What If: Doing a Redo of the 2010 MLB Draft Could Have Netted the Indians a Massive Game Changer

When it comes to the Major League Baseball draft, like all sports drafts there is no exact science, and there is just as many failures as there are success stories.

The Indians have certainly had their share of success stories in the draft, as over the years they have brought in via the draft the likes of C.C. Sabathia and Manny Ramirez, both first-round picks.

There has been a number of misses on the Indians part just like any other team, and also players that they could have drafted that could have changed the course of the franchise, but instead they took a different player.

With hindsight being what it is, MLB.com looked at the 2010 MLB Draft, and the way that it could have played out based on what we now know about the players that were available that year.

The 2010 draft was about just a few players when it took place, Bryce Harper, Jameson Taillon and Manny Machado.

The Tribe sat with the fifth pick overall, just out of reach for landing one of those three studs.

For the sake of their story, MLB.com put together their list of who would have been drafted where again based on what certain players have done in their first 10 seasons of their career.

Let’s start with the Washington Nationals, who in 2010 nabbed Bryce Harper, who stayed with the team before going to Philadelphia on a $330 million dollar deal.

The Pirates with the second pick went with pitching, taking the highly touted Taillon, who has had major injury issues in his career and is recovering from his second Tommy John surgery.

The Orioles at three took Machado, who again thrived with the team until he was dealt in 2018 to the Los Angeles Dodgers and then signed a 10-year deal worth $300 million with San Diego.

Now that it’s a decade later, who would the National have really taken with that first overall pick? MLB.com speculates they would have drafted Christian Yelich with the first overall pick.

Yelich wound up going to the Miami Marlins with the 23 overall pick, and now is with the Milwaukee Brewers.

In Milwaukee Yelich has led the National League in average the last two seasons, and has hit a whopping 80 homers.

The site has the Pirates sticking with pitching with the second pick, but instead of taking the injury prone Taillon, they grab Chris Sale, the lefty hurler who was chosen by the Chicago White Sox with the 13 pick in round one.

Sale now resides with the Boston Red Sox, where he’s about to enter his fourth season. In his first two years with the Red Sox he was 29-12, but last year he struggled, going just 4-11 with a 4.40 ERA in 25 starts.

The Orioles with pick three would have taken righty pitcher Jacob deGrom, who went to the New York Mets in the ninth round.

All deGrom has done in New York is win two straight NL Cy Young awards, and in his six seasons has gone 66-49 with a 2.62 ERA.

The pick before the Indians belonged to the Kanas City Royals, and the site had them taking Machado, who they were interested in prior to the draft.

The Royals pick in 2010 was Christian Colon, who did clinch the 2015 World Series for Kansas City with a hit, but other than that was mostly forgettable, as in four seasons with the Royals he hit an average of .263 with a homer and 25 RBI.

He played with the Cincinnati Reds last season, appearing in just eight games.

Now on to the Indians, who in 2010 went pitching to bolster their roster, and the player they chose was Mississippi lefty pitcher Drew Pomeranz.

Pomeranz was highly touted at the time, setting a career mark for strikeouts and taking home the 2010 Southeastern Conference pitcher of the year award.

The Indians paid Pomeranz $2.65 million, but fans didn’t get to see the investment the Indians made, as he was dealt to Colorado in 2011 along with fellow first-round pitcher Alex White in a deal that brought Ubaldo Jimenez to the Indians.

Jimenez’s Indians career was up and down, going 26-30 with a 4.64 ERA in his three seasons with the Tribe.

In the case of “what if” the Indians if they had to do it all over again and he was available (as in this hypothetical case he would be), the site has the Tribe taking Harper with the fifth overall pick.

Can you imagine the type of impact a Bryce Harper would have had on the Indians organization if he would have been here instead of Washington from 2012 to 2018?

He made the All-Star team in every year in D.C. but one, hit 184 homers (26.2 per year), drove in 521 runs and hit .279.

Plus add in he played a position that the Indians have seemed to have an issue filling the past few seasons, and that’s the outfield.

Harper’s best season with the Nats was that of 2015 when he hit a whopping .330 with a National League high 42 homers, 99 RBI and a National League high in runs scored with 118.

Of course there is no guarantee that if the Indians would have drafted Harper that he would have duplicated the type of numbers on offense that he did with the Nationals, but who knows, he might have been even better in the American League the last seven seasons.

Just like what will eventually happen with Francisco Lindor, the Indians would have likely dealt Harper before he was a free agent after 2018 and tried to get some assets in return.

Even so, having Harper on your team for seven seasons would have been a lot of fun, seeing him hit bombs at Progressive Field.

That’s why it’s called “what if,” and it’s a phrase that Indians fans know all too well.