60-Man Player Pools Give Insights Into How First-Rounders Have Panned Out

Every now and then in the course of a professional baseball player’s career, he runs into a moment where his team is forced to make clear how they really feel about him as a prospect and how he compares to other players in the organization.

The 40-man roster deadline in advance of the Rule 5 draft is a perfect example of this. No matter how much a team may say it likes a prospect, if it is willing to leave him unprotected for the Rule 5 draft, it is a sign that he isn’t at the forefront of the team’s plans.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has proven to be another one of those decision points. Teams have a 60-man player pool to use for the 2020 MLB season. The decisions on whether a player is put on or left off of a 60-man roster is a data point on how exactly that player ranks in the team’s plans.

So with that in mind, we looked at which first-round picks from the 2015, 2016 and 2017 drafts have been added to 60-man player pools and which players were left out. We chose those three years because all players in the preceding drafts have already gone through the Rule 5/40-man roster eligibility decisions while the 2018, 2019 and 2020 drafts are recent enough that a number of high school draftees were left off 60-man rosters because of where they are in their stage of development.

There are plenty of caveats that need to be acknowledged here. As a tool, the 60-man roster decisions are more of a sledgehammer than a ball peen hammer—they are rather blunt instruments. Some players currently not on the 60-man rosters may be added. Some are left off in part because of injuries. And the differing focus on how teams built their 60-man player pools means a prospect who is left off one team may have been added for another club.

But overall, what we find is that two out of every three first-round picks over those three years has made the 60-man player pools (65 of 99 or roughly 66 percent).

Only one organization was shut out of placing one of its first-round picks on its 60-man roster. Cleveland’s Brady Aiken and Will Benson (its only two first-rounders in those three seasons) were both left off.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Braves, Pirates, Astros and Tigers were the four teams to have four first-round picks over that time that all made the 60-man player pools. Another seven teams had both or all three of their first-round picks make rosters.

Year	Pick	Team	Player	60-man Roster
15	1	ARI	Dansby Swanson	Y
15	2	HOU	Alex Bregman	Y
15	3	COL	Brendan Rodgers	Y
15	4	TEX	Dillon Tate	Y
15	5	HOU	Kyle Tucker	Y
15	6	MIN	Tyler Jay	N
15	7	BOS	Andrew Benintendi	Y
15	8	CHW	Carson Fulmer	Y
15	9	CHC	Ian Happ	Y
15	10	PHI	Cornelius Randolph	N
15	11	CIN	Tyler Stephenson	Y
15	12	MIA	Josh Naylor	Y
15	13	TB	Garrett Whitley	N
15	14	ATL	Kolby Allard	Y
15	15	MIL	Trent Grisham	Y
15	16	NYY	James Kaprielian	Y
15	17	CLE	Brady Aiken	N
15	18	SFG	Phil Bickford	N
15	19	PIT	Kevin Newman	Y
15	20	OAK	Richie Martin	Y
15	21	KC	Ashe Russell	N
15	22	DET	Beau Burrows	Y
15	23	STL	Nick Plummer	N
15	24	LAD	Walker Buehler	Y
15	25	BAL	DJ Stewart	Y
15	26	LAA	Taylor Ward	Y
15	27	COL	Mike Nikorak	N
15	28	ATL	Mike Soroka	Y
15	29	TOR	Jon Harris	N
15	30	NYY	Kyle Holder	Y
15	31	SFG	Chris Shaw	N
15	32	PIT	Ke’Bryan Hayes	Y
15	33	KC	Nolan Watson	N
15	34	DET	Christin Stewart	Y
15	36	BAL	Ryan Mountcastle	N
16	1	PHI	Mickey Moniak	N
16	2	CIN	Nick Senzel	Y
16	3	ATL	Ian Anderson	Y
16	4	COL	Riley Pint	N
16	5	MIL	Corey Ray	N
16	6	OAK	A.J. Puk	Y
16	7	MIA	Braxton Garrett	Y
16	8	SD	Cal Quantrill	Y
16	9	DET	Matt Manning	Y
16	10	CHW	Zack Collins	Y
16	11	SEA	Kyle Lewis	Y
16	12	BOS	Jay Groome	N
16	13	TB	Josh Lowe	Y
16	14	CLE	Will Benson	N
16	15	MIN	Alex Kirilloff	Y
16	16	LAA	Matt Thaiss	Y
16	17	HOU	Forrest Whitley	Y
16	18	NYY	Blake Rutherford	N
16	19	NYM	Justin Dunn	Y
16	20	LAD	Gavin Lux	Y
16	21	TOR	T.J. Zeuch	Y
16	22	PIT	Will Craig	Y
16	23	STL	Delvin Perez	N
16	24	SDP	Hudson Potts	N
16	25	SDP	Eric Lauer	Y
16	26	CHW	Zack Burdi	N
16	27	BAL	Cody Sedlock	N
16	28	WAS	Carter Kieboom	Y
16	29	WAS	Dane Dunning	Y
16	30	TEX	Cole Ragans	N
16	31	NYM	Anthony Kay	Y
16	32	LAD	Will Smith	Y
16	33	STL	Dylan Carlson	Y
16	34	STL	Dakota Hudson	Y
17	1	MIN	Royce Lewis	Y
17	2	CIN	Hunter Greene	N
17	3	SD	MacKenzie Gore	Y
17	4	TB	Brendan McKay	Y
17	5	ATL	Kyle Wright	Y
17	6	OAK	Austin Beck	N
17	7	ARI	Pavin Smith	Y
17	8	PHI	Adam Haseley	Y
17	9	MIL	Keston Hiura	Y
17	10	LAA	Jo Adell	Y
17	11	CHW	Jake Burger	N
17	12	PIT	Shane Baz	Y
17	13	MIA	Trevor Rogers	Y
17	14	KC	Nick Pratto	Y
17	15	HOU	J.B. Bukauskas	Y
17	16	NYY	Clarke Schmidt	Y
17	17	SEA	Evan White	Y
17	18	DET	Alex Faedo	Y
17	19	SFG	Heliot Ramos	Y
17	20	NYM	David Peterson	Y
17	21	BAL	D.L. Hall	N
17	22	TOR	Logan Warmoth	N
17	23	LAD	Jeren Kendall	N
17	24	BOS	Tanner Houck	N
17	25	WAS	Seth Romero	Y
17	26	TEX	Bubba Thompson	N
17	27	CHC	Brendon Little	N
17	28	TOR	Nate Pearson	Y
17	29	TEX	Chris Seise	N
17	30	CHC	Alex Lange	N

Team	Picks	Rostered	PCT
ATL	4	4	100.0%
DET	4	4	100.0%
HOU	4	4	100.0%
PIT	4	4	100.0%
LAA	3	3	100.0%
MIA	3	3	100.0%
NYM	3	3	100.0%
WAS	3	3	100.0%
ARI	2	2	100.0%
SEA	2	2	100.0%
LAD	4	3	75.0%
NYY	4	3	75.0%
SDP	4	3	75.0%
CIN	3	2	66.7%
MIL	3	2	66.7%
MIN	3	2	66.7%
OAK	3	2	66.7%
TB	3	2	66.7%
CHW	4	2	50.0%
STL	4	2	50.0%
TOR	4	2	50.0%
BOS	3	1	33.3%
CHC	3	1	33.3%
COL	3	1	33.3%
KC	3	1	33.3%
PHI	3	1	33.3%
SFG	3	1	33.3%
BAL	4	1	25.0%
TEX	4	1	25.0%
CLE	2	0	0.0%
Totals	99	65	65.7%