Building The Dynasty #3: Best Draft Picks of the Flames Era
Five years into my tenure, I was elevated to Vice President for baseball operations. I approved deals, but made fewer of them. I did oversee the draft still. Our farm system wasn’t much after the deals kept coming and I kept moving the core, but we were always able to shift the foundation some and keep things moving forward.
We were really lucky. And fortunate. We had years we got hit by injuries, especially in 2014 and 2015 and it caused us to be missing some core pieces. I’d always try to shuffle, but the problem with shuffling a deck is you can only shuffle so many times before you have to play with the hand you’ve been dealt.
In the next chapter, I’m going to outline the players who were my favorites and how we acquired them. Many of our core WAR guys were homegrown. We did get heavy into acquisitions in the later years, but that was by necessity when we didn’t have high draft picks anymore.
One of the interesting things is how often we’d end up bringing a few guys back over the years. We certainly had our own “core” group that we liked and it was fun to see how guys who end up leaving and then back in our clubhouse at some other point during the run.
We’ve talked a lot about guys that I dealt or signed, but we had more than a few guys who performed well that we drafted over the years.
Here are a few of the more notable ones:
Rob Otto, 3B (4th round, 2006)
The 100th overall pick of the 2006 draft, Otto has been a member of three title teams with us in Chicago. More recently as a starter, he’s able to play at first or third, which has been useful for our revolving door at both positions due to injuries and such alike. A fan favorite and a mainstay, we’ve been happy he’s managed to stick with us since he was drafted.
Frank O’Connor, SP (1st round, 2007)
We dealt this former 1st rounder to Minnesota as part of the deal that brought us Rich McGrath. He’s turned into an ace for their staff at age of 26 and should be a star if that team keeps their progressive climb upwards. In a world where we’ve been really hit or miss (mostly miss) on drafting young players, I’m pretty happy to see he turned out good even if wasn’t with us. And honestly, we didn’t have the time to wait for him to develop into what he was, so this worked out better for everyone.
Manny Lopez, OF (6th round, 2007)
We traded Manny Lopez, who was an underachieving prospect to Florida as part of the deal to get catcher Will Kane.
Chance Cullin, 2B (15th round, 2007)
Not everyday that the 442nd overall pick in the draft ends up being a major league contributor, he’s started 298 games in the big leagues primarily as an infielder and a career .248 hitter. We traded him to New Orleans as part of the package deal to acquire Matt Krumwiede.
Chad Ball, P (1st round, 2008)
The jury is still out on Chad Ball. But he’s a reliable reliever for now and has the potential to end up in the rotation sooner rather than later, if he keeps it up. We’re just happy he panned out and that he’s been a valuable member of the relief corps increasingly for us. This past season, he appeared in 34 games and had a K/9 rate of 11.2, so I’d love to see what he could do for us in a more extensive capacity. Too bad I won’t be on the team to see what his contributions will be, but look forward to big things from him.
Branden Griffin, P (55th round, 2008)
I love when guys who are afterthoughts end up on my radar as players who can play in the bigs. After missing out on the draft in 2007, he came back in 2008 and was the 1652nd overall player selected that year. He was converted in the off-season from third base to pitcher and flourished. Included in a 2015 deal to Great Plains that netted the Flames starting pitcher Marteese Hayes, he was probably the most useful reliever in Great Plains this year, striking out 103 in 89.2 innings of work.
Doing this showed me how many moves we really made to put our most recent title team together. I won’t be as lucky the next time out. What that means for me? I have no idea.
Thinking about the decades, you can really reflect on your favorite players. Who left, who got away, the players you would’ve love to get but knew you’d never be able to get them to agree to come play for you.
These Chicago Flames go down in the annals as one of my favorite teams I’ve managed, regardless of outcomes because there was just so much richness going on. Even when we didn’t win, I felt *invested* in their success and at times, sitting in the GM watching it all play out, it just felt a lot like being a fan when you’re rooting for the team to go all the way.
Onto the next adventure.
