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General | Top Ten | 12/23/2008

California: Part 1

Allan Simpson

By any standard, California’s overall impact on the baseball draft and the University of Southern California’s impact on college baseball are unparalleled.

Historically, California has produced more draft picks than any other state by a wide margin and in both 2009 and 2010, California’s impact in the early stages of the draft is expected to be profound.

Led by San Diego State junior righthander Stephen Strasburg, a near slam-dunk choice as the first overall pick, California is expected to produce at least eight, and possibly as many as 12, first-round picks next June. The same scenario exists for 2010, although there is considerably less expectation that the state will produce the first selection overall.

The Trojans haven’t had a winning record in three seasons, but USC’s impact on the 2009 draft will be noteworthy as junior shortstop Grant Green is the one player who may be best positioned to wrestle the No. 1 spot away from Strasburg. Two other Trojans, junior righthander Brad Boxberger and junior catcher/righthander Robert Stock, are also considered borderline first-round talents.

As part of our comprehensive state-by-state coverage of the top prospects in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 draft classes, which will begin appearing on the PG Crosschecker website on Monday, Dec. 29, we’ll take a sneak peak at another state and our concentration over the next two days will be on California. Our focus Wednesday will be on the 2010 draft class, and we’ll offer our projection on the Top 10 prospects then.

Before we do that though, we thought we’d take a historic look at California’s overall impact on the draft and a close-up view at 12-time national champion USC—a school that, for all its success and the talent it has produced through the years, has never really gotten its due recognition in the draft.

Since the draft’s inception in 1965, California has produced more draft picks than any other state in every year. It has yielded 257 first-round picks—158 of whom were drafted out of high school, 96 from the college ranks, three directly from junior colleges. In addition, California can take credit for 25 more first-rounders who attended high school in the state and attended out-of-state colleges, including nine players from Arizona State.

Though the volume of California first-rounders through the years is heavily skewed towards high-school signees, more first-rounders have actually come from college (85) than high school (71) since 1980. The overall disparity stems from a decided 87-11 edge that the lucrative California high school ranks held from 1965-80, when it was much more common for teams to spend first-round picks on high school talent.

But the draft rules that existed at the time also contributed significantly to the disparity and, not coincidentally, were in place at the height of USC’s dominance—principally from 1968-78, when the Trojans won seven College World Series titles, including five in a row from 1970-74.

From 1966-73, draft rules mandated that a college player who had been drafted out of high school was eligible only for the since-abandoned secondary phase of the draft. Additionally, college juniors had to turn 21 within 45 days of the draft in order to be eligible for selection. That provision lasted through 1976, and it was commonplace for top college prospects who were ineligible for the draft as juniors to pass up their senior years by simply not enrolling in class in order to become eligible for the since-abandoned January draft.

No school was impacted by those arcane draft rules more than USC.

Aided by a draft-record 15 selections in 2008, Arizona State has produced more draft picks in history than any other college. The Sun Devils also can boast a record 18 first-round picks through the years, including three No. 1 picks overall—outfielder Rick Monday in 1965, lefthander Floyd Bannister in 1976 and third baseman Bob Horner in 1978.

By contrast, USC is credited with only 14 first-rounders and no No. 1 picks overall. The Trojans, in fact, aren’t even No. 1 in their own state in terms of first-round selections produced, as Stanford can claim 17 such players.

Had today’s draft rules been in effect throughout the draft’s 44-year history though, it’s a good bet that USC would be viewed in an altogether different light from a draft standpoint, and more in line with the on-field dominance they’ve displayed in the draft era.

There’s a high probability, for instance, that former USC righthander Mike Adamson, and not Georgia high school first baseman Ron Blomberg, would have been the No. 1 pick in the 1967 draft. The same scenario might have been re-enacted in 1970, when Trojans slugger Dave Kingman, and not Georgia prep catching phenom Mike Ivie, very well could have been the first overall selection.

But because there were four drafts—two in January, two in June—in effect at the time, and Adamson, an unsigned first-rounder in 1965, and Kingman, an unsigned 10th-rounder in 1968, were drafted out of high school, neither was eligible for the traditional June regular phase in 1967 and 1970. Between them, the first rounds of those drafts yielded only four college players.

Adamson not only became the No. 1 pick in the June 1967 secondary phase, but the first player in draft history to advance directly to the major leagues—though he never won a big-league game. Kingman was the top selection in the June 1970 secondary phase. In both cases, Adamson ($75,000) and Kingman ($80,000) received larger signing bonuses than the two Georgia high school players, Blomberg ($65,000) and Ivie ($75,000), who draft history has anointed as the recognized No. 1 picks in those years.

In 1973, USC shortstop Roy Smalley, and not Texas prep lefthander David Clyde, might have been the choice of the Texas Rangers as the first pick in that year’s draft. But Smalley, a junior, wasn’t eligible for the draft as he didn’t turn 21 until Oct. 25 of that year. His only recourse to starting his pro career at the time was to sit out the fall of his senior year at USC, which made him eligible for the January 1974 draft.

Conveniently, the struggling Rangers had the No. 1 pick then, too, and got their man anyway as Smalley was available in the regular phase of that draft. That Smalley received a larger signing bonus, $95,000, compared to Clyde’s $85,000, is an indication that the Rangers might have chosen Smalley, and not Clyde, had Smalley been eligible in the 1973 draft.

Though it is clear Smalley was a legitimate first-round talent at the time he was drafted, he is not recognized nowadays as a conventional first-round draft pick because the two January drafts and June secondary draft have largely faded from memory. And there are numerous other examples where old, quirky draft rules have impacted USC and some of its very best prospects in much the same way.

The Trojans might have added another national title in 1976 had three key players—outfielder Steve Kemp, catcher Dennis Littlejohn and righthander Pete Redfern, all future big leagers—not decided to forego their senior seasons at USC by making themselves eligible for the January draft. Each signed just prior to the start of the ’76 season.

Because none of the three was 21 and otherwise eligible for the 1975 draft, even though each was a junior, the only recourse they had other than to play all four years of their college career was to drop out of school in order to become draft-eligible by January of their senior year. The fact that Kemp was the No. 1 overall pick in the regular phase of the January 1976 draft, and the previously-drafted Redfern and Littlejohn went 1-2 in the secondary phase of the same draft, is a strong indication that all three would have been first-round picks in the conventional June regular phase had they been eligible as juniors or stayed in school for their senior years.

Had that happened, USC would have been the first school in the draft’s short history to produce three first-round picks in the same draft. In the end, because Kemp, Littlejohn and Redfern weren’t first-rounders in the traditional June regular phase, USC gets little or no credit for three more first-round talents it produced.

From a draft perspective, USC also gets little or no credit for producing righthander Tom Seaver or lefthander Bill Bordley, two prominent arms who not only would have been certain first-rounders had they come through the June regular phase, but strong candidates to be the No. 1 pick overall in 1966 and 1979, respectively, had they played in the spring seasons of those years. Both players were selected in the January drafts of those years and their signings rank among the most controversial in draft history as neither ended up signing with the team that drafted them, and their rights were won through a lottery process administered to by the commissioner’s office.

Seaver was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in January 1966 and signed a $40,000 contract with the Braves rather than return to USC for his senior year. But the deal was voided by the commissioner’s office on the grounds that Seaver had signed after spring-semester classes had begun at USC, a violation of draft rules. But since Seaver was also considered ineligible by the NCAA because he had signed a pro contract, then-commissioner William Eckert held a special draft for Seaver’s rights and the highest bidder would be entitled to sign Seaver. The New York Mets won out and signed the future 311-game winner for $40,000—a larger bonus than most first-round picks were earning in 1966.

Bordley, an unsigned first-round pick in 1976 out of a California high school, went 26-2 in his first two season at USC and determined there was little left to prove in college after leading the Trojans to a 1978 national title as a sophomore. But the only option available to Bordley as he pondered an immediate pro career was to drop out of school prior to enrolling for his junior season, which made him eligible for the January 1979 draft.

Bordley almost certainly would have been the No. 1 overall pick in that draft, but he was adamant about playing for a team near his California home and he advised the first three selecting teams—Philadelphia, Toronto and Cincinnati—of that intention. The California Angels, with the fourth pick, quietly reached an agreement with Bordley on a $200,000 bonus, which would have been the largest in draft history to that point, if he managed to slide to them. But the Reds decided to roll the dice on Bordley, and it was clear from the start they had no chance to sign him. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn caught wind of the Angels backroom agreement with Bordley, and not only charged them with tampering but fined the club $15,000 and forced the Angels to surrender two draft picks to the Reds.

After being allowed to pick one of five clubs in a lottery rather than have to return to USC for his junior season, Bordley signed with the San Francisco Giants but his promising career was derailed by elbow problems.

Had outfielder Fred Lynn, a second-round pick of the Boston Red Sox in 1973 out of USC who became the American League MVP two years later, and lefthander Randy Johnson, a second-round pick of the Montreal Expos in 1985 who has gone on to become the second greatest strikeout pitcher in major league history, been drafted where there considerable talent warranted, they also would have been first-round picks that USC could lay claim to.

While we’ve identified 10 elusive players who might have been true first-round picks out of USC under different circumstances, here are the 10 players that are the actual first-round picks the Trojans have produced in the draft’s conventional June regular phase:

Rank	Player	Pos.	Years at USC	Drafted by/Year (Order)
1	Mark Prior	RHP	2000-01	Cubs ’01 (2)
2	Eric Munson	C	1997-99	Tigers ’99 (3)
	Jeff Clement	C	2003-05	Mariners ’05 (3)
4	Brad Brink	RHP	1984-86	Phillies ’86 (7)
5	Mark Smith	OF	1989-91	Orioles ’91 (9)
	Geoff Jenkins	OF	1993-95	Brewers ’95 (9)
	Barry Zito	LHP	1999	Athletics ’99 (9)
8	Mark McGwire	1B	1982-84	Athletics ’84 (10)
9	*Rod Boxberger	RHP	1976-78	Astros ’78 (11)
10	Seth Etherton	RHP	1995-98	Angels ’98 (18)
*Did not play in major leagues

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