Cubs: First-round shortcomings may have helped end the curse

The Cubs’ descent into baseball hell in the early 2010s and subsequent redemption in 2016 has become one of the iconic examples of “tanking” – the process of getting bad to get better. But Chicago was already pretty bad when Theo Epstein took over late in 2011, which made his tanking task easier.

The club was already bad, in part, because of a collection of largely unsuccessful first round draft picks over the previous decade. In the 10 years leading up to Epstein’s arrival, the Cubs made 14 first round picks (including four supplemental first-rounders). Let’s take a trip down this potholed memory lane to see how these picks may have inadvertently set the stage for the Cubs’ ultimate triumph.

The stats in this post all come from Baseball Reference unless otherwise noted. Player stats in bold are for their major league careers. Note that while the main point of this post is to call into question the Cubs’ first-round draft decisions in the pre-Epstein period, it’s also worth remembering that some of these players pancaked simply because baseball is really, really hard and most people who try it fail.

Of the 14 first-rounders, seven made the majors and five of those had careers lasting at least three years. For some context, two-thirds of first round picks signed from 1996-2011 reached the majors, and just under half had a career of at least three years. So the Cubs’ performance wasn’t woeful, but it was below par.

Chicago Cubs endure a first round drought: 2002-2006

From 2002 through 2005, the Cubs would draft a total of six first-rounders, none of whom reached the majors. These included four college pitchers in 2002 (Bobby Brownlie, Luke Hagerty, Chadd Blasko and Matt Clanton). Of these, only Brownlie would ever appear in a prospect top-100 list; he was Baseball America‘s #92 prospect in 2004.

Brownlie was also the the only one of the four to reach Triple-A, where he would post a cumulative 5.34 ERA across three different organizations. Clanton would only throw four professional innings, but unlike the few hitters he faced, he went down swinging.

In 2003 the Cubs drafted Ryan Harvey, who hit a Florida State League record four homers in one game for the Daytona Cubs in 2006. That was four more homers than he would hit in the majors; his lengthy minor league career would top out at Double-A. He finished with a minor league career strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.5 to 1.

The Cubs drafted high-school right-hander Mark Pawelek, in 2005.  Pawelek is perhaps is most famous for this. Get outside kids: gaming kills. Even if Pawelek has pursued healthier habits, it’s unlikely he would have reached the majors. Wildness plagued his career; by the end he was putting the Dippin’ Dots vendors on base.

Chicago Cubs find some modest first round success: 2006-2008

From 2006 through 2008 things improved, as the Cubs drafted five first-rounders, all of whom would reach the majors. Only Josh Vitters (drafted in 2007) would fail to have a three-year career. He stayed in the majors just long enough to accumulate 109 disastrous plate appearances in 2012, with an OPS+ of 7 for those of you keeping score at home. Among non-pitchers with at least 100 career plate appearances, that’s tied for the eleventh-worst career mark in major league history.

The most notable success story from this group has been Josh Donaldson, who is at 44.4 career WAR and counting. In a classic later-for-now trade, the Cubs sent The Bringer of Rain to Oakland for Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin in 2008. Harden would help the Cubs to finish first in the NL Central that year, but would be gone after the 2009 season. Donaldson, a late bloomer with an uncertain position, wouldn’t establish himself in the majors until 2012. It’s easy to look back in sorrow at this trade, but it made sense at the time.

The two other players to reach the majors in this period were right-hander Andrew Cashner and outfielder Tyler Colvin. Cashner would contribute little directly to the Cubs, but he was the key piece in the trade with San Diego that brought back Anthony Rizzo. So Cashner ended up being a key cog in the World Series machine, even though he was long gone by the time the curse lay bleeding.

Colvin was a power prospect who got his chance to start in The Show near the end of the 2009 season after right fielder Milton Bradley inexplicably decided to tell the Daily Herald exactly what he thought of playing for the Cubs.  Colvin went on to have a good year in 2010 until a grisly injury ended his season.  Although he made a “full recovery” he would never be able to tap into his power consistently. After a horrible 2011 the Cubs shipped him to Colorado, where he would have one more decent season before entering permanent decline.