For the first time in the baseball draft’s 42-year history, a team will have the first pick two years in a row. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays earned that dubious distinction over the weekend by finishing with the poorest record in the big leagues (66-96, .407) for the second straight season.
The Devil Rays picked first in June for the third time in their brief history and selected Vanderbilt lefthander David Price. Among the leading candidates to go No. 1 in 2008 are another Vanderbilt player, third baseman Pedro Alvarez, and another college lefthander, the University of San Diego’s Brian Matusz. We’ll take our first look at the top 100 prospects for this year’s draft later this week.
The draft order is determined by lowest winning percentage, regardless of league; in the case of teams with the same record, priority is given to the team that drafted in an earlier position in 2007.
Led by Tampa Bay, here’s the order of selection among the first 10 picks in the 2008 draft. If the teams look familiar, they should as Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Baltimore all picked in the top five spots in this year’s draft. |
| |
| Order |
Team |
W-L Percentage |
| 1. |
Tampa Bay Devil Rays |
.407 |
| 2. |
Pittsburgh Pirates |
.420 |
| 3. |
Kansas City Royals |
.426 |
| 4. |
Baltimore Orioles |
.426 |
| 5. |
San Francisco Giants |
.438 |
| 6. |
Florida Marlins |
.438 |
| 7. |
Cincinnati Reds |
.444 |
| 8. |
Chicago White Sox |
.444 |
| 9. |
Washington Nationals |
.451 |
| 10. |
Houston Astros |
.451 | |
| --ALLAN SIMPSON |
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