The 2024 MLB Draft starts July 14 -- and the teams with the top picks are gearing up to make a selection that will impact their franchises for years to come. Looking at recent history is a good reminder that the baseball draft is hardly a sure thing.
Take the Detroit Tigers, for example, who recently sent the top overall pick in the 2020 draft, Spencer Torkelson, down to Triple-A. Torkelson had hit 31 home runs in 2023, but the demotion wasn't necessarily a huge surprise given his numbers in 2024: .201/.266/.330, including going hitless in nine of 10 games before his June 3 demotion.
The Tigers couched it as Torkelson needing to make some adjustments with his swing and approach. For a player who was supposed to be a key part of the Tigers' present and future, it's a disappointing turn of events. Indeed, the Tigers appear on their way to an eighth straight losing season, and the rebuild that began in the late 2010s remains, shall we say, a work in progress.
Despite the difficulty of the MLB draft, nailing high picks can lead to a franchise turnaround. That's a little more difficult now as the anti-tanking draft lottery rules instituted last year mean a team can't draft in the top six more than two years in a row.
What should the Cleveland Guardians -- who are picking No. 1 this year -- and the other teams at the top take from recent history?
Let's go back over the past decade or so and look at some of the franchises who have had multiple high picks over a series of years to see who hit it big -- and who didn't.