Cleveland Indians Draft History

All tables below are based on the amount of WAR each player produced during their first seven seasons in Major League Baseball. The WAR totals for each draft class include both Pitching and Hitting WAR, but excludes any player that did not sign with their drafting team. The total WAR also reflects the total value the drafted player provided, not just the value to his drafting team.

*Data accurate through 2019 season.

Top Five Draft Classes

YearTeamWAR
1989Cleveland Indians65.0
1991Cleveland Indians38.4
2011Cleveland Indians36.9
1998Cleveland Indians33.8
1972Cleveland Indians33.2

Bottom Five Draft Classes

YearTeamWAR
1983Cleveland Indians-0.7
2005Cleveland Indians-0.4
1973Cleveland Indians0.1
1966Cleveland Indians0.2
1968Cleveland Indians0.2
This list excludes any season past 2010, since those draft classes have a multitude of active players.

Top Five Draft Picks

Year DraftedRoundOverall PickNameWAR
1998120CC Sabathia28.0
201118Francisco Lindor27.2
1972350Dennis Eckersley26.5
198917437Brian Giles26.2
1991113Manny Ramirez25.8
List made from top five WAR values alone.

Five Biggest Busts

Year DraftedRoundOverall PickNameWAR
198812Mark Lewis-0.8
197012Steve Dunning1.4
199212Paul Shuey4.5
198414Cory Snyder2.4
197414Tom Brennan2.6
List made from first round picks that produced less than 5.0 WAR in their first seven seasons and ordered by lowest overall pick.

Top Five Value Picks

Year DraftedRoundOverall PickNameWAR
198917437Brian Giles26.2
196916375Buddy Bell21.3
198913333Jim Thome21.1
199324671Richie Sexson12.2
197618422Ron Hassey8.7
List made from top five WAR values where a player was drafted outside of the first ten rounds.

Top Five Unsigned Draft Picks

Year DraftedRoundOverall PickNameWAR
2005421261Tim Lincecum27.4
1980487Doug Drabek22.9
198520505Brian Jordan19.3
197236733Rick Langford16.1
198016399Terry Steinbach13.1
List made from top five WAR values where a player did not sign with the team.

Click here for code used to create this page.

%d bloggers like this: