2026 Baseball Eligibles (18)
At the University of Nebraska, Alex Gordon was considered by all of the experts not just to be the best Cornhusker on the diamond but the best baseball player in all of the NCAA. The winner of the Dick Howser Trophy and Golden Spikes Award, unsurprisingly, was Kansas City’s first pick (second overall) 2005 Amateur Draft. A three-time All-Star, Alex Gordon led the American League in…
You can't talk about Chris Davis without discussing the spectacularly good and the abysmally bad. Over the last half of his career, no other baseball player may have gone from one extreme to the other quicker than the former First Baseman. Davis came up through the Texas Rangers system, and the scouting reports about the First Baseman never changed: Low Average, colossal power, lots of Strikeouts,…
A master of the changeup, Cole Hamels was in the hunt for an extended period of time as one of the top southpaws in Baseball. Hamels was taken in the First Round of the 2002 Draft (17th Overall) by Philadelphia, and he worked his way to the rotation in 2006 with a decent rookie year (9-8, 4.08 ERA). The southpaw went to his first All-Star Game as…
Daniel Murphy played for the New York Mets in the first half of his career (2008-09 & 2011-15), where the Second Baseman was not lighting up the stat sheets, but turning heads with his hustle. In 2015, he was the lightning rod of the Mets team that reached the World Series, winning the NLCS MVP, but New York would fall to Kansas City. Murphy would then…
Edinson Volquez began his career in the Majors with the Texas Rangers, the team he made in 2005 after spending four years in their system after being signed as an Amateur Free Agent from the Dominican Republic. This season was not, however, the start of something brilliant but rather an aberration. The right-handed Pitcher struggled with control and spent more time in the Minors than he…
The Texas Rangers drafted Edwin Encarnacion in 2000, but a year later he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds, where he would eventually make his Major League debut for in 2005. With the Reds, the Dominican showed promise, but his hitting never reached its potential, and he was not good in the field. A mid-season trade in 2009 to Toronto changed everything for Encarnacion, though that was…
Despite being a First Round Pick, Gio Gonzalez was traded three times before he made his Major League debut, which was with Oakland in 2008. Gonzalez's first two years were nothing special, but he broke out in 2010, going 15-9 with a 3.23 ERA, and he was better in 2011, going to the All-Star Game and finishing the year at 16-12 with a 3.12 ERA. As typical…
Howie Kendrick played 15 years in the Majors, the first nine of which with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, where the Second Baseman was an All-Star in 2011. Kendrick had several good offensive years for the Halos, batting 2.92 overall for Los Angeles, with 1,204 of his 1,747 Hits collected there. While he declined in 2015, he still was productive, playing for the Dodgers and…
Hunter Pence broke in with the Houston Astros in 2007, finishing third in National League Rookie of the Year voting displaying a nice balance of power and average that would be his calling card. Settling in at Rightfield, Pence was an All-Star in 2009 and 2011, hitting 20 Home Runs six years in a row beginning in 2008 while batting over .300 twice. Traded to the…
Jason Kipnis played ten seasons in the Majors, nine with Cleveland, where he was twice an All-Star. The Second Baseman never broached elite status, but the Indians had a solid starter who had 1,146 Hits and 126 Home Runs over his career.
Jeff Samardzija might have a losing record of 80-106, but he was one of the best athletes in Notre Dame history, having starred in both Baseball and Football, and he could have easily had a career in the NFL as a Wide Receiver. Instead, he opted for a career in Baseball, which began in Chicago with the Cubs. Samardzija was in the bullpen for the first…
Kelvin Herrera played his entire career coming out of the bullpen, a career that began in the Majors with Kansas City in 2011. The Dominican came into his own in the middle of the decade, becoming Kansas City’s set-up man in 2014, and helping his team get into the World Series that year. An All-Star in both 2014 and 2015, Herrera was again outstanding in his…
Matt Kemp had an interesting career, and if you watched him in 2011, you might have thought this was a potential Hall of Famer. Kemp joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in late 2006 after three years in the Minors, but it was not for another two seasons that he established himself as an everyday Outfielder. Breaking out in 2009 with a 26 HR/101 RBI/34 SB year…
Matt Wieters was one of the better defensive catchers in the early 2010s, leading the American League in Total Zone Runs by a Catcher three times and winning two Gold Gloves. Playing for Baltimore for most of his career, Wieters did not hit for average but had three consecutive 20 Home Run Years and was good enough to make four All-Star Teams.
Nick Markakis was a First Round Pick in 2003 (7th Overall), where he joined the Baltimore Orioles system, save for a brief stop representing Greece in the 2004 Olympics. Markakis became Baltimore’s starting Rightfielder out of the 2006 Training Camp, and he immediately was one of the more consistent hitters in Baseball. He batted at least .280 in his first seven years, with a five-year run…
Rick Porcello began his career in the Majors with the Detroit Tigers in 2009, winning a spot in the starting rotation. The right-hander proved competent, drawing groundball outs mostly off his two-seam fastball, and over his six seasons in Motown, he had a winning record of 76 and 63. The Tigers traded Porcello to Boston before the 2015 Season, and initially, it looked like the Red Sox…
The first half of Ryan Braun's career looked like it was on a Hall of Fame trajectory. A two-time All-American at the University of Miami, Braun was considered a five-tool prospect and was the fifth overall pick in 2005, and he rose quickly, entering the Majors in 2007. It was a great rookie campaign for Braun, winning the National League Rookie of the Year in a…
Shin-Soo Choo was the MVP of the 2000 WSBC U-18 World Cup, an event won by his native South Korea, but he did so as a Pitcher. The Seattle Mariners believed that his future in MLB was as an Outfielder, and they signed him in 2005. They were right. Choo only played 14 Games for Seattle before he was traded to Cleveland, and he became an everyday…