2024 Draft - Part 14 - the History of of Our 2024 Draft Slots - Draft Slots #113, #146 and #175

Part two on the history of the draft slots that the Guardians have in 2024.  Today we will look at the history of the slots (up through 2019) that the Guardians will pick in the 3rd, 4th and 5th rounds of this draft.

#113

• 17 of 55 picks at this slot (through the 2019 draft) since the draft began in 1965 have made the majors.  
• The only major leaguer of real note among those 17 is Yadier Molina.
• Paul Byrd is the only player Cleveland ever drafted at that slot.

#146

• 15 of 55 picks at this slot since the draft began in 1965 have made the majors
• The only major leaguer of note drafted in this slot was Ozzie Smith
• Cleveland drafted 2 players at this slot with Jimmy Kremmel being the only one that played in the majors

#175

• 18 of 55 picks at this slot have made the majors
• The players of note who have been picked at this slot include Troy Percival, Storm Davis, Taylor Buchholz, Matt Boyd and a number of ML middle relievers.
• Cleveland has drafted at this slot 3 times but none of the players drafted ever made it to the majors.

Summary

As I think is well-known, the chance of coming up with a major league drop drastically after the first couple of rounds and this is borne out by looking at the draft history for the slots above.  However, the Guardians have recently been really good at coming up with major leaguers in the 3rd-5th rounds including Steven Kwan (5th), Shane Bieber (4th), Aaron Civale (3rd), Hunter Gaddis (5th), to name just some of the most recent ones.  With the increase in money they should have to work with (almost $1 million from the 4.99% excess over budget, alone) they have a chance to do really well in these rounds this year.  So I have my hopes up that we should be able to grab some real talent with these picks.  Whether that will be high ceiling/low floor HS stars or high floor/medium ceiling college pitchers like Bieber was when he was drafted, over even more college bats, remains to be seen.  But the money...and the hope from this draft geek...makes these picks very interesting.