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No, I don't mean the basketball team. Nor am I talking about the evil gang in the book/movie 'READY PLAYER ONE'.
But rather, on the occasion of the imminent shipping of our most recent one out to Seattle, I dredged up all the #6 overall picks in the history of the MLB draft to see how they fared.
Since 1965 - 10 career WAR or more
1967 - John Mayberry, 24.9 WAR (drafted by Houston)
1976 - Ken Landreaux, 10.4 (Angels)
1977 - Terry Kennedy, 21.6 (Cardinals)
1979 - Andy Van Slyke, 41.3 (Cardinals)
1981 - Kevin McReynolds, 30.1 (Padres)
1982 - Spike Owen, 12.5 (Mariners)
1985 - Barry Bonds, 162.8 (Pirates)
1986 - Gary Sheffield, 60.5 (Brewers)
1992 - Derek Jeter, 72.4 (Yankees)
2000 - Rocco Baldelli, 10.2 (Rays)
2002 - Zack Greinke, 65.7 (Royals)
2011 - Anthony Rendon, 21.1 (Nationals)
So that's 12 out of 54 years (although those from recent years really haven't had their shots yet so the odds are somewhat better than 12/54 = 22.2%) that some pretty good players have emerged
including several will-be/should-be/might-be HoF'ers. Not all those players racked up their careers with their drafting teams, although all on this list at least started their careers with that club.
Only Jeter and, so far, Rendon played with their drafting club exclusively.
On the other side of the coin, ten picks out of the 45 seasons from 1965- 2010* never played a day in the majors.
And in between those two extremes ... well there was a whole lot of in between.
NYM picks?
Kelenic was our third, joining 1975's choice of Butch Benton, a catcher out of a Tennessee HS. Benton amassed 29 PA w/the Mets during call-ups in 1978 & '80 (3 hits, all singles) before being let go in 1981.
He'd go on to latch on for another 80 PA with the Cubs and Indians with similar results. And we were also responsible for one of the non-ML'ers, that would be 1997's Geoff Goetz, a HS LHP from Tampa who
never advanced above AA ball. But his choice wasn't a total loss as he wound up as one of the pieces in the Mike Piazza deal.
* I cut it off at 2010 and Barrett Laroux who has never made the majors and appears to be out of baseball at this point, and all of the other non-ML'ers are too far in the past to ever make it.
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