In a piece on Wednesday, I redrafted the first 30 picks of the 2010 draft, which included only 10 players who went in that year’s actual first round. Here, I look at the players from that year’s first round (which ran to 32 picks, as Texas and Tampa Bay had unprotected, compensatory picks for their failures to sign their first-rounders the year before) who didn’t pan out, with some notes on what went wrong with the picks themselves or with the players’ careers in pro ball.
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4. Christian Colón, SS
Team: Kansas City Royals
Status: 1.5 career WAR
Colón was supposed to be a safe pick as a college position player with a long track record of performance — he was a significant prospect out of high school — but it quickly became apparent in pro ball that he had to move to second base, and while he rarely struck out in the minors, he didn’t make enough quality contact to profile as more than an up-and-down guy. He did appear in eight games last year for the Reds.
6. Barret Loux, RHP
Team: Arizona Diamondbacks
Status: Did not sign
Loux failed his post-draft physical, which led to a protracted battle between the two sides that ended with Loux becoming a free agent and signing with Texas. He pitched two full seasons in the Rangers system before a trade to the Cubs, after which he had elbow and shoulder surgeries that knocked him out for 2014. He came back but wasn’t effective and was released after 11 innings.
8. Delino DeShields, OF
Team: Houston Astros
Status: 5.3 career WAR
DeShields was a two-sport recruit to LSU, an 80 runner in high school with a good swing and obvious bloodlines. I heard a lot of questions about his makeup, especially his effort level, once he was in pro ball, and that may have been why the Astros didn’t protect him from the Rule 5 draft. He’s played almost regularly for Texas but has no power at all, consistently ranking among the bottom 10 players in the majors in isolated power.
9. Karsten Whitson, RHP
Team: San Diego Padres
Status: Did not sign
Whitson agreed to terms with the Padres, backed out, agreed to another number, then backed out again, so the Padres finally walked away. Whitson went to the University of Florida and was drafted in 2014 by the Red Sox in the 11th round, throwing just seven pro innings before multiple arm surgeries ended his career.
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10. Michael Choice, OF
Team: Oakland A’s
Status: -2.0 career WAR
Choice was a modest reach at this pick, a college hitter with huge power but questions about his conditioning and his ability to make contact on better stuff. He didn’t hit at all in a half-year in the majors with Texas and was done after 2017.
11. Deck McGuire, RHP
Team: Toronto Blue Jays
Status: -0.2 career WAR
McGuire was supposed to be a safe back-of-the-rotation college arm, but his delivery wasn’t easy to repeat and his stuff, never elite, backed up a little bit when he pitched every fifth day. His floor turned out to be someone who gets only a cup of coffee in the majors, not a fifth starter.
14. Dylan Covey, RHP
Team: Milwaukee Brewers
Status: Did not sign
Covey learned he had Type 1 diabetes from his post-draft physical and decided to go to college rather than sign. Oakland took him in the fourth round in 2013.
15. Jake Skole, OF
Team: Texas Rangers
Status: Never reached the majors
This was Texas’ compensatory pick for failing to sign Matt Purke the year before. Skole played nine high school games the entire spring because of injury and was willing to agree to a deal before the draft, which appealed to the Rangers because this pick was unprotected (if they didn’t sign the pick, they wouldn’t get a pick back for it in 2011). He never got out of Double A. In 2017, he joined the University of Georgia football team as a defensive back.
16. Hayden Simpson, RHP
Team: Chicago Cubs
Status: Never reached the majors
The single most egregious first-round pick I can remember in my 18 years in the industry, Simpson pitched at Division II Southern Arkansas and was a prospect … but not this kind of prospect. He wasn’t on my top 100 that year, nor was he on the top 200 over at Baseball America. He had a little velocity bump that spring, but it didn’t last in pro ball, and a case of mono he contracted right after signing delayed his pro debut into 2011, by which point he was as good as done: His lowest pro ERA at any stop was 5.72, and he never got above High A. The Cubs released him after he posted a 6.18 ERA in short-season Boise in 2012.
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17. Josh Sale, OF
Team: Tampa Bay Rays
Status: Never reached the majors
Sale was a big power bat out of a Washington state high school, but he had significant off-field issues that included a 50-game suspension after testing positive for meth and a PED, and a team suspension for an incident where he threw change at a stripper. He came back briefly from those suspensions in 2013, but the Rays released him the next year and he was done.
18. Kaleb Cowart, 3B
Team: Los Angeles Angels
Status: -1.3 career WAR
Cowart was a legitimate first-rounder as a position player and a pitcher out of high school — he started a playoff game that May and hit 96 mph in the first inning — but the Angels took the safe (and, I think, smart) route and let Cowart hit and field. Unfortunately, his power never came, as he put the ball on the ground too often. Last year, he tried to become a two-way player, pitching ineffectively at Double A and Triple A for the Angels.
20. Kolbrin Vitek, 2B
Team: Boston Red Sox
Status: Never reached the majors
If it weren’t for Simpson, we might talk about Vitek as the worst pick of the first round. The Ball State product was a bust almost immediately, didn’t hit at all in Double A in 2012 or 2013, and retired in March 2014. An infielder in college, Vitek was widely expected to move to the outfield, where the hope was that his above-average speed would make him a good defender in center, and teams didn’t have a wood-bat history on him (as they would with most college hitters, from Team USA, the Cape Cod League or elsewhere) to back up evaluations of his bat.
21. Alex Wimmers, RHP
Team: Minnesota Twins
Status: 0.2 career WAR
Wimmers was a star for Ohio State and in the Cape Cod League, with plus control and two solid secondary pitches but an ordinary fastball. He was dogged by injuries for most of his pro career, missing most of 2012 and 2013 with two elbow surgeries and only reaching 100 innings once in the minors (2015). He did get two brief, unsuccessful cups of coffee with the Twins in 2016 and 2017, then went to the Marlins on a minor-league deal for 2018. He was released that June and hasn’t pitched since.
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22. Kellin Deglan, C
Team: Texas Rangers
Status: Never reached the majors
Deglan followed in Brett Lawrie’s footsteps, as both were Canadian high school kids who soared into the first round on the strength of big spring showings with traveling teams that played in Florida and Arizona. He never hit that well in pro ball, eventually had shoulder surgery and came back to play the past two years in the Yankees system as an organizational catcher with neither the bat nor the arm to advance further.
24. Gary Brown, OF
Team: San Francisco Giants
Status: 0.1 career WAR
Brown was an 80 runner with below-average power and a really poor approach at the plate, and after one big year in High A in 2011, he didn’t hit at all at the upper levels. The Giants cut him loose after 2014, and he was done in organized baseball a year later.
25. Zack Cox, 3B
Team: St. Louis Cardinals
Status: Never reached the majors
I was wrong on Cox’s bat — I thought he’d hit, as he made hard contact every time I saw him, and he had a strong reputation with the bat going back to high school. He didn’t make adjustments well at all, and his thicker lower half kept him from playing a capable third base. The Cardinals traded him to the Marlins in 2012, and his career ended after a stint in Double A with the Tigers in 2017.
26. Kyle Parker, OF
Team: Colorado Rockies
Status: -1.6 career WAR
Parker was a two-sport star at Clemson, and following the draft returned as the Tigers’ starting quarterback that fall. In baseball, he showed big power as a hitter but lacked other tools to profile as more than an up-and-down guy. The most surprising part of his unsuccessful pro career is that even the power didn’t really show up — playing in several hitters’ parks in the Rockies system, he never hit more than 23 homers anywhere and hit just 15 in a full year in Colorado Springs. His career ended in 2016.
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27. Jesse Biddle, LHP
Team: Philadelphia Phillies
Status: -0.5 career WAR
Biddle was a local kid with a pretty good arm who dominated the awful competition in the private-school circuit around Philly, but he was snakebit as a prospect, blowing out his elbow, getting hit on the head by hail and losing the strike zone at one point. But he has managed to carve out a brief (so far) career as a lefty reliever. He was in camp with the Reds this spring.
28. Zach Lee, RHP
Team: Los Angeles Dodgers
Status: -0.3 career WAR
A quarterback recruit to LSU, Lee had a clean delivery, athleticism and projection … that never projected. He threw strikes everywhere but didn’t miss bats, which makes me wonder if TrackMan-style data might have told us his fastball was “low quality” (lacking spin or other characteristics to make it harder to hit). His real claim to fame might be that he was the player traded to the Mariners for Chris Taylor. He was in camp this spring with the A’s.
29. Cam Bedrosian, RHP
Team: Los Angeles Angels
Status: 0.9 career WAR
Bedrosian has turned out to be a capable reliever after a rough start to his career. He threw 12 innings in 2010 after signing, blew out his elbow and didn’t get back until 2012.
30. Chevy Clarke, OF
Team: Los Angeles Angels
Status: Never reached the majors
Clarke was a well-known prospect on a bad high school team in suburban Atlanta; his school didn’t even reach the postseason, which might have given scouts one more look at him against better pitching. Whatever the reasons the industry missed on him, Clarke didn’t hit at all in pro ball, with a career .217/.312/.346 line before he was released after the 2014 season. The Angels had eight picks in the first three rounds in 2010 and none produced even 1 WAR in the majors.
31. Justin O’Conner, C
Team: Tampa Bay Rays
Status: Never reached the majors
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O’Conner’s main claim to fame might be a profane reaction he had to taking a baseball to his nether regions — he wasn’t wearing a cup — at the Area Code Games in 2009. The talented defender couldn’t get on base at all, bottoming out with a .255 OBP (13 walks in 444 PA) in Double A at age 23. O’Conner was a two-way prospect in high school, showing power at the plate and a plus arm, and he began to try to come back as a pitcher in 2019, throwing 14 innings for two White Sox affiliates. That Rays 2010 draft was rather spectacular for its poor results given the picks they had: They had six picks in the top 100 and only two reached the majors, Derek Dietrich and Ryan Brett (three career at-bats), and the draft was salvaged for the Rays only by their 31st-round pick, Kevin Kiermaier.
32. Cito Culver, SS
Team: New York Yankees
Status: Never reached the majors
The Yankees knew Culver extremely well, as he played on their summer team that went to the East Coast Pro Showcase and the Area Code Games, and they swore by his makeup. He wasn’t going to stay at short, with a plus arm but limited range, and his bat was light across the board. The Yanks certainly gave him chances, keeping him through 2017 and bumping him up to Triple A, but after one more year with the Marlins, his pro career was over. He had a .231/.304/.328 line in more than 3,700 plate appearances.
(Photo of Hayden Simpson in 2012: Mike Janes / Four Seam Images via Associated Press)
