Blue Jays’ 2000 Draft Review: The Last of the Belgian Blues

The name at the bottom of Gord Ash’s cheque had not changed, so neither had the names on his draft board.

Ted Rogers would buy control of the Toronto Blue Jays in August, which couldn’t have come soon enough for Ash and everyone involved. Belgian-brewer Interbrew had owned the team for five soulless years, and the allowance given to Ash to run Toronto’s baseball operations grew smaller by the year. With the Blue Jays publicly for sale on the day of the 2000 amateur draft, Dave Perkins wrote in the Toronto Star, “a local man with deep pockets is needed to save it from beating the Montreal Expos to Virginia.” 

That certainly wasn’t Interbrew front man Hugo Powell who, on the right, looks exactly like he sounds. Later in the month, he told the Star that any buyer needed to bring something to the table that Interbrew didn’t already, bemoaning “at this point I have not seen a proposal that meets the test.” (photo credit: WSJ)

The first round of the draft was one of the few days in the calendar year where Ash shined. While he admitted “player evaluations are not my strong suit” when he took over as the club’s general manager, Ash selected Roy Halladay with his first ever draft choice in 1995. Next to Ash on the pick was Tim Wilken, a trusted voice in many great draft picks during his 17 years to date with the team. Wilken was made scouting director in 1996 and with the fourth overall pick, Toronto went with Clemson right-hander Billy Koch.

In the next three drafts, Toronto used its first pick on a teenage hitter, adding Vernon Wells, Felipe Lopez, and Alexis Rios. After years of pitcher-focused drafts, Ash said the team’s philosophy going forward was to take the best athlete available. What Ash didn’t say out loud was that he had also been financially kneecapped by the sniveling Hugo. Toronto’s selection of Rios with the 19th pick was seen as a way around having to pay the escalating bonus money being demanded by top prospects. Rios had quickly agreed to terms with Toronto on a $845,000 signing bonus, an amount that was eclipsed by the next 18 picks.

That draft philosophy, both spoken and unspoken, led the Blue Jays to select Miguel Negron with the 18th overall pick in 2000. Negron grew up in Puerto Rico and starred on a team coached by longtime Toronto scout Jorge Rivera, who had signed Rios the year before. Wilken said Negron was a first-round player but few did; Baseball America did not have him in their top 100 prospects prior to the draft. ESPN columnist John Sickels called the selection “distasteful” and said the team “pulled the same stunt last year” with Rios.

Wilken offered up another theory, suggesting that the Blue Jays were after a top left-handed pitcher in the draft, but it was nothing but a post-draft smokescreen. Mike Stodolka (4th, Royals), Mark Phillips (9th, Padres), and Joe Torres (10th, Angels) were likely to be gone by the time the draft reached Toronto at 18, and all three signed bonuses exceeding $2 million. For his part, Negron said he “had a lot of faith that Toronto was going to take me in the first round” and like Rios, quickly signed below market value.

Left-hander Billy Traber, taken two picks before Rios, signed the lowest signing bonus of the first round but only after it was discovered it had significant arm damage. I don’t think the Blue Jays’ medical team had the wherewithal to foresee that.

Negron flew west to Medicine Hat to start his pro career, a lengthy one that never reached the major leagues. Many wondered if his bat would ever develop power, but he showed enough for Toronto to add him to their 40-man roster before the 2005 season. He would hit a career high 12 home runs in Double-A that year, but when the Blue Jays needed roster space to add Ty Taubenheim to their bullpen the next season, the developmentally-lagging Negron was gone. He bounced around and would eventually reach Triple-A, but by 2011, his career was winding down. He tried pitching, throwing in seven games in Single-A that season, and retired after brief stops in winter and independent ball the following year.

Toronto’s next two selections kept a branch of the Roger Clemens trade tree alive. Graeme Lloyd, the tall Australian lefty who was a member of Yankee championship bullpens in ‘96 and ‘98, pitched one season in Toronto before leaving for criminally-run Montreal. Coming off a 68-win season, Loria and his son-in-law gave the 33-year-old setup man a three year contract and surrendered their second-round selection to Toronto for the privilege. Under MLB’s rules, Toronto also received a pick at the end of the first round, and the compensatory pick is how Dustin McGowan became a member of the Blue Jays.

If they ever met, Hugo Powell seems like a guy that has a good chance at becoming first-off-the-island David Samson’s fourth friend. (photo credit: CBS)

Toronto’s most notable choice in the draft, McGowan remains beloved by me and hopefully you too. He ascended to the top of prospect lists in 2004 but underwent Tommy John surgery that season. He debuted in the majors the following year and joined the rotation full-time in 2007. He would have his best season (12-10, 4.08 ERA, 27 GS), showing glimpses of the tantalizing talent that followed his scouting reports post-draft but the rest of McGowan’s career was riddled with injuries and inconsistencies. He pitched in parts of seven seasons for the Blue Jays, the last coming in 2014.

Three other signed picks in 2000 would reach the major leagues. Fifth-rounder Mike Smith pitched in 14 games for Toronto two years later before he was returned to the minor leagues. He made one final major league start in 2006 for the Twins. Sixth-rounder Rich Thompson was dealt to Pittsburgh in 2003 for John Wasdin. Next to McGowan as the most notable name selected was Vinnie Chulk. The 12th-rounder found a role in Toronto’s bullpen before he was sent off on Shea Hillenbrand’s life-raft to San Francisco in 2006 for Jeremy Accardo.

The 2000 season was Wilken’s final draft as a scouting director; he was given a larger title in a pre-planned front office shuffle and left the organization a few years later. Ash remained in charge for the 2001 draft under Rogers' ownership and with the financial restraints off, the Blue Jays took former Auburn quarterback Gabe Gross, who signed for close to $2 million. It was the final first-round pick made by Ash, who was let go in the offseason. 

Wearing #22, the freshman Gross made his college debut in the second half of a 17-9 loss to Peyton Manning-led #3 Tennessee. He played nine games that year, throwing under a 50% completion rate for a terrible Auburn team and left football behind the following year to play baseball full time. (photo credit: al.com)

“I don’t know if anybody could have made the Blue Jays a success during the Interbrew years, but I do know that Ash couldn’t,” finished Andrew Stoeten in an Ash-era review for The Athletic. It is a great summation of Ash’s tenure, where his draft choices stood out as a sparse bright spot and even the selection of Negron doesn’t feel like a mark on the GM. Rios developed into an All-Star and became a multi-millionaire in Toronto, before Kenny Williams just simply took him. While he never reached the big stage, Negron developed his talents into a lengthy professional career. It was the same bet on a similar player and given Rios’ success and his overall track record, Ash and company shouldn’t be criticized for this selection. Pick something else, you don’t need to look far.