2014 MLB draft review five years later: Aaron Nola stands out in a class of elite shooters

The old adage says it takes five years to evaluate a class project, although I always thought it was a bit generous. Three years is usually enough to give teams an idea of ​​what they have. There are always exceptions, but after three years, the candidates should have separated from the suspects.

The 2019 amateur draft to begin on Monday, the time is propitious to go back five years back and review the draft of 2014. The draft class of 2014 has not yet produced a major winner, but it has produced two the four best players in the National League vote, Cy Young, as well as numerous appearances in the All-Star Game.

Victories over replacement, or WAR, is neither perfect nor definitive for measuring performance. It works very well for an exercise like this. So, with the help of Baseball-Reference.com, let's review the 2014 Preliminary Course.

The first choice

The No. 1 draft choice of the 2014 MLB deserves its own section. The Astros, after losing 111 games in 2013, won the # 1 pick in 2014. It was their third consecutive pick. They took Carlos Correa with the first selection in 2012 (a huge success) and Mark Appel with the first selection in 2013 (a huge miss).

Houston used the # 1 choice in 2014 on left-handed Brady Aiken of Southern California High School. Aiken was the leading consensus candidate for the 2014 Selection Class and MLB.com praised his "athletics and throwing sense", and stated that he had "a chance to develop three above-average bids." or better ". Aiken had all the necessary ingredients to become a great ace of the league.

The Astros and Aiken would have accepted a signing bonus of $ 6.5 million shortly after the draft, which would have been a record bonus for a high school pitcher. However, during the pre-signing session, the Astros were frightened by something in Aiken's elbow and they withdrew their offer of $ 6.5 million. Ken Rosenthal, who was writing for FOX Sports, has the details:

The Astros, at a time of growing concern about pitching elbow injuries, believe Aiken's physical health has revealed a "significant anomaly" in the region of the elbow ligament, according to major league sources.

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The Astros (agent Casey) Close made a revised offer of $ 3,168,840 million to Aiken – the minimum amount required to ensure that they would receive the overall second choice of the 2015 project as compensation they did not sign Aiken.

Why would the Astros risk more than $ 3.1 million on Aiken but not $ 6.5 million? In part, according to some sources, to protect their rights on the choice of 2015 – and partly because they believe that Aiken was worth the investment at a lower price.

Aiken became the third choice no 1 not to sign, joining Danny Goodwin (White Sox in 1971) and Tim Belcher (Twins in 1983). The Astros received the second pick in 2015 as a payoff – Houston had chosen this choice to choose Alex Bregman – and Aiken is enrolled in a postgraduate baseball program at the IMG Academy in Florida. He left his first match with IMG with an elbow discomfort and was operated by Tommy John in March 2015.

Despite this, the Indians selected Aiken with the 17th overall pick in the 2015 draft and paid him a $ 2.5 million bonus. He struggled a lot as a professional, winning 179 innings with 128 goals scored and a 5.18 inning. Aiken's speed has decreased since the rebuilding of the elbow and, earlier this month, Driveline Baseball, a state-of-the-art training center used by several MLB players, sent an article to Instagram showing Aiken working in their center.

While the Astros would surely have liked to add a healthy Aiken to their farming system, they did not take it with choice # 1 do not to sign it – things worked out well because that led them to Bregman. For Aiken, he still received a seven-digit bonus, but he had to wait another year to get it, and he's no longer the same pitcher since his senior year in high school in 2014.

Top 10 players so far

In a way, Aaron Nola was the fourth pitcher in the 2014 draw. The Phillies caught him with choice # 7 and 13 months later he was in the big leagues. Nola has a career of 3.44 years in 633 2/3 and was a deserving star of last season. He also finished third in the Cy Young vote behind Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer, and even finished 13th in the MVP vote.

At the time of writing the project, Nola, an LSU product, was hailed for its fast moving ball and its evolution, as well as for its ability to throw both sides of the plate with this fastball. The Phillies have helped him improve his ball game over the past few years, allowing Nola to move from an interesting prospect to a MLB ace. He is the best player in the 2014 draft to date and, quite easily, the best pitcher in the repechage.

The development of Matt Chapman in recent seasons has been remarkable. Everyone knew that he had the power and that he was a potential Gold Glove defender at the third goal before the 2014 draft. The question was whether he would make enough contact to produce against higher level pitching. Athletes believed in their ability to adjust and verify Chapman's slaughter rates over the years:

• 2016 in Double-A and Triple-A: 29.4%
• 2017 in Triple-A and MLB: 29.8 percent
• 2018 in MLB: 23.7%
• 2019 in MLB: 16.5%

Over the past four years, Chapman has gone from Double-A to the big leagues and has been able to reduce his slaughter rate by almost half. It's terribly impressive. Chapman has not yet been selected for a star game – I have to believe that this will happen this summer – but he won a gold glove last year and finished seventh of the vote at the most useful.

Is it just me or is Michael Conforto one of the big hitters of the match? He entered Thursday night's game as one of 15 qualifying batters with a base percentage of more than 400, and his overall offensive output (155 OPS +) more or less matches sensational rookie Pete Alonso (157 OPS +). Comforto was in the big leagues 13 months after being drafted and in October, he became the third youngest player with a two-circuit game in the World Series.

Only Andruw Jones (19 years old and 180 days old) and Tony Kubek (21 years old and 358 days old) were younger than Conforto (22 years old and 244 days old) at the time of their matches against the Fall Classic. If it was not for a shoulder injury that ended his opening season of 2017 and put a hard key in his 2018 follow-up, I think that Conforto would attract more attention for its high quality. The Mets hit a homer with this pick, no pun intended.

As is often the case with pitchers who made their home in Coors Field, Rockies southpaw Kyle Freeland has had some ups and downs in his three years as a great player. Last season, he launched 202 innings and a third with a silver point average of 2.85 and finished just behind Nola in Cy Young's vote. This year he has a 7.13 ERA. Ouch. Even so, Freeland, a young man from Denver, reached the major leagues less than three years after his repechage and has great value. I know that ERA is a horror this season, but I feel good to bet on Freeland for better performance.

Trea Turner had a hectic professional career. For starters, he started his NC State selection year as the # 1 nominee, but concerns related to his momentum led him to fall to the Padres and choice # 13. Six months after was drafted, Turner was sent to the Nationals as a player who will be named later in the circuit of the three teams of Wil Myers with the Rays. Full trade:

Technically, Ross and Turner were traded to Tampa, who then transferred them to Washington for Souza. Whatever the case may be, Turner was a player to name later because, at the time, the MLB rules prohibited teams from trading players until one year after the signing of the their first professional contract. The teams circumvented this by including them in trades as named players later, and naming them after the end of the one – year waiting period. (The players to be named must be six months later.)

The exchanges of three teams decreased on December 19, 2014. It was not until June 14, 2015 that Turner was officially sent to the Nationals. He was going to Washington. It was an open secret. For all practical purposes, the Nationals had a perspective, an excellent perspective, to play in the San Diego farming system for a few months in 2015. Finally, Turner was able to join the Nationals and he is now a dynamic two-way player. shortstop who finished second behind Corey Seager in the 2016 rookie of the year vote. So much for the concerns about his swing, huh?

(After Turner's odd situation, the MLB has changed its rules for the exchange of recently signed players and they can now be traded six months after signing their first professional contract.)

To this day, some talented evaluators claim that Carlos Rodon's slider is the best brittle ball they've ever seen at the college level. It is a playground that has received rare 80s on a scale of 20 to 80. Here is a GIF from Rodon's slider to NC State (via FanGraphs):

Absurd. Rodon's slider has not been quite this good in pro ball – the seams on the college ball are a little more raised than the ball from the MLB, allowing the ground to break more (which presents one of the many challenges of the 39), but he reached the big leagues 10 months after being drafted and was a usable runner for the White Sox the last four seasons and the change. Rodon recently underwent surgery Tommy John.

To date, the best player in the 2014 draft retained after the first round has been Marlins' third base player, now the right-third-baseman, Brian Anderson. He debuted at the MLB as an Appellant in September 2017 and finished fourth in the 2018 Rookie Vote in his first full season of Big League. Anderson was considered a potential player in 2014 because of his tools and his athleticism, but a junior year down in Arkansas – "down" is relative here, because Anderson hit for .328 / .401 / .498 for this spring's Razorbacks – – caused his draft stock to slip. Miami jumped in the third round and did not regret one second.

Phillies hitter Rhys Hoskins is a story of success in scouting and developing players. He was seen as a heavyweight in the state of Sacramento, but Philadelphia acknowledged his excellent sense of the strikes and identified him as a player who could make big gains through his work ethic. That's exactly what happened. Hoskins is now a legitimate hitter in the midst of order for a team in contention and a player that the Phillies can build around. Without the unfortunate left field experience of last season – Hoskins was worth less than 3.6 WAR for the only defense in 2018 – Hoskins would be much higher on this list.

The Yankees have become an excellent player development organization and Jordan Montgomery is one of their best successes. He was a four-length guy with a fastball who was sitting at about 90 mph in South Carolina. The Yankees helped him to increase his speed and sharpen his curve. Three years later, he won a big spin in the league after being trained in the spring as a guest not part of the team. Montgomery finished sixth in the 2017 rookie vote and is expected to join the Yankees shortly after the all – star break this year, after completing his surgery rehabilitation at Tommy John.

Jack Flaherty was one of my favorite candidates in the 2014 draft and the Cardinals developed him to be exactly the type of thrower he'd projected when he took her out of a California high school. South. Flaherty showed three potential secondary pitches with very good command and throwing know-how, and St. Louis helped him add some speed and refine his entire arsenal. Last year, Flaherty retired 182 batting batters in 151 innings and finished fifth in the year 's rookie vote. There are few recruits in 2014 and I would be more willing to advance my cart than Flaherty. The Cardinals, by the way, chose Flaherty with the clearing choice that they received for the loss of Carlos Beltran through free will.

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To date, seven other 2014 rookies have provided at least +2 WAR of great value to the league. The seven:

• Brandon Woodruff, Brewers (11th round, 326th choice): +3.3 WAR
• Sean Newcomb, Angels (1st round, 15th choice): +3.0 WAR
• Kyle Schwarber, Cubs (1st round, 4th choice): +2.9 WAR
• Ramon Laureano, Astros (16th round, 466th choice): +2.5 WAR
• Brandon Finnegan, Royals (1st round, 17th choice): +2.3 WAR
• Daniel Mengden, Astros (4th round, 106th choice): +2.2 WAR
• Alex Verdugo, Dodgers (2nd round, 62nd choice): +2.1 WAR

Finnegan (Royals 2014) and Schwarber (Cubs 2016) played in the World Series and four of these seven players were traded. Newcomb was the poster head in the Andrelton Simmons affair. Kansas City used Finnegan to get Johnny Cueto in 2015. The A acquired Mengden from the Astros in trading Scott Kazmir and Laureano in a minor exchange in November 2017.

Best choices after the 10th round

The choices of the first round hold all the attention and it is understandable that they are, although the late choices often make the difference between the suitors and the suitors. The ability to find hidden gems and turn those end-of-turn picks into useful big league players – even if they're average rescue players or bench players – can make a huge difference in a pennant race. Here are the best players selected after the 10th round in 2014.

Injuries and a year-down in the market have gnawed Woodruff's stock in Mississippi State, though it showed enough raw material for the Brewers to catch it in the 11th round. Since then, he has greatly improved his performance and therefore his command, and he has emerged as a bulldog starter with the versatility to play virtually any role. Milwaukee has done a great job in identifying a pitcher with raw tools, work ethic and a keen sense of pro ballooning.

Astros chief executive, Jeff Luhnow, recently admitted that he had not understood what he had had at Laureano when he sent her to his divisional rival, Brandon Bailey, the rival of the division, in November 2017. "We had the feeling that Laureano was going to be a great league player, but he had a faster start than we thought. So, yes, it's a dream I would love to come back to, "said Luhnow in Rome of Houston Chronicle last month. Laureano was not a notable candidate at Northeastern Oklahoma A & M College, but he has made adjustments over the years to become a better batter and maximize his defense skills. Oakland has very well identified him as an undervalued player. (Bailey, by the way, has an ERA of 5.09 in Double-A this year.)

Less than a year ago, John Means looked like a pitcher from top to bottom and, in general, it is a good result for an eleventh round pick. The new Orioles player development staff helped him improve his evolutionHowever, and now Means stands out as a potential building block for a rebuilding club. There is only a few rounds left to qualify for the ERA title with an average of 2.80 and one of the lowest baseball hard contact rates. Nice little gift of departure from the old O.

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Four other players selected after the 10th round of the 2014 draft have already accumulated until the half-victory of a value in the big leagues. Not surprisingly, they are all pitchers. Most recent successes are pitchers who have learned new terrain, improved existing terrain, or simply remained healthy after being injured. The fourth:

The Red Sox traded Beeks against Rays against Nathan Eovaldi on last year's deadline, making it a resounding success for Boston. James has a chance to be a huge success. He was not selected in the Draft Rule 5 of 2017 – no matter what other team could have gotten for nothing, aside from the $ 100,000 Draft's expense for the Rule 5 and a place in the team of 40 people – before you break into 2018 and become a potential candidate.

Jury still out

Even though players are entering the big leagues and making an impact faster than ever before, there are many recruits in 2014 who are still developing in the underage or just getting wet in the big leagues. These players are not busts. They are still developing. Here are five 2014 recruits who are about to make a name for themselves.

Nick Gordon, Tom Gordon's son and Dee Gordon's younger brother, unfortunately has a tendency to move to a "bankruptcy" territory. He is a .274 / .328 / .380 forward in over 2,500 minor league plate matches, and includes a .227 / .274 / .315 hit line in about a full three-game season. AT. That said, Gordon will play all season at 23 and he is in a prime position (short base and second base). In addition, it has good genes, so there is no need to cut baits. I'm sure the Twins were hoping it would be in the big leagues now, when they made it the fifth overall pick in 2014, though.

Baseball can be cruel. The Red Sox selected Kopech with the 33rd overall pick, have developed to become one of the best hopes of pitchers in baseball, and then traded against the White Sox as part of the package intended to Chris Sale. Kopech made his MLB debut at the end of last season and ChiSox fans were about to have a very exciting young coach in the rotation. As I said, baseball can be cruel. Kopech will look to continue to ramp up with his new elbow ligament in 2020. (In fact, Kopech was chosen by Boston for the compensation they received for the loss of Jacoby Ellsbury.

Justus Sheffield has traveled a lot, to say the least. The Indians traded it to the Yankees in the Andrew Miller affair in 2016, and the Yankees turned it over to the Mariners during James Paxton's trade during the winter. Sheffield has had some highs and lows in Triple-A this year (4.13 with 30 steps and 40 strikeouts in 48 innings), but he remains one of the best hopes of the game and is on the way to become a pillar of rotation. for Seattle in the near future. (The Indians chose Sheffield with the choice they received as compensation for the loss of Ubaldo Jimenez (!) To the benefit of a free agent.)

It is interesting to note that the Diamondbacks – under their former front-office regime – essentially gave Touki Toussaint to the Braves to get them to pull out of Bronson Arroyo's contract a year after the 2014 project. Toussaint became the first one. one of the best hopes of the game in the years that followed. He played well in sporadic time with Atlanta, scoring 58 goals in 52 innings over the past two years. He is still trying to find a role in an organization charged with young weapons.

Even though he had been operated by Tommy John a month before the draft, the Blue Jays picked Jeff Hoffman with the ninth pick, and then a year later, they sent him into the Rockies with Troy Tulowitzki. Hoffman regained his business after his operation and became very hopeful, although he drove the Triple-A shuttle with Colorado and he still has not managed to stay in the big ones. leagues. Given his pedigree and speed of rotation close to the elite, Hoffman is a potential candidate for a team that does not play his home games at Coors Field.

The biggest busts

Inevitably, some high breeding projects in 2014 simply did not work. This is baseball. Here are some of the most remarkable busts in the 2014 draft class.

Regarding the 2014 project, Tyler Kolek's speed was almost unprecedented at the time of the project. This was a high school student who was running his fastball regularly in the 99-102 mph range and was also showing off the stuff of a second quality throw. Injuries, including Tommy John's surgery, and a lack of control have nevertheless held back in the ranks of the miners. Kolek has a career of 5.34 with 97 steps in 150 innings, none above the bottom class A. He is still active and in the Miami system and is currently recovering from a surgery to treat the syndrome. of the thoracic orifice.

Max Pentecost had all the tools to be a quality receiver in the major leagues, but his body simply did not want that to happen. Years of injury, including shoulder surgery in 2015 and subsequent complications, derailed his career. Pentecost played only 260 games in the minor leagues between 2014 and 18, but beat doubles last season. He announced his retirement from baseball shortly after this year's opening day. (The Blue Jays chose Pentecost with the clearing choice they received for not signing the first round of 2013, Phil Bickford.)

Few things in baseball are as terrible as yips. He feels helpless as a stranger. I can not imagine what it is like to be that guy on the mound. Nick Howard, after a very productive career at the University of Virginia, lost the ball to pro ball. He walked 50 batters (and hit four and nine wild shots) in 38 innings in 2015 and 31 (with two batter and 13 wild shots) in 20 innings. Control problems persisted and injuries were finally recorded. Howard is still with the Reds but he has not started this year. He has a 5.42 ERA with 126 walks in 113 strikeouts in 144 1/3.

Casey Gillaspie, a Wichita State product, was a "he's going to hit" university. The problem? He has never hit. Gillaspie is a .250 / .337 / .418 miners' career forward, which is just not good for a first baseman without a bat. This includes a .239 / .312 / .389 batter line in 999 appearances at the Triple-A plate. The Rays sent him to the White Sox for the left-leaser, Dan Jennings, at the 2017 trade deadline, and although trying his luck on a former first round player is a wise choice for a team in reconstruction. it did not work for Chicago. ChiSox has released Gillaspie at the end of the spring training this year and is currently playing in an independent league.

Those who left

As always, many players recruited in 2014 did not sign a professional contract. They chose to go to university – or return to the university, in some cases – and return to the project the following years. And, inevitably, some of the players who did not sign in 2014 have become major hopes in the years to come. Here are the biggest names that did not sign in 2014.

In 2014, J.B. Bukauskas was a high school student who graduated early and was therefore eligible to be trafficked. He sent a letter to the teams telling them not to prepare him because he was ready to go to UNC, but the Diamondbacks still shot him with their 20th round pick. Hey, why not maybe the kid changes his mind. Bukauskas do not have. He went to UNC, where he was dominated for three years, then the Astros selected him with the 15th overall pick in 2017. He is currently one of the best pitching hopes of the game.

The consensus was that Griffin Canning would do better to go to college than leave high school in 2014. The basic tools and throwing sensation were there, but he needs to fill his body and become a launcher. The Rockies took him to the 38th round in case he decided to become pro, which he did not do. Canning had a well-decorated career at UCLA and the Angels flew with his second-round pick in 2017. He is already in the big leagues and has a points average against 3.06 with 34 strikeouts. in 32.

The Pirates turned Paul DeJong, a sophomore from the state of Illinois, into the draw, their choice of the 38th round in 2014, but failed to convince him to become a professional. DeJong returned to school, hitting 0.333 / 0.427 / .605 with 14 runs in junior, then the Cardinals hit him with their fourth round pick in 2015. He is now their starting striker and his production at the All-Star level and approaching +10 WAR for his career. If it was not the current spending restriction project, Pittsburgh may have increased its offer to DeJong in 2014 and had it signed on the dotted line. Alas.

Brendan McKay High School was ahead of its time. Scouts were not sure whether he was planning better as a pitcher or batter in high school. He continued his commitment to Louisville and excelled at both. Three years later, Rays have made McKay the 4th overall pick in the 2017 draft. It's now a legitimate two-way perspective – for what it's worth, the consensus is that it has a lot more to potential on the mound that's at the base – approaching his debut at the MLB. The Padres attempted to sign McKay as their 34th round pick in 2014, but without success.