Where do the Phillies most recent draft classes stand amongst the rest of baseball?
When breaking down why the Phillies rebuild hasn’t gone as smoothly as others, a major turning point in the team’s performances in the MLB Amateur Draft.
As team executives have admitted, the big league team’s success also led to fewer and lower draft picks. Not being able to find diamonds in the rough like other teams did meant no fam system to restock the team when their older players moved on.
This led to overhyped prospects like Cody Asche, Maikel Franco, Tommy Joseph, Nick Williams, and Cole Irvin coming up to unfair expectations and widely failing in the big leagues.
Philadelphia also had a history of drafting family members, such as Andrew Amaro in 2011.
The lack of draft success dates back beyond the 2010’s, but their most recent draft classes have widely failed, leading to Baseball America (subscription required) to rank the Phillies 2010’s draft class as the fifth-worst in baseball.
Philadelphia finished ahead of just the the Yankees, Royals, Brewers, and Reds, while the Astros, White Sox, Marlins, Blue Jays, and Mets led the way
Here’s what Baseball America, who ranked teams based on the big league WAR of their draft picks, had to say about the Phillies.
"WAR: 33.9, Top picks: Aaron Nola, Rhys Hoskins, Ken Giles The Phillies found Nola and Hoskins during an exceptional 2014 draft. Other than that, it was a rough decade with few draft successes to point to. Their 2017 class, featuring Adam Haseley and current No. 1 prospect Spencer Howard, has a chance to make things look a little better."
The only Phillies first round pick since 2004 with a big league WAR above 2.0 is Nola, and five players have negative WARs.
In the 2010s, only four first round picks (Nola, Adam Haseley, Jesse Biddle, and J.P. Crawford) reached the big leagues. Biddle and Crawford are no longer with the team, Biddle being cut and Crawford traded to Seattle.
Here’s an overview of the Phillies 2010’s draft class.