mitch Gueller | – |
| 2013 | JP Crawford | 21.4 |
| 2014 | Aaron Nola | 35.2 |
| 2015 | Cornelius Randolph | – |
| 2016 (#1 overall) | Mickey Moniak | .9 |
| 2017 | Adam Haseley | 1.5 |
Sweet mercy that’s bad. 16 first round picks in 15 years and only 5 were even at least microscopically positive, with 2 barely registering. I was tempted to cut the list off before Crawford in 2013 to really highlight the 10-year travesty of draft picks before that, but then we would not have been treated to the Mickey Moniak debacle and the complete waste of a season for Mickey Moniak.
The draft mindset of the team back then was to get strong, athletic high schoolers and worry about hitting the ball later. Golson, Hewitt, and Greene all had absolutely no chance to ever make the big leagues. They simply could not hit the ball. If they ever did, it would go a mile, it just rarely happened. As for the pitchers, Biddle, Watson, and Gueller were all lacking any kind of real upside despite being high school guys. It was like the Phillies were just taking guys who looked like they could pitch without having anything special to them.
Of these 16 picks, only 3 were from college. Though that didn’t help Joe Savery or Adam Haseley, it did land us Aaron Nola who had far and away the most success of this group. Of the 13 high schoolers, only Crawford and d’Arnaud had any success.
On the bright side, some of these guys were traded before they were terrible. Drabek and d’Arnaud were traded for Roy Halladay and Adrien Cardenas got us Joe Blanton.
The Rest of the Draft
There are certainly some hits in here, but these seem to be more lucky darts than anything. Even though the MLB draft is different from the other leagues, for the most part, you should be getting better talent at the top of the draft (not including high school flyers who drop but sign anyway). Not the Phillies.
The second round has somehow been even more unkind than the first. Over the same time period the Phillies made 17 2nd round picks. The most successful with 1.9 WAR is Anthony Gose. He shouldn’t even count considering the Phillies drafted him as an outfielder and he didn’t debut until he was traded and converted to a pitcher! Next is Roman Quinn with .7 WAR. That’s it! No one else has a positive WAR from the 2nd round. How is that possible?
Very little went right in these drafts. Let’s go through them, just for funsies:
- 2003: 6 players reached the Majors led by Michael Bourn’s 22.8 WAR drafted in the 4th round. Brad Zeigler (13.3) was drafted in the 20th round, but the Phillies let him go the next year, long before he developed into a great reliever.
- 2004: 6 players reach the Majors led by J.A. Happ drafted in the 3rd round. No one else does better than 1.3 WAR.
- 2005: Josh Outman leads the WAR pack with 2.7 WAR. Only 4 others make the majors, none of which do anything productive. The Phillies did draft Vance Worley this year, but it was out of high school and didn’t sign.
- 2006: What could have been out of this draft. Drabek and Cardenas looked like studs for awhile, but it was 20th round pick Domonic Brown who really had us (me especially) thinking big. I think he got up to either #1 or #3 in some prospect rankings. Outside of one month back in 2013, it never clicked for him in the majors. He finished with .7 WAR despite like 3 coming that month. He should have carried the next generation. Damn.
- 2007: The Phillies failed to sign 3rd round pick and future pariah Brandon Workman. They should have taken the hint. Jake Diekman is the most successful of the group after Travis d’Arnaud.
- 2008: This was a weird one. Hewitt and Collier never made it, but much of this draft came up useful in trades.
- Anthony Gose (2nd) was traded for Roy Oswalt
- Jason Knapp (2nd) was the centerpiece for Cliff Lee
- Trevor May (4th) and Vance Worley (3rd) were traded for Ben Revere
- Jarred Cosart (38th) was a late over-slot signing who went to Houston for Hunter Pence
- 2009: Awful. At 1.8 WAR, Aaron Altherr edges out Darin Ruf’s 1.2 for the win. Jon Singleton (8th) was in the Hunter Pence deal and was the top pick to reach the majors.
- 2010: Of the 5 players to reach the majors, Cameron Rupp was the best one. Thats miserable. (one great name in the bunch though, Gauntlett Eldemire)
- 2011: Ken Giles leads the way of some forgettable names of yesteryear like Roman Quinn, Cody Asche, and Adam Morgan. If you remember them, shame on you (shame on me first)
- 2012: Hoby Milner is the only 1 of 5 signees to post a positve WAR in the Majors and even that is only 2.2 WAR (even if he is Bryce Harper’s kryptonite)
- 2013: Griffin Jax and Cavan Biggio! Wait, you didn’t know they were drafted by the Phillies? They were, but didn’t sign. Instead, only 3 draftees made the majors. Crawford, followed by Mark Leiter (-.7) and Andrew Knapp (-1).
- 2014: Nola and Rhys Hoskins lead the way, but only 2 others made the majors, putting up a combined -1 WAR. I have to note that Matt Imhof was drafted in the 2nd round. He was the prospect that needed his eye amputated after an incredibly tragic incident training with resistance bands. Very Sixersy.
- 2015: Four made the Show including hard luck loser Scott Kingery. #10 overall pick and the unbelievably named Cornelius Cleopatrick Randolph did not. Bailey Falter leads the way with 3.4 WAR.
- 2016: The Phillies came away with the #1 pick in the worst year possible. So much is made of Mickey Moniak never living up to his selection, but Kevin Gowdy and his $3.5m bonus don’t get enough shit. Another awful draft made worse in that the Phillies had the first pick in every round.
- 2017: You want to know how bad the Adam Haseley experience was? Connor Brogdon has a higher WAR than him at 1.6. Spencer Howard was our 2nd round pick. How did that go?
Are you crying yet? If you are wondering why things got so bleak after the 2011 season, this is it. Sure, Ruben Amaro made a lot of win-now trades, but it’s not like we gave up very much in those moves. He just drafted terribly. The system was never restocked.
They’ve learned their lesson since then and have become pretty good at identifying and developing high school talent. Let’s hope they keep it up. The draft starts Sunday at 6pm and runs through Monday.
Philly Front Office 
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