Worst First? Miami Marlins Biggest First Round Mistakes

The Florida & Miami Marlins have now participated in the past 28 MLB Amateur Entry Drafts.

Some choices led to great things. Jose Fernandez, Christian Yelich, Josh Beckett and Charles Johnson stand out as four of the better picks through the Florida and Miami Marlins history. Adrian Gonzalez leads all Marlins first round picks with a career-WAR of 43.6, but of course he never played at the major league level until part of a different organization.

Not every first round pick, however, turns into a star-caliber player. In fact, eight of the Marlins first 30 first-round picks have yet to appear in the majors, and most of them never will. Of course, that excludes draft years 2016 and later.

10 years is enough to tell who is a washout in most cases, and it isn’t fair to expect everyone to contribute even within four years. With that said, the past four drafts are exempt from this thought exercise. Namely, Braxton Garrett, Brian Miller, Trevor Rogers, Connor Scott, Kameron Misner, and J.J. Bleday have a few more years before they would be considered for a “best of” or “worst of” list, depending on how they perform once they arrive in the majors, of course.

With that short explanation out of the way, let’s jump right into the 10 worst first round selections in the history of the Marlins franchise. We’ll start out with the least bad and work our way up (down) to the worst.

10. Chip Ambres

The Marlins were famously bad in 1998, in the selloff-aftermath of their first World Series Championship. They posted a 54-108 record, but their draft that season wasn’t very much better. Of the 49 players selected, only three ever eventually reached the major leagues. Adam LaRoche (15th round, 14.3 WAR) never made it to the majors with the Marlins, and Kevin Olsen (26th round, -0.1 WAR) pitched in 28 games and posted a 5.12 career ERA from 2001 through 2003.

Right-handed outfielder Chip Ambres, chosen by the Florida Marlins in the first round that year with the 27th overall selection off the board, never made it above the Double-A level while part of the Marlins organization. The final two years of his six-season Marlins association were spent with the Carolina Mudcats, in the Southern League.

After the Marlins finally cut ties with Ambres, he would soon thereafter join the Kansas City Royals, for whom he played in 53 games in 2005. He was 35-for-145 from the plate, with four homers and nine RBI. He later played in three games for the New York Mets in 2007 and 24 with the San Diego Padres the following season.

The Marlins wound up with blessed little from the 1998 draft class.

8. Blake Anderson

Back in the 2014 draft, the Miami Marlins got to pick second overall, and also got to add a competitive balance first round choice. Technically an “A” round pick, Blake Anderson was chosen with the 36th pick overall.

A catcher by trade, or at least we thought so at the time, Anderson was taken out of West Lauderdale HS in Missouri. In 26 game at the Rookie-level with the GCL Marlins in the Gulf Coast League, Anderson went just eight-for-74, slashing a line of .108/.287/.135. Pushed up a level in 2015 to the Short-season-A Batavia Muckdogs in the New York-Penn League, Anderson improved to .220/.273/.322 in 31 games, with two home runs and 16 RBI. Unfortunately, he also missed a large part of the campaign with post-concussion syndrome.

Anderson remained at the short-season-A level in 2016 with the Muckdogs, and went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts on June 18. Soon after that, he was moved to the injured list and remained there for the balance of the season with a left-shoulder sprain.

A rebrand would see Anderson open the 2017 season back with GCL and facing life as a relief pitcher. He pitched in nine games and struck out 12 in 9 2/3 innings, but walked seven and allowed nine hits for six earned runs. Since August 31, 2017, Anderson has not appeared in a professional baseball game.

7. Josh Naylor

Josh Naylor is a power hitting first baseman that the Marlins got in the first round back in 2015. Taken with the 12th overall pick out of Mississauga, ON, the five-foot-11, 185 lb. lefty-hitter joined the GCL Marlins and hit .327 in 25 games.

Promoted to the Greensboro Grasshoppers in the Single-A South Atlantic League in 2016, Naylor slashed .269/.317/.430 in 89 games. On July 29th, the Marlins sent him with Jarred Cosart, Luis Castillo, and Carter Capps to the San Diego Padres for Andrew Cashner, Colin Rea, and Tayron Guerrero.

Naylor eventually reached the major league level with the Padres, in 2019. In 94 games, he hit .249/.315/.403, with eight round-trippers and 32 RBI to land directly at 0.0 WAR. Rea pitched three innings for the Marlins before needing Tommy John Surgery, and Andrew Cashner put up a 1.747 WHIP in 52 2/3 of the worst innings of his career for Miami. Guerrero posted a 70 ERA+ over two seasons with the Marlins, ranking last of the 115 pitchers to have thrown 100 or more innings for the Marlins.

It’s not that Naylor was a particularly bad pick for the Marlins, it’s more for what they got in return from the Padres.

6. Aaron Akin

Way back in 1997, the Florida Marlins took right-handed pitcher Aaron Akin in the first round with the 12th overall selection. That year, seven out of Florida’s 58 players taken in the draft would eventually graduate to the majors. Only Cliff Lee (eighth round, 43.2 WAR) and Andres Torres (23rd round, 7.8 WAR) would post a career WAR figure above 1.0 from that draft class.

Akin was not one of the seven to make it to the majors. He spent four seasons in the Marlins low minor league affiliate system. With the High-A Brevard County Manatees for two seasons in 1999 and 2000, he was 8-16 with a 4.76 ERA and 106 K’s in 191 frames.

As part of the Berkshire Black Bears, in the independent Northern League East in 2002, Akin started nine games and posted an 0-7 record with a 5.21 ERA. He did not again make an appearance in professional baseball.

5. Brett Sinkbeil

Picked 19th overall in 2006, Brett Sinkbeil is a six-foot-two, 210 lb. right-handed pitcher from Tulsa, OK. In his final collegiate season with the Missouri State University Bears, he was 5-1 with a 2.45 ERA over 11 starts, with 75 K’s and only 45 hits allowed in 69 2/3 innings.

In the same calendar year as his selection, Sinkbeil also made stops for the Marlins with their Short-season-A Jamestown Jammers in the NYPL (2-0, 1.23 ERA in five starts) and with the Single-A Greensboro Grasshoppers in the SAL (1-1, 4.99 ERA in eight starts). On the literal fast-track, Sinkbeil spent 2007 with the High-A Jupiter Hammerheads in the Florida State League, where he was 6-4 with a 3.42 ERA in 14 rotational starts.

Sinkbeil kept rising in 2008, although his performance was not on par with what he had accomplished in the past. With the Carolina Mudcats in the Double-A Southern League, he was 5-9 with a 5.02 ERA in 26 starts, with a 1.56 WHIP and only 66 K’s in 143 1/3 innings.

Up to the Triple-A New Orleans Zephyrs in 2009 in the Pacific Coast League, Sinkbeil went 2-8 with a 6.07 ERA in 47 game, 39 of them out of the bullpen. His WHIP was an unsightly 1.81 in 83 frames.

Despite all that and a subsequent ERA of 5.71 with the Zephyrs in 2010, Sinkbeil was finally called up to join the Marlins for a short look in mid-September. Two innings of work at the major league level would see him give up three runs on five walks and two hits. Sinkbeil appeared at two levels for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2011, but hasn’t appeared professionally at any level since then.

4. Colin Moran

Colin Moran is another pick that wasn’t exactly bad, but is rated in hindsight as a poor turn of events based on what we got back in trade for him.

Moran was taken sixth overall in 2013 out of the University of North Carolina. In three seasons with the Tar Heels, Moran hit .346/.452/.531 in 179 games in total, with 25 home runs and more walks (131) than strikeouts (82).

Moran, a six-foot-three, 180 lb. third baseman form Port Chester, NY, He hit .295 in parts of two seasons with the Marlins minor league system, between the 2013 Grasshoppers and the 2014 Hammerheads. At the 2014 trade deadline, the Marlins traded Moran with Jake Marisnick, Francis Martes, and a competitive balance pick to the Houston Astros for Austin Wates, Jarred Cosart, and Enrique Hernandez.

Moran made his major league debut with the Astros in 2016, and was seven-for-34 in a few brief appearances over the next two seasons. Flipped to the Pirates in the Gerrit Cole deal, Moran has hit .277/.331/.419 in two full major league seasons with the Bucs, with 24 homers and 138 RBI.

In a bit of a postscript to the Colin Moran story with the Marlins, he never did appear in the majors with Miami, but his brother Brian Moran did make his debut last season. In a case that is maybe stranger than fiction, the Brian struck out Colin in his first ever major league appearance as mom & dad watched from the stands.

3. Kyle Skipworth

In 2008, the Marlins took six-foot-four catcher Kyle Skipworth in the first round of out Patriot HS in Glen Avon, CA. Chosen with the sixth overall selection, Skipworth was envisioned as the second-best catcher in the draft, behind only Buster Posey.

Now, 12 calendar years later, Posey is a fringe Hall of Fame candidate after a nifty-still-active-11-season major league career. He’s a career .302 hitter with 140 homers and a 33 percent career CS rate — which is five percent above the National League average for the same timespan. He was the 2010 N.L. Rookie of the Year, the 2012 N.L. MVP, and a three-time World Series Champion.

Meanwhile, Skipworth was taken one pick later than Posey, and has totaled four major league plate appearances, yielding one walk and zero hits. In 700 games over nine minor league seasons, Skipworth has put together a .211/.278/.381 slash line, along with 97 round-trippers and 330 RBI. Since playing in 35 games for the Cincinnati Reds system in 2016, he hasn’t appeared in a game at any organized level.

2. Tyler Kolek

2014 was a bit of a double-whammy for the Miami Marlins draft class. Before choosing catcher turned reliever Blake Anderson (number eight on our countdown) was taken in the competitive balance round, Tyler Kolek was drafted with the second overall selection off the board out of Shepherd HS, in Shepherd, TX.

Kolek is a six-foot-five, 260 lb. right-handed pitcher, and for a while there was the Miami Marlins top rated prospect. In 2015, he was regarded as the number 52 prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America.

Kolek was 0-3 with a 4.50 ERA in 22 innings for the GCL Marlins post-draft, with 18 whiffs. The great majority of his professional career came in 2015 with the Greensboro Grasshoppers.

With Greensboro that year, Kolek started 25 games and went 4-10 with a 4.56 ERA and 81 K’s in 108 2/3 innings. In the four calendar years since, he’s pitched 33 innings between GCL, the Short-season-A Batavia Muckdogs in the NYPL, and the Clinton LumberKings in the Single-A Midwest League. He’s given up 37 earned runs over that 33 innings for a 10.09 ERA, walking 50 batters, allowing 29 hits, and striking out 35.

Still, the Marlins have invested a lot of time trying to figure out what’s going to work for Kolek, and they haven’t given up on him yet. He remains with the organization and will likely start 2020 with the LumberKings whenever they get to work.

1. Josh Booty

For sheer notoriety, former Florida Marlins first-rounder Josh Booty stands alone at the top of our ranking. Booty was taken in the first round back in 1994 out of Evangel Christian HS, in Shreveport, LA with the fifth overall choice.

Booty played at every level of the Marlins’ system over the next five seasons. In 478 minor league games, he hit .198/.256/.356 with 62 home runs and 11 stolen bases in 22 attempts. You would think that his high position in the draft would reflect some spectacular fielding metrics, considering Booty’s pedestrian slash numbers. But no — in 443 minor league games at the hot corner he put up a .920 fielding percentage.

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But the Marlins were bound-and-determined to get something out of all this, and gave him a look at the top level in three consecutive seasons from 1996 through 1998. He totaled seven hits in 26 at bats, with four RBI, four walks, and nine strikeouts. Of his 25 fielding chances in the majors, he made four errors to post an 1890’s-ish .840 fPct.

So Booty left baseball, and signed on as the quarterback of the LSU Tigers for two seasons. He threw 24 touchdowns and 34 interceptions, completing less than half of his passes (49.3 percent). He was drafted in the sixth round of the 2001 NFL Draft by the Seattle Seahawks. He later also appeared on the rosters of the Cleveland Browns and the Oakland Raiders, but never took a snap in a regular season game.

According to Fox Sports, Booty later won the reality TV series, “The Next Knuckler,” against his own brother, former NFL QB Doug Flutie, and others. His prize was an invitation to Arizona’s spring training, but as his rights were still technically held by the Marlins, they had first crack at him. Booty did not catch on.

What’s the Miami Marlins next bust in the first round? Hopefully, they won’t have another, but forever is a long time. Do you disagree with some of these choices? Let me know in the comments below.