Padres First Round Draft Picks Set Low Bar – A Quick History

The Padres brought in GM A.J. Preller in large part because of his great history with drafting/scouting and player development while in Texas. The Padres have struggled in this area and hoping he can change the tide.

The Padres passed on some trades last season in order to get more first round picks, giving Preller a first round that must’ve felt like Christmas morning – when you get to pick your own presents. A quick look back at Padres first round draft history shows it won’t take too much for him to improve upon the Padres history.

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Thanks to some outstanding research by long-time reader FantaMan with the help of Wikipedia, he sent me this graph he researched of Padres first round draft picks since 2007. Pretty intriguing:

NO 1^st Rd pick 2105

So what is next for this next crop of draft picks? Will the Padres actually try and latch on to a few picks and keep them long enough to crack the major leagues? Will they simply use these higher sought-after prospects as trade fodder to build up the major league club with veterans.

Next: Cal Quantrill 2016 First Round Padres Pick

The good teams don’t let the good players go for short-gain trades. The Kansas City Royals are a great example of that. They held on to their Hosmer’s, Moustakas’ and Salvador Perez’, while trading away a promising Wil Myers for veterans that helped them greatly accomplish their goal of getting to and winning a World Championship.

What will Cal Quantrill and the rest of the Padres first round draft class provide to this team, and when? They spread out some of their pitching draft picks among college and high school pitchers, in theory creating a sustainable future wave of pitching to the big leagues. Can they wait for it? Did they guess right? Time will tell.