The Perfect Draft

This was not my idea.  While cruising around the internet looking for something interesting, I found this intriguing article by Joe Posnanski about having the perfect draft.  It's a "what-might-have-been" article about the Kansas City Royals and their 1999 draft and what kind of team they'd have if their club had used their pick a bit more wisely.  Please read the article, it's very good (as is all of his writing).  In the opening sentence he writes that you can do this with any team, so I did.  And of course I picked the Angels, but not the 1999 draft.  Instead I went with the 2000 draft mainly because of how bad it was for the Angels.  Of the first 15 picks made by the Halos, 2 players have spent time in the major leagues, Chris Bootcheck and Bobby Jenks.

I've written before about how hard it is to predict major league players from high school and college draft eligible players.  From the years 1995 to 2005, the Oakland A's had the highest percentage of draft picks play in the major leagues and that percentage was a whooping 15.6%.  Cleveland had the worst draft record with just 7.9% of their picks making to the big leagues (by the way, the Angels had a 9.6% rate).  There was a lot written about the home-grown talent of the Phillies and the Rays during the World Series, but the Angels actually had more home-grown players on their roster last season, so apparently they've done well drafting and signing players who can help them at the upper levels:

Here's the 2000 draft if it were perfect:

Angels first pick (10th overall): LHP Joe Torres
Could have been: 2B Chase Utley (15th overall)

Comment:  The Angels took a high school pitcher from Florida with their first pick in the draft, the Phillies took a 2B from UCLA five picks later.  Neither are currently with the Angels.

Angels supplemental pick (20th overall):  RHP Chris Bootcheck
Could have been:  RHP Adam Wainwright (29th overall)

Angels 2nd round pick (50th overall): C Jared Abruzzo
Could have been:  OF Grady Sizemore (75th overall)

Comment: Mmmmm Grady Sizemore (insert Homer Simpson gurgling sound)

Angels 3rd round pick (80th overall):  SS Tommy Murphy
Could have been:  RHP Chris Young (89th overall)

Angels 4th round pick (110th overall): RHP Chuck Thames
Could have been:  3B Garrett Atkins (137th overall)

Comment:  There had previously been rumor that the Angels were looking into trading for Atkins, they could have just drafted him 9 years ago.

Angels 5th round pick (140th overall):  RHP Bobby Jenks
Could have been:  RHP Bobby Jenks

Comment:  They got this one right...at least until they waived him following the 2004 season.

Angels 6th round pick (170th overall):  RHP Brandon O'Neal
Could have been:  RHP Taylor Buchholz (175th overall)

Angels 7th round pick (200th overall):  SS Aaron Hill
Could have been: RHP Dontrelle Willis (223rd overall)

Comment:  Okay, the last Angels didn't miss too much with those last two picks, except Buchholz is looking to be a very good bullpen guy.

Angels 8th round pick (230th overall): LHP Adam Pace
Could have been:  RHP Brandon Webb (249th overall)

Angels 9th round pick (260th overall):  OF Jason Coulie
Could have been:  3B Edwin Encarnacion (274th overall)

Angels 10th round pick (290th overall):  RHP Matt Hensley
Could have been: 1B Brad Hawpe (317th overall)

Angels 11th round pick (320th overall):  LHP Garrett Patterson
Could have been: OF Corey Hart (321st overall)

Comment:  There were no significant players (so far) selected in the 12th and 13th rounds, however the following players were selected later in the draft, Rich Harden (510th overall), Jason Bay (645th overall), Nate McLouth (749th overall), Chad Cordero (769th overall), Ian Kinsler (879th overall), Adam LaRoche (880th overall), and Russ Martin (1035th overall).

Angels 14th round pick (410th overall): OF Kevin Jenkins
Could have been: OF Ryan Church (426th overall)

Angels 15th round pick (440th overall): LHP Geoffrey Smart
Could have been: RHP James Shields (466th overall)

Angels 16th round pick (470th overall): SS John Raburn
Could have been: SS Josh Willingham (491st overall)

Angels 17th round pick (500th overall): C Mike Napoli
Could have been: C Mike Napoli

Comments:  There!  It only took 500 picks to get a player who's contributing on the major league roster.

So, when it's all added up...after 50 rounds, the Angels have one player on their roster who's making a difference.  Here's what the line-up could have looked like:

C - Mike Napoli
1B - Adam LaRoche
2B - Chase Utley
3B - Garrett Atkins
SS - Brandon Wood
LF - Corey Hart
CF - Grady Sizemore
RF - Xavier Nady
DH - Valdimir Guerrero

SP- John Lackey
SP - Brandon Webb
SP - Ervin Santana
SP - Joe Saunders
SP - Cliff Lee

That's a pretty good line-up.  As Mr. Posnanski writes-

"One draft. Of course, no team gets all the draft picks right. No team gets half the draft picks right, or one-third, or one-quarter or even one out of every twenty right. But it's possible...If you are right on the draft, really right, you can beat every team out there no matter how many billion they might spend."

Obviously, this is a fantasyland scenario as no team can get every pick in every round right.  And I'm not trying to pick on the Angels since every team has had a poor draft, but if the Angels had been right more than once in the 2000 draft, we'd be talking more about dynasty than what might have been.