Ten years later: looking back at the 2008 MLB Draft

With the MLB draft right around the corner, let’s look back at the highs and lows from the draft from 10 years ago.

Remember 2008? While MLB teams were drafting amateur players from high schools and colleges in June of 2008, the Detroit Red Wings were beating the Pittsburgh Penguins to win the Stanley Cup. “Lollipop” by Li’l Wayne was at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Popular TV shows just starting that year included Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy. Not long after the MLB draft, Tiger Woods would win the U.S. Open despite battling knee pain after a recent operation.

Tangentially related to baseball was the Bernie Madoff scandal, which was not yet known to the public. A January headline proclaimed, “Bernard Madoff Claims $17 Bn in Assets with the SEC.” Behind the scenes, the Ponzi scheme was unraveling and would eventually affect the baseball world because the Mets owners, the Wilpons, were heavily invested with Madoff.

When the MLB draft came around, the Tampa Bay Rays were first on the clock for the second year in a row. They had switched from the name Devil Rays to Rays that year in an attempt to exorcise past demons. The team had never won more than 70 games in a season and had three 100-loss seasons in their first 10 years.

The 2008 draft was the second year in a row in which the Rays had the number one overall pick. The previous year, David Price was the top pick. Price was a polished left-handed starting pitcher out of Vanderbilt University. The year before that, the Rays had the third overall pick and took Cal-State third baseman Even Longoria. Drafting college players with their first pick was a pattern for the Rays. They hadn’t taken a high school player with their first pick since 2003, when Delmon Young was drafted out of Adolfo Camarillo High School in Camarillo, California.

With the 2008 draft, the Rays were about to dip back into the high school pool with the first overall pick. As is often the case, the number one overall pick turned out to not be the best pick of the first round. The best player from the first round of the 2008 draft was the fifth player chosen. Now that a decade has passed, let’s take a look back at the MLB draft of 2008.

Tim Beckham

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays came into existence in 1998 and promptly lost 99 games in their inaugural season. They would continue to lose at least 90 games each year for the next 10 years. When the 2008 draft came around, the Rays went away from their recent first-round-pick pattern.

Going back to the 2004 draft, the Rays had taken college players, starting with Jeff Niemann out of Rice University with the fourth overall pick. In 2005, they went back to Rice with their selection of Wade Townsend in the first round. Evan Longoria, from Cal-State, was the Rays’ top pick in 2006. Finally, David Price of Vanderbilt was the team’s pick at the number one overall spot in 2007.

When the 2008 draft rolled around, the Rays were surprising the baseball world with a 35-24 record. Evan Longoria was already helping the team at the major league level and David Price would make his debut later that summer. The Rays would go on to win the AL East and have the second-best record in the American league. They continued a nice run all the way to the World Series before losing to the Phillies in five games.

Their 2008 draft pick was high school shortstop Tim Beckham out of Griffin, Georgia. Beckham played 48 games in his first professional season, hitting .243/.297/.345 as an 18-year-old in the Appalachian League. That performance landed him on the Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus Top-100 lists prior to the 2009 season. He was ranked 28^th on the Baseball America list and 15^th by BP.

After hitting .275/.328/.389 in A-ball, Beckham dropped to 67^th on the Baseball America Top-100 and 56^th on the Baseball Prospectus version. That was the last time he would appear on either list. His prospect status was dropping.

Beckham got a cup of coffee in the big leagues in 2013 but didn’t get significant playing time until 2015. After parts of four undistinguished seasons with the Rays, he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles for Tobias Myers last July. The trade appeared to do him good. He hit .306/.348/.523 in 50 games with the Orioles. He couldn’t repeat that success early this year when he got off to a brutal start and has been on the DL since late April.

Best Pick of the 2008 Draft

After the Rays took Tim Beckham with the first overall pick, the Pittsburgh Pirates took Pedro Alvarez, the Kansas City Royals took Eric Hosmer, and the Baltimore Orioles took Brian Matusz. Those four players have combined for 28.6 WAR (Baseball-Reference) in their major league careers so far.

The fifth player chosen in the 2008 draft, catcher Buster Posey, has been worth 39.9 WAR in his career. He is easily the best player from the first round that year. He’s a perennial all-star who won the NL Rookie of the Year Award, the NL MVP Award and has helped the Giants win three World Series titles.

Posey was one of three catchers taken within the first 10 picks of the draft. He played college ball at Florida State University and was the Golden Spikes Award winner in the year he was drafted. Before college, he was a four sports star in high school, showing off his athleticism in football, soccer and basketball, along with baseball, where he played shortstop and pitched.

Heading into that draft, Posey was considered by Baseball America to be the top available amateur catcher. Immediately after the Giants picked Posey, the Florida Marlins chose catcher Kyle Skipworth. Skipworth had just four plate appearances in the major leagues and hasn’t played in the minors since 2016. Four picks after Skipworth, the Houston Astros selected catcher Jason Castro. Castro is now catching for the Minnesota Twins.

Whatever Happened To…?

The top player taken in the 2008 draft was Buster Posey and it’s not particularly close. His 39.9 WAR is well more than double the 15.6 WAR of the next best pick, Eric Hosmer. The Hoz has put up 15.6 WAR in 1102 games, mostly with the Kansas City Royals.

The third most valuable 2008 draft pick may surprise you. It’s Brett Lawrie. He’s just a half-win worse than Hosmer despite playing 500 fewer games. Lawrie’s career was a bright, shining meteor that fizzled out before he reached the age of 27.

Fifteen players were taken ahead of Brett Lawrie in 2008 and he out-WAR’d 13 of them. The Milwaukee Brewers drafted Lawrie with the 16^th pick out of Brookswood Secondary School in Langley, Canada. He didn’t play professionally in 2008, but moved quickly in 2009 when he reached Double-A as a 19-year-old after a good showing in A-ball.

Cubbies Crib

Lawrie spent most of the 2010 season in Double-A. That December, he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays for pitcher Shaun Marcum. After tearing up Triple-A in the first part of the 2011 season (.353/.415/.661), Lawrie was promoted to the major leagues in August and hit .293/.373/.580 with nine homers and seven steals in about one-quarter of a season.

With that great showing, the hype train was in full force heading into the 2012 season, especially for those playing fantasy baseball. Lawrie was highly-coveted as a 22-year-old who had just slugged over .500 and could hit homers and steal bases. Unfortunately, as so often happens with very hyped players, Lawrie couldn’t live up to expectations. He hit .273/.324/405, which was disappointing to many.

Over the next four years, baseball fans learned that the 2011 version of Brett Lawrie was the outlier and the 2012 version was closer to his true talent level. From 2012 to 2016, he hit .258/.310/.407. Along the way he was traded to the Oakland Athletics as part of the Josh Donaldson deal, then traded to the White Sox for J.B. Wendelken and Zack Erwin. The White Sox released him in March of 2017.

Next: Mock Draft, Version 5.1

Injuries played a big significant role in the early end to Lawrie’s career. At least, it appears to be over considering he hasn’t played since 2016. He hasn’t officially retired and sounded like he wants to continue his career when he did an interview on Vancouver’s TSN 1040 earlier this year. If you remember Lawrie’s high-energy style of play, you won’t be surprised by that interview, even if it does venture into some very strange places.