Sporcle Friday: Best Mariner Draft Picks by WAR
the homegrown specials
Drafting baseball players is an exercise in extreme patience. Not only must a team wait around for their draft picks to become actual MLB players, these teams also set themselves up for immense heartbreak. They know that a handful of the drafted players (sometimes even the first rounders), will not become baseball superstars. Some of them will barely even become baseball players at all. But the ones who stick become extra special, as the team can wheel them out to the country fair and proudly announce that they grew them all on their own.
The best 15 homegrown Mariners are a fun bunch. As you will soon learn, the Mariners are still waiting for a hand-selected pitching prospect to really make it HUGE in Seattle. The top four on the list - and the only ones to accumulate 20 WAR with the M’s - are all position players. We should also note that this quiz uses Baseball-Reference’s version of WAR and does not include players who were drafted by the Mariners but decided to go to college and later got picked by other teams. You have to be drafted by Seattle and then immediately enter their minor league system.
Also, just for fun, the 16th, 17th, and 18th spots on this list are J.J. Putz, Dustin Ackley, and a tie between Dave Henderson and Tino Martinez.
UPDATE - 9:47 a.m.: The original version of this left off the 1997 draft pick slotted at #14 on the list. I did not realize he was a Mariner draft pick. Sorry to this man.