With the news that the 2020 MLB Draft will be limited to 5 rounds, we look back at five all-time greats who were drafted after the 5th round of the draft.
Recently, a colleague of mine Adam Mann summarized baseball’s decision to limit the MLB Draft to five rounds perfectly. He said, “the league moved to a five-round draft to save a minuscule amount of money,” and emphasized that it’s the small-market teams that should be “furious.”
I’d like to add that players, too, are getting screwed in this whole process as well as us, the fans.
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Why you might ask? Well, because we could potentially be missing out on all-time great players. Players who might decide to go in another direction in their professional careers and never step foot on the ball field again.
To make my point, I fell into a Baseball-Reference rabbit hole and started punching up names to see which players, current and historically, were drafted after the fifth round. The list was endless, but I have narrowed it down to FIVE all-time great players, FOUR of whom are members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
We begin with…
5.) Trevor Hoffman, 11th Round in 1989
In 1989, Trevor Hoffman was selected in the 11th round of the MLB June Amateur Draft by the Cincinnati Reds. Upon making it to the bigs in 1993, spending a brief stint with the Florida Marlins, Hoffman was traded to the San Diego Padres, where he would establish himself as one of the greatest closers of all time.
Among his accomplishments, Hoffman led the league in save 2x in 1998 (53 SV) and 2006 (46 SV) and amassed 601 saves throughout his 18-year career, 2nd all-time. Hoffman has also made SEVEN All-Star appearances and placed 2nd in the NL Cy Young voting in 1998 behind Tom Glavine.