Philadelphia Phillies: Dave Dombrowski’s history of nailing draft picks

The Philadelphia Phillies need to find young stars in the MLB Draft.

When you have three decades worth of MLB Drafts to analyze, you can get a good feel for how someone, like Philadelphia Phillies President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski, has handled scouting and selecting young players.

While much has been made about Dombrowski’s history of free agent splashes and blockbuster trades, he’s a traditional baseball man who can find young players in the MLB Draft.

The Phillies’ failure to draft the next generation of stars has led to their prolonged playoff drought, and it’s a failure that dates back almost two decades.

Since 2004, the Phillies have selected 19 players in the first round. Excluding their last five first-round picks (most of whom are still developing or just arrived in the big leagues).

Six of those 14 first-round picks never made the major leagues: Cornelius Randolph, Shane Watson, Mitch Gueller, Larry Greene, Anthony Hewitt, and Zach Collier.

Of the remaining eight players, five have a negative career WAR: Jesse Biddle, Greg Golson, Adrian Cardenas, Kyle Drabek, and Joe Savery.

The remaining three Phillies’ first-round picks from 2004-15 who have reached the major leagues and have a WAR better than zero are Aaron Nola, J.P. Crawford, and Travis d’Arnaud. Both Crawford and d’Arnaud were traded either before or shortly after they played for the Phillies.

Nola is the Phillies’ only successful first-round pick since Cole Hamels in 2002. Time will tell for Alec Bohm, Mickey Moniak (a suspected miss with the number one overall pick), Bryston Stott, Adam Haseley, and 2020 first-round pick Mick Abel.

Excuses have been made over these picks, such as the team winning so much that they had late picks and missed the top tier talent. But they took Crawford over Aaron Judge and Randolph over Walker Buehler in the first round.

Will Dombrowski be the man to overturn the Phillies’ bad draft fortunes? Here’s a look at what he’s done with the Expos, Marlins, Tigers, and Red Sox.