The Major League Baseball (MLB) Draft is volatile. Unlike other professional leagues such as the National Football League (NFL) or National Basketball Association (NBA), where rookies are sometimes pro-ready from Day 1, MLB draftees face long, oftentimes challenging roads to the major leagues.
That means there is plenty of time to develop before reaching the bigs — or plenty of time to crumble and never materialize at all.
Add in the sheer length of the draft — 40 rounds until this year's shortened five-round format due to the coronavirus outbreak — and picking the right player can become a dart throw ... with your off-hand.
That said, draft busts come in all varieties, and those taken in the top 10 will always carry a little more weight in the history books. At that position, teams shouldn't outright whiff. But they do. All the time.
In fact, seven of the Pirates' last 15 top-10 picks fall into the "outright busts" category, with three more selections hovering around "mediocre at best."
One of those busts, the Pirates' 2012 No. 8 overall draft pick Mark Appel, was recently named one of the 10 worsts busts of the last decade by ESPN.
Now, now, now, hold up, you say. I hear you. I know what you're thinking. Appel famously did not sign with the Pirates and was eventually taken first overall in the following year's draft by the Astros. There, he did sign, which makes him a pick by the Astros ... technically.
Fact is: The Pirates wanted him. They, like the majority of scouts at the time, saw Appel as a future No. 1 starter who could fast-track to the bigs. So don't get it twisted here: The Pirates wanted Appel, offering him a $3.8 million signing bonus to stick around. Appel did not want the Pirates.
"We drafted Mark Appel to sign Mark Appel," then Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said at the time. "We were excited about the opportunity to add him to a plethora of quality, young arms. It didn't happen. So now we turn the corner. This, too, shall pass. We move forward."
But what makes the Appel story so interesting is that he ... really wasn't worth all the trouble. Appel also spurned the Tigers in 2009, when they selected him out of high school in the 15th round of the 2009 MLB Draft. After he finally signed, the biggest twist of all was revealed: Appel wasn't a first-round talent, let alone a No. 1-overall talent.
He couldn't play in the bigs at all.
Appel was traded by the Astros to the Phillies in 2016, but he never got the call-up to the show for either team. He did ascend to the AAA level with the Astros in 2015 then again for the Phillies in 2016 and 2017, but the results were never there to propel him to the next level. From there, Appel retired in 2018 at the age of 26 having never thrown a pitch at the MLB level.
Tough to say the Pirates avoided a bust in 2012 when they essentially burnt their No. 8 pick for nothing that year, although they did receive the No. 9 selection in the following draft as compensation, which they used on Austin Meadows. But, as it turned out, Appel didn't have much more than that to offer, anyway.
Could the Pirates have developed him differently and unlocked his full potential? Nobody knows. But what we do know paints the picture of a bust.
