Longtime scout/MLB exec/GM Jim Bowden shares his most memorable experiences while participating in the MLB draft. Former scout/exec Tony Blengino shared his own memories on Monday.
Bonds or Gwynn … Chris Gwynn
In 1985, I was a publicity assistant for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and during the amateur draft, my job was to record information on all of our picks and take it to the publicity director so he could type -- on a typewriter -- a press release to let the media know who we drafted. That year, we had the sixth overall pick, and it was only my second year being part of the draft process.
The way it worked back then, two national cross-checkers would make their individual draft lists and turn them in to the scouting director, who combined those lists and factored in his own preferences to make an overall draft list. In 1985, B.J. Surhoff, Will Clark, Bobby Witt and Barry Larkin were the first four players drafted. To this day, I remember the excitement in the room when we knew we were getting either Barry Bonds or Chris Gwynn (Tony's younger brother). Joe L. Brown, the GM at the time, strongly wanted to draft Gwynn, as did one of his top cross-checkers, Lenny Yochim, because they questioned Bonds' work ethic and attitude. But it was the tobacco-spitting, whiskey-drinking Howie Haak that stood up and yelled that Bonds was the "best f---ing player" he'd ever scouted, and if we didn't take Bonds, he'd quit. Haak, the first recipient of the Scout of the Year award the prior season, had a tremendous track record that included the Rule 5 selection of Roberto Clemente in 1954 and a long list of signing star players, from Manny Sanguillen to Rennie Stennett to Omar Moreno.
The GM and scouting director went against their personal opinions and went with Haak, and obviously they're glad they did. Bonds would reach the majors less than a year later and helped turn a struggling franchise into division champions, winning two MVP awards and finishing second in another while doing so. He would go on to become the all-time MLB home run king, while Gwynn hit a total of 17 homers in a 10-year career spent mostly as a platoon player.
This was my first lesson about the importance of "evaluating the evaluators." When in doubt, bet on the scouts with the best track record, not always what the majority or top executive wants. I also learned not to wear expensive shoes around Haak because his tobacco spitting would never miss my shoes … ever.
Dunn deal
In 1998, while serving as GM of the Cincinnati Reds, two of my top scouts, Johnny Almaraz and Jimmy Gonzales, were in love with a big high school outfielder named Adam Dunn, who also was a top football recruit for the University of Texas.
Dunn was telling teams that he planned to go to Texas to play football. But Almaraz and Gonzales spent a lot of time with Dunn, and they felt strongly that if we drafted him, we would be able to sign him, and eventually he'd give up football to play baseball. Dunn was clearly a first-round type of talent with obvious 40-homer potential. Almaraz and Gonzales thought because of his signability issues that he might slip to us in the second round. We debated taking him in the first round but ultimately decided to wait it out, hoping he would fall to us in Round 2.
As we got near the end of the first round, my heart was going pitter-patter, my palms started to sweat and I became extremely anxious. Sure enough, he was there for us to take in the second round, and Almaraz and Gonzales were right: Dunn gave up football and signed with us. He would go on to play 14 years in the big leagues, belting 40 homers six different times and ending up with 462 major league dingers.
It was a great job by Almaraz and Gonzales in building a strong relationship with Dunn prior to the draft, which led to us drafting him and eventually getting him to play baseball instead of football.
Who's that kid?
In 2002, we had a workout of top prospects just before the draft at our home ballpark in Cincinnati, and during batting practice of this workout, there was a 17-year-old lefty hitter who was just raking. He had a smooth, special swing with loud sweet-spot contact and easily stood out as a can't-miss hitter -- the kind of bat that doesn't come around often, especially at his age.
I asked our scouts and top evaluators who he was -- and everyone looked mystified. They didn't know who he was. I checked all of the preference lists and reports, and there was nothing on the kid. Finally, Kasey McKeon, son of longtime MLB manager/exec Jack McKeon, pulled me aside and told me that he didn't turn in the player's name because most of my top evaluators had big mouths, and he felt that if word got out, every team would be in on him and we wouldn't be able to draft him. McKeon felt that by keeping his name under wraps, we could maybe draft the player in the second, third or even fourth round.
That 17-year-old with the smooth swing was Joey Votto.
McKeon did a great job of both scouting Votto and staying mum about his immense talent -- Votto's name didn't appear in any pre-draft analysis by the media publications -- so we felt there was a good chance we would get him. It was just a matter of figuring out which round. When our second-round pick was approaching, we discussed waiting another round to grab him, but we quickly determined he'd be our pick. We felt fortunate enough that he was still there for us and didn't want to get greedy and risk losing a hitter like that. He might have been there for us a round later, but we took him with the third pick of the second round (44th overall) and didn't look back.
The rest is history, of course. The sweet-swinging Votto is a career .307 hitter in the majors, has led the National League in OBP four times (.420 OBP for his career) and has four All-Star appearances and an MVP award under his belt.
A wealth of options
In 2005, when I was general manager of the Washington Nationals in their inaugural year of existence -- the team had moved from Montreal following the 2004 season -- I had the privilege of overseeing the Nats' first-ever draft. It just happened to be one of the strongest drafts in history, and we had the fourth overall pick.
We knew the Arizona Diamondbacks were going to take Justin Upton with the first overall selection, but we didn't know who the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Mariners were going to take with the next two picks. We had four players in our mix at the time: Alex Gordon, Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun and Jay Bruce. Zimmerman stood out to us because he was from our market area (Virginia), had off-the-charts makeup and character, and we felt he could quickly become the face of the franchise. He also had the two most important tools we were looking for from position players out of the draft: the "hit" tool and the "field" tool.
On May 13, 2005, Zimmerman's University of Virginia squad hosted Braun's Miami Hurricanes, so all of our top evaluators piled into my Escalade and headed for Charlottesville, Virginia. Both third basemen played well out of the No. 3 slots in their team's lineup. Zimmerman showed better hit and fielding tools, while Braun demonstrated enormous power but looked like he'd have to move off third base. We liked the upside of Bruce, a Texas high schooler, as well, comparing him to a young Larry Walker. But Zimmerman would be our pick.
We soon found out that the Royals were planning to take Gordon, but we had to sweat out the Mariners' pick at No. 3. Unlike most years, the Mariners were not willing to tell us before the draft who they were planning to take, so we had to wait until they actually made the pick. We were pretty nervous they'd take Zimmerman, but when their pick was announced as Jeff Clement -- a player who wasn't even in our mix -- the room exploded. High-fives all around. We got Zimmerman, who has had a pretty respectable career, including a Gold Glove and multiple Silver Slugger awards, despite dealing with a number of serious injuries in his career.
A room divided
During the 2007 draft, I was settled in the draft room as GM of the Nationals, when suddenly our room of scouts and evaluators became heated, as there was a strong divide by the team's top evaluators on who we would should take with our second-round pick, pick No. 67. Half of the room wanted to select Jordan Zimmermann, while the other half felt it would be a gross "overdraft" of the Wisconsin-Stevens Point right-hander. That turned out to be one of the rare occasions in my time as GM that I had to get involved and make the final decision on who we would draft. I listened to everyone in the room, then met privately in my office with the top of the hierarchy. My final decision was to support the opinion of my top baseball operations executive, Mike Rizzo, who was then the assistant GM and VP of baseball operations (and is currently the Nats GM). I respected Rizzo's opinion as much as anyone I had hired in baseball, and combine that with the chain-of-command protocol that was in place, it was an easy decision for me.
Rizzo wanted Zimmermann, and his decision worked out well for the Nats. The 6-foot-2 right-hander posted a 70-50 record for Washington and finished in the top seven in NL Cy Young Award voting, twice. Including the solid season he has had for the Tigers in 2016, he has a 3.27 ERA and 1.16 WHIP in 188 career MLB starts.
Just like Pirates GM Joe L. Brown betting on Howie Haak and selecting Bonds back in 1985, I bet on Mike Rizzo in taking Zimmermann, and it paid off.