Watch: The Day the Dodgers Drafted Walker Buehler Out of Vanderbilt
With so much turmoil surrounding this year’s first year player draft, a walk down memory lane be a nice change of pace. Moreover, it might show how important the draft is to these young players — early or even late round.
First to catch up, on Friday ESPN’s Jeff Passan shared that the 2020 MLB draft would be cut from 40 rounds to 5, according to sources. Essentially pulling the rug out from under the dreams of hundreds of athletes. There’s more great stuff here from our Tim Rogers on our prospects site.
Back to Buehler, the Dodgers drafted the flamethrower out of Vanderbilt in the first round of the 2015 draft. Thankfully, that moment was captured below.
Walker Buehler celebrates with his teammates after being drafted by @Dodgers !!! pic.twitter.com/Dbpc4YDPsl
— Vanderbilt Baseball (@VandyBoys) June 9, 2015
What a great moment. Not only for the player being drafted, but his teammates as well. And this is the type of moment that is being unfortunately torn away from so many kids — whether early or late round picks.
Back to Buehler once again, you now mostly know the rest of the story… Tommy John surgery — short minor league career — September 2017 callup — struggled — in the rotation by late April of 2018 and the rest is history.
Hopefully, this is a one time deal for the stripped-down draft. Let people chase their dream, Manfred!
NEXT: Mark McGwire Reveals the One Thing That Held Yasiel Puig Back