Prospect Watch: Reviewing 2015 first-rounders
Andrew Benintendi dominated in pro ball after being the seventh-overall pick in the 2015 draft. (USATSI)
The 2015 minor-league regular season is over — the postseason will be over very soon as well — so this is as good a time as any to look back at the 2015 First Year Player Draft and see how the first-round picks have performed. Here are our write-ups of every player taken in the first round back in June.
TOP PICK: SS Dansby Swanson, Diamondbacks
Swanson, the first-overall pick out of Vanderbilt, signed for $6.5 million right at the deadline, and hit .289/.394/.482 with seven doubles, one home run and as many walks as strikeouts (14 of each) in his 22 pro games in the Class A Northwest League. This was a polished college player from a major program doing exactly what everyone expected against that level of competition. Don’t be surprised if the D-Backs start Swanson at Double-A in 2016.
TOP PITCHER: RHP Dillon Tate, Rangers
Texas made Tate the first pitcher selected in the 2015 draft. He was the fourth-overall pick out of UC Santa Barbara. Tate threw just nine innings in his pro debut — he threw 103 1/3 innings in college this year — allowing one run on three hits and three walks. He struck out eight. Tate moved from the bullpen to the rotation in college this spring and the Gauchos were extra careful with him down the stretch. No surprise the Rangers limited his workload after signing.
TOP PERFORMER: OF Andrew Benintendi, Red Sox
Benintendi won the Golden Spikes Award as the top college player in the country this year, and he continued to dominate in pro ball. He hit .313/.416/.556 with seven doubles, 11 home runs and more walks (35) than strikeouts (24) in 54 pro games across two levels of Class A ball. Like Swanson, Benintendi could open 2016 at Double-A. He was the seventh-overall pick out of Arkansas.
TOP PREP PERFORMER: OF Cornelius Randolph, Phillies
Heading into the draft, Randolph was on the short list of the top available high-school hitters, and he lived up to the billing by hitting .302/.425/.442 with 15 doubles, one homer, 32 walks and 32 strikeouts in 53 rookie-ball games. Randolph was the 10th-overall pick out of a Georgia high school, and boy, he raked as a pro. Outfielder Trent Clark deserves an honorable mention: He hit .309/.424/.430 with seven doubles, two homers, 39 walks and 44 strikeouts in 55 rookie-ball games. The Brewers selected him 15th overall out of a Texas high school.
MOST DOMINANT: LHP Kolby Allard, Braves
Allard was arguably the top left-handed pitching prospect in the entire draft, but a relatively minor back problem caused him to slide to the Braves and the 14th-overall pick. They took him out of a Southern California high school. Allard threw only six rookie-ball innings as a pro, but boy, what a six-inning performance it was: one hit, one hit batsman, no runs, no walks, 12 strikeouts. He faced 20 batters and two reached base. Only seven put a ball in play and only three hit the ball out of the infield. Allard totally overwhelmed rookie-ball hitters. Honorable mention goes to RHP Phil Bickford (Giants, 18th overall). He struck out 32 and walked six in 22 1/3 rookie-ball innings after striking out 166 in 86 2/3 innings (!) at the College of Southern Nevada this spring, Bryce Harper’s alma mater.
RAPID RISE: RHP Carson Fulmer, White Sox
The White Sox are known to target pitchers with huge stuff regardless of whether they have the command to match or a useable third pitch. Chris Sale and Carlos Rodon are two notable recent examples. Fulmer, Swanson’s teammate at Vanderbilt, had a 1.96 ERA in 23 pro innings after signing, and the White Sox quickly moved him up to high Class A. He struck out 26 and walked eight. Chicago is know to move their pitching prospects aggressively — again, look at Sale and Rodon — so don’t be surprised if Fulmer is in the show next summer.
THE SURPRISE PICK: C Taylor Ward, Angels
It happens every year without fail: a team makes a surprise first round pick. The Halos grabbed Ward out of Fresno State with the 26th-overall pick — Baseball America ranked him as the 70th-best prospect in the draft class — and were widely panned for the selection. So what did Ward do in his pro debut? He hit .348/.457/.438 with seven doubles, three homers, 39 walks and 23 strikeouts in 56 games split between rookie ball and Class A. Ward also threw out 35 percent of attempted base-stealers. That should silence the critics for a while.
WAIT & SEE: LHP Brady Aiken, Indians and RHP Walker Buehler, Dodgers
Aiken (17th overall) and Buehler (24th) are the only two first-round picks who have yet to play in a pro game. Aiken had Tommy John surgery in March, so Cleveland knew he was hurt at the time of the draft. As you may remember, Aiken was the first-overall pick in the 2014 draft, but his deal with the Astros fell apart when they found something in his elbow during the physical. The Dodgers, meanwhile, found something scary in Buehler’s elbow during his pre-signing physical, and he soon underwent Tommy John surgery. Teams didn’t know he was hurt at the time of the draft. In fact, Buehler pitched for Vanderbilt in the College World Series after the draft, so the injury happened after the Dodgers selected him. So it goes.
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