A look back at first round draft picks.....

First round draft picks are very important in baseball. The baseball draft is not like the NBA or NFL draft. Guys usually won't come straight out of the draft and help a team. Heck, most guys don't make it to the team that drafts them, most fade out in the minors. The first round is a place where most of the perceived top talents go, and have the highest success rate. I want to go over the Reds 1st round selections from 1994-2003 and take a look at how the Reds fared with what should have been the most successful spot to draw talent from.

Year	Player	Position	Age
1994	C.J. Nitkowski	LHP	21
1995	N/A	N/A	N/A
1996	John Oliver	OF	18
1996	Matt McClendon	RHP	18
1997	Brandon Larson	3B	21
1998	Austin Kearns	OF	18
1999	Ty Howington	LHP	18
2000	David Espinosa	SS	18
2000	Dustin Moseley	RHP	18
2001	Jeremy Sowers	LHP	18
2002	Chris Gruler	RHP	18
2002	Mark Schramek	RHP	22
2003	Ryan Wagner	RHP	21

In the 10 year span from 1994-2003 the Reds had 12 first round draft picks. They spent 8 of those on high school players and 4 on college players. Of the 4 college players they drafted, all but Schramek made the big leagues with the Reds, although Nitkowski pitched just 34 innings before being traded to the Tigers for David Wells. Schramek ended up becoming a position player for the Reds but that was not a success. The Reds spent the other 8 picks on high schoolers. John Oliver never made it past single A, David Espinose was traded after his season in high A for the Reds and is up to AAA now with the Tigers. Gruler and Howington both have seen the operating table more than they should have, and I wouldn't give either a 1% chance of ever seeing the big league Reds. Dustin Moseley saw 11 innings with the Angels this year, but didn't fare all that well with an ERA of 9.00 allowing 22 hits. Jeremy Sowers and Matt McClendon both did not sign with the Reds. Lets recap here, just 4 of the 12 first round picks made the Reds major league team, Austin Kearns being the only one to help out over the course of more than 1 year. With the recent success of both Homer Bailey and Jay Bruce, the Reds seem to have a much better chance of adding a few more guys to the list of draftees to graduate to the big league club and actually produce for the Reds unlike Larson, Nitkowski and Wagner for the most part (rookie season was very good, after that though he tailed off and went to slightly below average to bad). It is painfully obvious with the amount of misses in the Reds first round that it has cost them as an organization who has not been able to produce quality help from the draft over the years. There have been a few hits since 1994 (Kearns, Dunn, Aaron Boone, etc), but the Reds have placed 2 players into the Major Leagues from 2001 through 2003 for any round. The two players were Chris Denorfia (19th round) and Ryan Wagner (1st round).