2007 MLB Draft
In Eric Logenhagen and Kiley McDaniel’s new book, Future Value (which I highly recommend), the two prospect gurus discuss the 2007 MLB draft in the book’s second chapter, mentioning legendary scout Tim Wilken and how he and the Cubs “missed” their first-round pick, taking third baseman Josh Vitters — a player that turned into a minor league journeyman, totaling -1.4 fWAR during his big league career… which consisted of only 36 games. Wilken wanted righty Jarrod Parker — another player that never amounted to much in the majors, but also went in the first round — but the Cubs wanted Vitters. Neither was correct.
Several teams “missed” on their picks in the first round of the ’07 draft. At fourth overall the Pirates took Clemson lefty Daniel Moskos (0.2 career WAR); at seventh, the Brewers chose Florida outfielder Matt LaPorta (-1.3 WAR); at eight, the Rockies selected Vanderbilt pitcher Casey Weathers (never made it to the bigs), and at no. 9 the Diamondbacks went with Parker (5.2 WAR, though he only pitched in a little over two seasons in the majors). And that’s just the top-10!
So that begs the question: who got their picks “right”? It has been over a decade since these players were drafted, which means the sample size is large enough.
The following players are the five-best players drafted in 2007 (per FanGraphs WAR). I’ve also included a leaderboard of the entire-top 10 at the end, compiled from Logenhangen and McDaniel’s book.