Philadelphia Phillies: Mark Appel busted number one pick

The Philadelphia Phillies designated Mark Appel yesterday. Is this the end of the line for the former #1 overall draft pick?

The sad saga of Mark Appel may well be at an end. The Phillies cast aside the former top prospect to clear room on the 40-man roster in advance of the Rule V draft. While he may still latch on with another organization, this surely isn’t the direction his career was supposed to go.

The Phillies acquired Appel from the Houston Astros in December 2015 as the major piece in the Ken Giles trade. Prior to that, he was the highly heralded #1 overall pick in the 2013 draft out of Stanford.

In fact, he was the eighth overall pick by the Pirates in 2012. Houston also had the top pick that year and was criticized for bypassing him in favor of Carlos Correa.

AAA batters hit Appel hard over parts of three seasons. He has a 4.82 ERA and 1.585 WHIP at the highest level of the minors. Unless his career takes an unexpectedly positive turn, he’ll join a notorious club of top overall picks who never reached the major leagues. The following are the other members of this club.

Steve Chilcott

In 1966, the New York Mets held the top pick in the second ever baseball amateur draft. They had a very difficult decision between two exemplary prospects. One was an outfielder from Arizona State University (more on him later). The other was a lefty hitting high school catcher from California named Steve Chilcott.

With a muscular 5-foot-11, 185-pound frame, a strong arm and a powerful left-handed bat, he was a scout magnet. -Jeff Fletcher, Los Angeles Times, August 20, 1994

Chilcott started the 1967 season well enough, slashing .290/.365/.467 in A ball. However, he dislocated his shoulder diving into second base. The injury effectively ruined his career. He would toil in the minors through 1972, never playing above AA.

“I thought I would be back to play in a short time,” -Steve Chilcott, speaking about his shoulder injury

Following his playing career, Chilcott left baseball altogether and became a firefighter and contractor. However, he’ll always be known as the first, and perhaps biggest bust in MLB draft history.

As for the ASU outfielder? The Kansas City Athletics selected him with the second overall pick. He went on to hit 563 HR, win the 1973 AL MVP, the 1973 and 1977 World Series MVP, and became a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 1993.

Brien Taylor

The Yankees of the late 80s and early 90s looked nothing like the dynasty that would follow. They “earned” the first pick in the 1991 draft by losing 95 games the previous year.

The decision to select Brien Taylor, a high school left-hander from North Carolina, was easy. He stood 6’3 and touched the upper 90s with his fastball. In 88 high school innings, he struck out 213 batters.

Taylor was a high school phenom from North Carolina, who regularly hit 99 mph on the gun from the left side. -Cory Fallon, BaseballEssential.com, February 24, 2016

Baseball America ranked Taylor the #1 prospect in baseball before the 1992 season and #2 overall the following year. He flashed dominance at A+ Ft. Lauderdale and AA Albany-Colonie during his first two professional seasons.

Then, in December 1993, he got into a fight in a bar. While throwing a punch, he tore muscles in his left shoulder. The injury required surgery, and he missed all of 1994.

He was a shell of himself when he returned, losing much of his velocity and any semblance of control. He walked an astonishing 175 batters in only 108.2 innings from 1995-1998 in the low minors.

Taylor eventually returned to his childhood home in North Carolina on the street now called Brien Taylor Lane. In 2012, he was sentenced to 38 months in prison for cocaine trafficking.