Ask BA: Who Are The Best Prospects Who Didn’t Reach MLB?

Have a question for Ask BA? Tweet it to J.J. (@jjcoop36) or email it to askba@baseballamerica.com.

---

Q:
Who are the best prospects such as Grant Desme who never made MLB either by choice, injury, accident or other causes?

Matthew Simms
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
Canada

BA: Desme, a 2007 second-round pick out of Cal Poly, is one of the best players to never reach the majors of the past couple of decades. He went 30-30 in the California League in 2009 and followed that up by winning the Arizona Fall League MVP award before deciding in January 2010 to leave baseball to become a Catholic priest.

Desme was ranked eighth on the A’s Top 10 Prospects list right before his decision to leave baseball. He was not a Top 100 Prospect at the time because his game had warts (a very high strikeout rate, questions about whether he would stick in center field and a run of injuries) as well as strengths (excellent speed and power).

It’s highly likely that Desme would have become a future big leaguer if he had continued to play, and he had the ceiling of an impact regular.

You asked about players who didn’t reach the majors, so that doesn’t include the Cardinals’ Oscar Taveras, killed in a car accident in 2014.

Limiting it to players who didn’t make the majors (and played in the 21st century), Desme isn’t the best prospect to not play in the big leagues this century, but he’s close. As good as Desme could have been, Mets outfielder Brian Cole had a chance to be a truly special player.

In 2000 as a 21-year-old, Cole hit .301/.347/.494 with 19 home runs and 69 stolen bases between high Class A St. Lucie and Double-A Binghamton. He had power, speed, bat control and excellent defense. An exceptional athlete, Cole had turned down a football scholarship to Florida State to play baseball.

He wasn’t particularly big (5-foot-9) but he had surprising power. He was a center fielder who could roam from gap to gap.

Coming into the 2001 season, Baseball America had Cole rated as the No. 61 prospect in the game. He had a solid spring training for the Mets that year. But he was killed in a car accident as he took his car back to his parents’ home in Meridian, Miss., before reporting to Double-A Binghamton to start the season.

My first year at Baseball America was 2002 and it happened that the first team I was assigned to write the Top 30 for was the Mets. Even a year and a half after Cole’s accident, that tragedy still hung over the organization, both for the loss of a well-liked and respected teammate, and the talent the organization had lost.

If you are looking for other players who didn’t reach the big leagues, there’s a long list. Indians righthander Adam Miller had clear big league talent but a series of injuries kept him from ever reaching the big leagues–he made five Top 100s, reaching as high as No. 16. The career of Marlins righthander Jeff Allison was derailed by drug abuse–he was one of the best prep arms in the 2003 class but he was suspended for the first time before he had his first full pro season.

Speaking of injuries, lefthander Matt Purke still could make the big leagues, but he’s never shown the same stuff as a pro that he did as a freshman at Texas Christian.

Red Sox outfielder Ryan Westmoreland was the top prospect in Boston’s system after the 2009 season when he was diagnosed with a cavernous malformation (an abrnormal cluster of blood vessels) in his brain. Westmoreland had to have extensive surgery and never returned to the baseball field.

Mariners’ lefthander Ryan Anderson was the Mariners’ No. 1 prospect every season from 1998 to 2002. With a 94-97 mph fastball from the left side, back when 97 mph was almost unheard of, Anderson was nicknamed the “Little Unit.” But shoulder injuries destroyed his career and he ended up retiring without ever making the big leagues.

And if we’re going in a different direction, infielder Yulieski Gurriel has long been considered one of the best Cuban prospects to not come to the States. At this point, he’s spent the prime of his career in Cuba, but he likely would have been at least a solid big league infielder, and maybe more, if he had come to America.

UPDATE: Thanks to readers for pointing out a couple of other good candidates. Righthander Matt Harrington was the seventh pick in the 2000 draft. At the time he was considered one of the best amateur pitching prospects in the country. He turned down a $4 million offer from the Rockies after negotiations turned ugly. He was drafted again in each of the next four drafts but he never signed. His best stuff disappeared in independent ball and he never threw a pitch in affiliated ball.

Reds shortstop Milton Loo signed for $200,000 as a draft-and-follow 2005 ninth-round pick. He ranked No. 8 on the Reds Top 30 Prospects list in 2007, but retired from baseball that spring and never played affiliated ball again.