Comments on: A Look Back: The 2001 MLB Draft

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 08:05:21 +0000

I’m not sure where it was but I believe it was this year when the Cardinals were playing the Phillies in the season they were interviewing Mo or Luhnow about Howard and there explaination for not drafting him was that they didn’t know how well he would end up playing defense so they didn’t draft him. Note to the Cardinals when a player has that much power, and is local, draft him and work on developing his Defense, don’t pass him up. Same with David Wright.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 07:06:57 +0000

Just read through an article that mentioned that David Wright was considered one of the best HS hitters of that draft class other than Mauer and John Sickels at the time thought he would be the steal of the draft the Mets getting him in the supplemental 1st round. Same with Ryan Howard, not sure why we didn’t go with the local kid like Minnesota did that year. We kind of already had a great 1st basemen, but Howard could have been great trade bait.

By: Forsch31

Forsch31 — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:43:48 +0000

Yeah, that statement struck me as odd. Evans has had 20 games in the majors–8 in 2007, 11 in 2009, and 1 last season. He’s going to be 29 when next season starts. So, the Cardinals got an emergency rental who turned into a playoff performer for the 2006 Series title for a prospect who has gone nowhere. Doesn’t seem like an overpayment to me.

By: cariocacardinal

cariocacardinal — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 11:21:20 +0000

2 solid major leaguers (one an all-star), 2 marginal players who could still improve, and several cups of coffee. Not a bad draft

By: Ronald

Ronald — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:02:54 +0000

I didn’t realize we drafted Dan Kantrovitz. I went to high school with him!

By: tnek5

tnek5 — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:50:24 +0000

I was just told that I was banned by this site.

By: 51

51 — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:42:55 +0000

Longtime reader and fan of the blog. Don’t understand why in hindsight one would consider Terry Evans an overpay for anything of value.

By: Gruntosaurus

Gruntosaurus — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:38:25 +0000

Pope was widely considered a mistake at the time, and hoo boy, was he ever.

There were also a pile of missed opportunities that year. David Wright was still available when Pope was selected. So were J. J. Hardy and Ryan Theriot(!). Ryan Howard didn’t go until the 5th round. Kevin Youkilis didn’t go until the 8th. Geovany Soto, Dan Uggla and Stephen Drew all didn’t go until the 11th. Jason Bartlett was way down in the 13th round.

You have to accept a certain number of these missed chances as normal; player development is notoriously unpredictable. Still, the failure to draft Howard has perplexed me. He was a local product who’d made a name for himself as a prodigious power hitter as young as age 12, and nobody knew at the time of the draft that first base was going to be otherwise occupied for most of the next ten years. At the same time, 29 other teams passed on four chances to draft him too.

All of this said, a draft that gets 8 guys to the bigs, even briefly, cannot be considered a failure by any standards. The “failure” associated with this draft came later, when the big-league team and front office failed to appreciate the value of the one guy that made it big time.