ESPN’s Law: 2005 MLB re-draft has Arizona Diamondbacks taking Andrew McCutchen

On June 8, the Arizona Diamondbacks will make the first selection in the 2015 MLB First-Year Player Draft.

It’s their “reward” for finishing the 2014 campaign with a 64-98 record, the worst in baseball. It’s also not the first time the D-backs have been in this position.

Arizona also held the top overall selection in 2005, which they used to pick high school phenom Justin Upton.

At the time, he was viewed as arguably the top prospect in the draft, a player who the team was smart to nab.

Upton may not have been a bad pick, but was he the right one? It was a fairly loaded draft, with 10 first-round choices appearing in at least one All-Star Game.

Given the opportunity to do a re-draft in an Insider piece, ESPN’s Keith Law has the D-backs going in a different direction than they did 10 years ago.

He has them taking Andrew McCutchen, who was picked 11th overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

McCutchen isn’t the career WAR leader from this draft just yet, but given his age and productivity the past three years, he seems likely to end up topping everyone else in the class en route to what might be a Hall of Fame career. McCutchen was seen as a strong, three-tool player, with speed, defense, and the ability to hit, but there were questions about how much power a player of his slighter build would generate. He’s still not that big or exceptionally muscular, compared to most power hitters, but he has always had strong hands and lightning-quick wrists that projected to produce power even if he wasn’t built like Travis Hafner. As long as his body permits it, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t end up with 60 WAR or more.

It’s difficult to argue with the pick.

While no one could ever know how things would have worked out for any player had things gone differently, McCutchen has developed into one of MLB’s best players. Now 28, he is a four-time All-Star who won a Gold Glove in 2012, a Silver Slugger in 2012, 2013 and 2014, and was the NL MVP in 2013.

Though McCutchen is off to a rough start this season, he is a career .296 hitter with 130 home runs, 477 RBI and 144 stolen bases.

Upton, on the other hand, has had a more winding career. He made his Major League debut in 2007 at the age of 19, and showed great promise during his six years with the D-backs. He was an All-Star in 2009 and 2011, the latter of which was his best season with the team.

That year, he hit .289 with 31 home runs and 88 RBI while stealing 21 bases. Just 24 at the time, he earned a Silver Slugger Award and finished fourth in the NL MVP voting.

However, Upton had a down year in 2012, and in the offseason was traded to the Atlanta Braves for a package of players. He spent two fairly productive years in Atlanta before being traded to the San Diego Padres prior to this season.

Now in his ninth MLB season, Upton, at just 27 years of age, is a career .275 hitter with 172 home runs, 559 RBI and 103 stolen bases.

Upton has done enough to where Law has him going third in the re-draft to the Seattle Mariners, behind McCutchen and Troy Tulowitzki but ahead of Alex Gordon, Ryan Braun, Ryan Zimmerman and Jacoby Ellsbury, among others.

Upton was famous back in 2002, when his brother Melvin was the second pick in the draft and scouts were saying Melvin’s little brother, then 14, was going to be even better. They were right about that, as Justin reached the big leagues before his 20th birthday and, around some injuries and disappointing defense, has been a premium offensive player. He ranks fifth in the class to date in home runs and has posted just one sub-.350 OBP in his seven full seasons to date — and 2015 is his age-27 season, so he’s still somewhere in his peak. Upton was an erratic defensive shortstop in high school, so the Diamondbacks moved him to the outfield immediately, first to center field and then to right field after he reached the majors. By the major defensive metrics, he has been below-average in the field his whole career, which is somewhat shocking, given his athleticism, and it has shaved about five wins off his career total. Even with that limitation, however, Upton is likely to end up in the top four or five in the class in total WAR, given his three-year age advantage and continued power and OBP production, even if he never becomes the Hall of Famer he was expected to be when he was drafted.

Given the way things have gone, if the D-backs had another shot at the 2005 draft, there’s a good chance they would go in a different direction.