Tampa Bay Rays: Top Five First-Round Draft Picks in History

With the draft around the corner, we take a look at the three best players to be drafted in the first round by the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Tampa Bay Rays have an interesting list of first-round draft picks in their history. Here are a few fun facts before we get started with the top three players.

This list goes from the first pick of Paul Wilder in 1996 to Josh Lowe in 2016.

• The Rays have selected 22 players in the first round since their inception to 2016. Of the 22 players, only five have surpassed a 10 career rWAR.
• The average rWAR is 7.25 per player.
• The top three players account for 77.5% of the total rWAR.
• The top five players account for 94.4% of the total rWAR.
• Of the 17 remaining players, only six have a career rWAR over zero.
• Delmon Young finished with a career rWAR of 3.2 but the Rays have turned his trade into a total WAR of 46.2 and counting.

Okay, let’s get into the top five players ever drafted by the Rays in the first round.

Just a head’s up, these rankings are based on career production, not what they produced as a Ray or for the Rays.

Tampa Bay Rays 1st Round Draft Pick – Rocco Baldelli

Rocco Baldelli was once one of the top prospects in all of baseball. A scout once compared him to Joe Dimaggio. Baldelli burst onto the scene in 2003 by finishing third in the Rookie of the Year voting and rocketing 32 doubles, eight triples, and 11 homers.

After the 2004 season, Rocco’s momentum came to a screeching halt, tearing his ACL in a pickup basketball game. He would return in 2006 to post an OPS of .871 while hitting .309 with 16 homers in just 92 games. That would be the most games he would play in a single season for the rest of his career.

Injuries kept him out of 261 games between 2007 and 2008. Even with the injuries, the Rays decided Rocco’s talent needed to be on the postseason roster in 2008. He rewarded their faith by hitting .333 in the ALCS with four RBI. He also hit a couple of home runs, including one in Game 5 of the World Series.

That offseason he would be diagnosed with a condition called mitochondrial channelopathy. He just couldn’t overcome the disease and stay healthy. The Rays kept him on board as a special assistant with the caveat that if his health permitted, he could play again.

He returned for ten more games. Fittingly, in the first at-bat of his return, he hit his final major-league home run. Baldelli would announce his retirement at the age of 29. He became the youngest manager to win the Manager of the Year Award in Major League Baseball history last season for the Minnesota Twins.

Tampa Bay Rays 1st Round Draft Pick – B.J. Upton

He may go by Melvin now, but we will always remember him as B.J. Upton. After being selected as the second overall pick in the 2002 draft, B.J. turned his time with the Rays into a hefty contract with the Atlanta Braves.

At the age of 19, Upton made his first appearance in the big leagues, playing in 45 games in the 2004 season. The teenager held his own at the highest level, hitting .258 with a .324 on-base percentage.

He played 50 more games in 2006, then established himself in 2007 by hitting .300/.386/.508 with 24 HRs, 82 RBI, 22 SBs, and scoring 86 runs in just 129 games.

The following season he stole 44 bags, hit 37 doubles, and had 97 walks, helping the Rays to the World Series. On the way there, he tore up the ALDS and the ALCS, hitting seven homers and driving in 15 runs in those 11 games. In his career, he has a .539 slugging percentage in nine postseason series.

He turned his production into a 5-year, $75 million contract with the Braves where he posted a -1.7 rWAR in two seasons before being traded to the Padres. He finished 16.8 rWAR in his career with 15.6 coming with the Tampa Bay Rays.

Upton’s career might have tailed off in Atlanta, but he did manage to put together some decent production for the Padres. He was an above-average hitter with the Padres slashing .257/.313/.435 with 29 steals and 21 homers in 549 at-bats.

Tampa Bay Rays 1st Round Draft Pick – Josh Hamilton

Now, we just featured Josh Hamilton on our top three draft busts article (which can be found below) but there’s no doubt that he was the third-most productive player to be drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays in the first round.

Hamilton is one component in the outfield of the future everyone expected from the Tampa Bay Rays. Combined with Rocco Baldelli and Carl Crawford, Hamilton was supposed to round out one of the greatest outfields ever assembled.

We just covered Baldelli’s unfortunate turn of events, Hamilton’s is a whole different story, but nonetheless unfortunate. Since we just nailed all that down in the previous article, I’ll let you read that there.

Suffice it to say, Hamilton never played a game for the Rays. He resurfaced with the Cincinnati Reds and hit 19 homers in just 90 games. He was traded to the Texas Rangers prior to 2008 where he made the All-Star team and had one of the most memorable rounds of home run derby in the history of the event.

At the age of 27, Hamilton crushed 32 homers, 35 doubles, and drove in a league-leading 130 runs while slashing .304/.371/.530.

Hamilton made five consecutive All-Star games between 2008-2012 for the Rangers. Heading into the 2013 season, Hamilton signed a five-year, $125 million contract with the Angels. Injuries would ravage his career from that point forth.

By February of 2017, Hamilton had totaled 11 knee surgeries. He would play his final game in 2015 with the Texas Rangers. He finished a career that was abbreviated on both ends with 200 homers and a .290 batting average.

Tampa Bay Rays 1st Round Draft Pick – Evan Longoria

Yes, the greatest Tampa Bay Ray of all time is also the best overall player to be drafted in the first round. Evan Longoria was taken as the third overall pick of the 2006 MLB Draft out of California State University. He made his debut on April 12, 2008 at the age of 22 and led the charge for the incredible World Series run.

He made the All-Star team, won Rookie of the Year, and finished 11th in MVP voting that season. In 122 games he blasted 31 doubles, 27 homers, 85 RBI, and even swiped seven bags without getting caught. He played stellar defense and set the stage for greatness to come.

Longoria has already racked up 56 career rWAR, accounting for roughly 1/3 of all the rWAR on this list. Like David Price, he is still only 34 and is coming off of a pretty solid season for the San Francisco Giants.

Longo holds several Rays all-time records, including career WAR, offensive WAR, total games played, at-bats, plate appearances, runs scored, total base hits, doubles, home runs, RBI, walks, sacrifice flies, intentional walks, and more.

He’s a three-time All-Star, owns three Gold Gloves, a Silver Slugger Award, and the previously mentioned Rookie of the Year Award.

Longoria holds the honor of receiving the largest contract extension in team history. He;’s the greatest Ray to every play and he’s the greatest first-round draft pick ever made by Tampa Bay.

He owns a career OPS+ of 121 and after suffering his first two seasons below 100 in 2017 and 2018, he was able to bounce back above 100 last season as he looks to make his case for the Hall of Fame as he enters his age-34 season.