MLB Draft: Ranking the stars from the 2007 class

The MLB draft continues to stand as one of the cheaper ways to acquire talent, especially for small and mid-market teams operating under more financial constraints. In this series, we’ll look at several recent draft classes and list the top stars selected in those drafts.

The 2020 MLB season would’ve turned one month old yesterday, though instead of enjoying another summer of baseball and the brand new storylines that come with it, we’ve been settling for classics on ESPN, various simulated leagues and best of all… apparently lots of MLB The Show.

The lack of real-life baseball has also resulted in an influx of various series across the internet, including all-decade teams, position rankings, and even a list of the last 20 Rookie of the Year seasons at MLB.com. For those that love to rank things, this is the perfect time to scratch that itch.

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What I’m starting here today, though, is less of a ranking and more a reviewing of sorts. As alluded to from the title, this series is meant to look back at some of the more recent MLB drafts, detailing the players who have performed the best since being selected, while also providing a general overview of the draft itself and the overall class of players involved.

Unfortunately, as far as this year’s draft goes, an actual date hasn’t been set yet, though included in the recent changes agreed upon by MLB and the MLBPA the draft will be held as early as June 10 (its original date) or pushed back as late as July 20. If you follow each season’s draft, I highly recommend you check out the alterations made, impacting both this year and next year’s event. The changes are quite drastic.

So with all of that out of the way, let’s get started with our first draft — the 2007 MLB Draft. This was a class that will go down as perhaps one of the most talented in history as it produced a lot of the stars we watch today, as well as several that just didn’t quite work out.

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.

5. Corey Kluber, RHP / Freddie Freeman, 1B

34.6 WAR

It might surprise some, but yes Kluber and Freeman were both taken in the same draft, with the former selected by the Padres in the 4th round and the latter by the Braves in the 2nd. Both players have also had fantastic major league careers, despite Kluber now with his third organization. Although, in terms of how their careers have taken shape, the two players differ quite a bit (also, Kluber is almost four years older than Freeman).

At 21-years-old, Kluber started his pro career in the Padres farm system as somewhat of a middling prospect, and after a three-team trade that sent him to the Indians, he again struggled to get his career on the right track.

Kluber’s luck instantly turned around, though, and after a solid 2013 campaign (2.9 WAR), he went on to win the American League Cy Young in 2014 (finished 11th in the MVP vote), thanks to an AL-high in FIP (2.35) and wins (18), plus an MLB-best 34 starts. Kluber was worth 7.2 WAR in 2014 — a total he has matched only once since then when he won the Cy Young award again in 2017.

At 34-years-old it’s safe to say Kluber’s chances to become the best player from the 2007 draft are all but over. Now with the Rangers — after being traded this past winter in exchange for Texas prospect reliever Emmanuel Chase and outfielder Delino DeShields — Kluber is past his prime that essentially lasted four-season (2014-17). During that four-year run, the Alabama native (my home state) accrued 63 wins and 24.8 WAR, an average of 6.2 WAR per season to go along with 10.33 K/9 and a ridiculously stingy 1.94 BB/9. Kluber did post a 5.5-WAR season in 2018, but a broken arm derailed his season in 2019. At this point, he’ll most likely have to settle for finishing his career as one of the ten best players to come from the loaded 2007 MLB draft.

Freeman, on the other hand, has a shot at one day pacing the 2007 class. Over nine major league seasons (all with the Braves), the first baseman is certainly trending in the right direction. Since 2016, Freeman has tallied 19.8 WAR (an average of 4.95 per season) and appears to be smack dab in the middle of his prime, at 30-years-old.

After having surgery this offseason to fix a balky elbow, Freeman was already expected to easily pass Wally Berger this season for the most career WAR for a Braves’ first baseman (he trails Berger by less than 1 WAR) and has a solid shot at moving past all-time great third baseman Dale Murphy for fourth-place on the franchise’s all-time offensive WAR leaderboard, directly behind Hall of Famer Chipper Jones (Freeman has no shot at catching Jones, though). For the 2007 class, it will be challenging but Freeman could eventually move up quite a bit, especially given the fact that several of the players currently ranked ahead of him may possibly be on their way out of baseball in the near future (as you’ll see in the next few slides).

4. Jonathan Lucroy — C

37.0 WAR

It’s safe to say Lucroy, 33-years-old, is done putting up big WAR totals, given he has tallied a whopping 0.1 WAR in the last three seasons combined (Lecroy is now with the Red Sox). However, the 6-foot, 200-pound Florida native was a great third-round pick for the Brewers back in 2007.

Coming out of Umatilla High School (in Florida), Lucroy was mostly unheard of, ranking 533rd overall according to Perfect Game’s national ranking. But after a three-year collegiate career with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, that featured a school record in doubles (54), RBI (184), total bases (414) as well as the second-most career hits in school history (241)… Lucroy’s MLB draft stock was strong.

Lucroy spent six in a half seasons with the Brewers, and from 2010-14 just continued to get better, going from a 3.6-WAR season in his rookie year to 8.2 WAR four years later (and a fourth-place NL MVP finish). In 2014 Lucroy led the majors in doubles (53) and hit .301 with 13 homers, but a poor 2015 season (1.6 WAR) led to his trade at the deadline in 2016 to the Rangers (though, Lucroy still posted 4.6 WAR that season with the Brewers and Texas). Unfortunately, that was the end of his elite years.

As a soon to be 34-year-old backup catcher with Boston, Lucroy was projected to be just above replacement-level in 2020 (via ZiPS), though now that the regular season is in real danger of even happening this year — and the fact that he’s on a minor league deal as it is — Lucroy may not even add to his current career WAR total at all (it took until February for Lucroy to find a job this offseason).

3. Giancarlo Stanton — OF

39.3 WAR

Stanton is probably the player with the most ceiling on this list, in terms of potential to just blow away everyone else from the 2007 class. Unfortunately, injuries have made for an inconsistent career thus far. Still, when Stanton’s healthy he’s one of the top five or so offensive players in baseball. The big 6-foot-6, 245-pound outfielder was taken by the

Florida

Marlins just a few picks before Freeman, at no. 76 overall.

After hitting 20+ homers in three of his four minor league seasons, Stanton played 100 games for the Marlins in 2010 and held his own with a .259 AVG and 22 home runs — a solid 2.6-WAR rookie season).

Stanton was a 4-4.5 WAR player (on average) during his eight seasons in Miami, totaling 267 home runs and a well-above-average 145 wRC+; and fans will always remember how he left the Marlins, winning an NL MVP with 59 homers and 132 RBI (both MLB-highs) in 2017, before being traded to the Yankees that following offseason.

Still just 30-years-old, Stanton could easily put up another 4-5 All-Star seasons, potentially tacking on 16-20 more WAR to his career total (he was worth 4.3 WAR in his first season in New York, in 2018). But there’s also the possibility that injuries just become an annual issue for him, which continues to keep him off the field (he played in just 18 games in 2019).

Regardless, Stanton is my pick to one day rule the 2007 MLB draft class.

2. Josh Donaldson, 3B

41.4 WAR

Donaldson’s big 2019 season with the Braves (37 HR/ 4.9 WAR) paid off this past winter, as he was given a four-year, $92 million contracts by the Twins this January. His age (34-years-old) will play against him in his next several seasons, but looking at his numbers there’s reason to believe he could finish his career as one of the best three players from his class. Too bad the Cubs never benefited from any of Donaldson’s success, though.

It’s sort of funny now, but back in July of 2008, the Cubs acquired pitcher Rich Harden from the Athletics in a six-man swap that featured Donaldson going to Oakland, who at the time was an unknown catcher (in the original reports of the trade, some sites even incorrectly listed him as John Donaldson). Debuting with A’s in 2010 and spending time at first base, catcher and DH, it took Donaldson parts of two years to get his MLB career going, although, in his age-27 season (2013) the former Auburn star broke out with 7.3 WAR, thanks to 24 homers and 93 RBI (147 wRC+) in 158 games.

From that season forward, Donaldson was a regular in the AL MVP vote, averaging nearly 7 WAR per season (6.88) from 2013-17 with the A’s and Blue Jays, including an MVP award in 2015 when he led the AL in total bases (352) and RBI (123), as well as the majors in runs (122). During that five-year stretch, only Mike Trout accumulated more WAR, as Donaldson’s trajectory had evolved into some kind of late-blooming future Hall of Famer.

However, injuries cost Donaldson some crucial time in 2018 (he only played in 52 games that season), and had to rebuild his stock last season, which he did as mentioned above. The only question now is if Donaldson’s 5-WAR season in 2019 is the player he’s going to be going forward. History tells us probably not, and in a write-up by FanGraphs’ Craig Edwards last year there’s reason to believe Donaldson’s performance will most likely take a rather substantial hit in Year 3 of his deal with the Twins (which just moved a year closer because of the COVID-19 pandemic).