LOOKING BACK A DECADE: THE 1920 FABL DRAFT
With the 1930 Figment draft fast approaching it is time to continue our annual series where we look back and second guess the first round picks from a decade ago. Here is an assessment of how the 1920 first round draft picks panned out. Overall it was a pretty decent job of drafting by the teams, although some I am sure would kick themselves for passing on Joe Masters, who went 11th to the Chicago Chiefs and joins first overall pick David Merchant as the top two players from their draft class.
PICK 1 - Philadelphia Sailors: DAVID MERCHANT OF
The Sailors missed on a lot of their first round picks in the early years of the draft- see 1912 4th overall Raymond Kircher (0 FABL games), 1916 6th overall Ron Searfoss (0 FABL games), 1917 5th overall Willie Brewer (hit .214 in 78 career games), 1918 11th overall Jim Bob Renolds (5 career games) and 1919 7th overall Lenny Ayres (0 FABL games) but they got this one right. Merchant, a Chicago Poly outfielder is still active and in his prime at age 30 and already owns two Whitney Awards and a .315 career batting average.
PICK 2 - Philadelphia Keystones: CLIFF HERMAN SS
The SS from Waco High School took some time to develop and was only an everyday starter for one season but he has been a decent player for the Keystones. Herman played every game in the Stones 1927 World Championship team and is a career .291 hitter in nearly 600 FABL games.
PICK 3 - Pittsburgh Miners: BEN ABAGHIAN 2B
The Detroit City College infielder is now retired but he did play 411 career games for the Miners and Cleveland. There certainly were better options available but you can say that for every team that passed on Joe Masters or later picks like Phil Sandman or pitcher Dick Richards.
PICK 4 - Washington Eagles: GLENN MORRISON 3B
Morrison is now plying his trade with Portland of the Great Western League after the Eagles released him a couple of years ago, but not before the former Golden Gate Grizzly won a World Championship Series MVP award. That was in 1923 when he hit .529 in the series to lead the Eagles to victory. He also played a role in two other pennant winning clubs and hit .350 in 730 career games. It was actually surprising the Eagles parted ways with him when they did as he was hitting .326 before missing 7 weeks with a hamstring injury in June of 1928. He was released almost immediately after his return from the DL and immediately signed by the independent Green Sox.
PICK 5 - New York Stars: GORDIE LOFTUS OF
The 3 time World Champion and 1926 Series MVP is still going strong for the New York Stars. He has passed the 1,000 career game mark and just recently saw his career average dip below .300. The former Maryland State Bengal is also a .412 career hitter in post-season games.
PICK 6 - Brooklyn Kings: LOU GARMAN 1B
A first baseman from North Carolina Tech, Garman had a couple of very good seasons with Brooklyn and was a key piece for their 1927 pennant winner, hitting .320 and tying his career high with 135 games played. He was dealt to Baltimore prior to the 1929 season in the Kings youth movement and has been a back-up with the Cannons. Played 620 career games with a .324 average to this point.
PICK 7 - Boston Minutemen: GLENN TWEED OF
Another college player, Tweed was selected out of Henry Hudson. He has been with the Minutemen since 1922 but only as a starter from 1923-27. He his enjoying a strong season this year, hitting .311 off the bench and has a career average of .286 in 718 FABL games.
PICK 8 - Chicago Cougars: CHARLIE GAMBLE SS
A star shortstop at Ellery College, Gamble spent three seasons as a starter for the Cougars but now finds himself in AAA. 503 FABL games with a .322 career batting average.
PICK 9 - Toronto Wolves: TOBY RUNLON P
The Wolves seemed to love their pitchers in the first round of the draft. The only problem is they rarely panned out. Here are the pitchers they drafted in round one and what they did.
Code:
YEAR PICK NAME CAREER STATS[/b]
1914 15 Sam Smith never advanced past A ball
1919 10 Steamboar Rude traded was 12-9 for his career
1920 9 Toby Runlon 65-71 but success only after trade to Detroit
1921 2 Bert Flores 27-44 still active at age 28 but 1-10 this year.
1925 2 Eddie Quinn 5-6 still active at age 24 but traded up to get him
1927 13 Bill Anderson just 21 jury still out
1928 4 Cam Cole just 20 jury still out
Some other teams like the New York Gothams have also drafted a lot of pitchers so the Wolves are not unique here. I just found it interesting that with an aging Gordie Robertston at third base, why the Wolves felt Runlon was a better choice than Joe Masters with this pick. In an era when Max Morris had just started to change the game with his longball prowess, Masters had just helped Liberty College to it's second straight National Championship and had hit 39 homers while batting .289 in 151 career college games.
To be fair to the Wolves organization, they were certainly not the only team to pass on Masters and Runlon did have a decent career at Henry Hudson but given their previous track record with pitchers and the fact that their offense was well below average perhaps makes them a little more guilty then the other teams ahead of them who passed on Masters.
PICK 10- New York Gothams: LUTHER JONES P
Everything I said about Toronto selecting Runlon you can multiply ten-fold for the Gothams. I will say this for Toronto, at least Runlon fashioned a bit of a major league career but the Gothams selection here turned out to be just an awful pick. There were signs right away that taking Jones seemed like a very bad decision as he pitched just 40 innings in his 3 seasons at college and never won a game. He got the briefest of sips of java in the big leagues, 4 relief appearances totaling 5 2/3 innings for the Gothams in 1927 and one more in 1928 before being cut lose after spending 1929 in AA. He is now a teammate of Glenn Morrison's in Portland of the Great Western League. This one is far and away the worst selection of the entire draft as it is a complete waste of a first round pick and it's not like the guy had promise and just busted. He looked bad in college so there was no business in the Gothams even looking at him before the fifth round, or perhaps even later.
If the Gothams entered the draft dead set on drafting a college pitcher they could have had Central Ohio's Rube Frazier, who was 14-11 with a 2.90 era and a 1.15 WHIP over his three seasons and would be taken late in the second round by Baltimore. Frazier is 82-101 for his FABL career. Or how about Karl Clasby, Dick Richards, Gil Kern or Topsy Moran. In short there were a number of decent college pitchers available and seemed far better options at that point then Jones.
PICK 11 - Chicago Chiefs: JOE MASTERS 3B
It is so much easier after the fact but it is clear a lot of teams missed the boat on the Liberty College third baseman. Masters had power in college (39 homers in 151 games) and was a proven winner playing a key role on two National Championship teams. Yes, his averaged dipped to .264 in his draft year and his strikeouts went up but one would think his fielding would have been terrific (the college defensive stats of the era have long since vanished) so a case could have been made for him going at least 2nd overall. (David Merchant hit much better at Chicago Poly but his average was also down from his first two seasons, and Merchant hit a personal best 12 homers in college while maintaining a very good strikeout ratio so the Sailors can certainly be excused for their choice).
Masters is still a very key piece of the Chicago Chiefs, and will forever be remembered in the Windy City for his amazing 1928 campaign (.388,56,195).
PICK 12 - Montreal Saints: BERT HARTMAN OF
The second Golden Gate Grizzly selected in the first round, Hartman has been a solid FABL player since finishing 3rd in Whitney Award voting in 1923. He spent 4 years in Montreal before being dealt to the Chiefs prior to the 1926 season and has been a starting outfielder his entire career, batting .302 in 1,246 games.
PICK 13 - Detroit Dynamos: PAUL VANDENBERG P
The former Garden State Redbird has bounced back and forth between the majors and minors pretty much his entire career, but has appeared in 91 FABL games, compiling a 27-15 record. His best season was 1927 when he went 13-8 for the Dynamos. He was on Detroit's 1929 World Championship roster but did not pitch in the series and was waived shortly after. Baltimore claimed him and at age 30 he is presently working out of the Cannons bullpen.
PICK 14 - Baltimore Cannons: ANDY LAZZARI 2B
At his peak the former Sadler College infielder was ranked the 19th best prospect in the game. Lazzari did go on to play 346 major league games and is still with the Cannons, but he never really lived up to what was expected of him. It is quite possible that injuries played a role as Lazzari has had more than his share although the more serious ones, including a ruptured achilles that has kept him out of action since last September, have occurred only in the last three years.
PICK 15- Cleveland Foresters: BEN HATHAWAY 3B
Hathaway's career peaked with a .313, 13 homer season for the Foresters in 1925 but two seasons later he was waived at the age of 28. The Chicago Cougars signed him and he started for 2 years bringing his career FABL games up to 552 with a .295 batting average but at 31 years of age having spent most of his time in the minors, it is clear his big league days are over.
PICK 16- St Louis Pioneers: BOB MARCEAUX 2B
A star at St. Pancras, Marceaux hit .371 in his draft year and then overcame several injuries early in his career to become an everyday player with the Pioneers for 5 seasons but he has spent much of the past two years at AAA Oakland. He hit .320 in 721 big league games and may get a few more but at age 31 it is clear his career is nearing it's end. Certainly not a bad few seasons put up by a 16th overall pick though, and perhaps it could have been much better without all the injuries that delayed his ascent to the big leagues.
Others of note: Montreal selected OF Phil Sandman in the third round. Toronto selected P Topsy Moran(28-33 but threw a no-hitter) in the second round. Jesse Moore, who has played over 1200 FABL games and Dick Copeland, who is approaching 1200 were two others that went in the second round. The Stars selected P Dick Richards (109-48) in the third round. The Cougars got Art Panko in the fourth while the Chiefs landed catcher Hank Odegaard in round seven. Baltimore outfield Ace Adlon from Golden Gate University was a steal in round 13.
OVERALL
Other the the Gothams terrible selection, the FABL clubs did not do too badly in the first round of this draft and much better as a whole then in some of the other seasons I have looked at.