Best Cardinal 1st round pick?

[Cardinals1964]

When is the last time the Cardinals had a truly great 1st round pick. I’ll go with Ted Simmons. Who’s your choice?

JD Drew is the pretty easy choice.

27 years. My point is 1sr round or 3rd round or 5th round doesn’t make much difference until they perform.
Look at Tink Hence. He was our second prospect in 2024. Now he 14th. Until they do something they are more suspect than prospect.

Is that better, worse, or about the same as other teams?

Cardinals best pick came in 1967. So, they’ve had the longest drought. Since 2010 they are average. But, once again, the point is missed. You don’t know which 18-year-old will be great and which 18-year-old won’t. Until they do something.

Oh, so Capt. Obvious level stuff.

The point wasn't missed, the point needs more context than, "prospects are suspects until they do something."

I thought it was obvious. I keep seeing people complaining about the prospects that Bloom is getting. Then I see others that covet certain prospects. The fact is, you don’t know who is going to do what. Yes, JJ at this point has a better chance of being good than others on the Cardinals prospect list. Two years ago Tink Hence had the best chance of doing something. Not too long age Jordan Walker was the future. Remember Dillon Carlson?
Nobody knows.

No one is coveting prospects. Not mattmitch, not crav, not hugeCardfan, not Talkin'Baseball - none of them. They talk about them because they play baseball in the Cardinals organization, or they'd like to see them in the Cardinals organization. That the team, at this point, needs tons of spaghetti to throw at the wall to see what sticks is actually supported by "all prospects are suspects until they do something." In WW II the US and Allies dropped so many bombs because we missed by A LOT, A LOT of the time. Same thing here, gather as many prospects as you can because the failure rate is so high.

And literally everyone on this board knows, you never know who's going to make it, and who's going to fall on their face. Seasoned scouts had such a bad failure rate teams went looking for better ways to figure it out - enter the dreaded "stat nerd" to try to quantify all that is quantifiable. And the jury is still out, but they're getting similar results to the eye tests of seasoned scouts, at this point.

I like how you use the words no one and everyone to make your opinion a fact. Some are coveting top prospects from other organizations. And not everyone on this board literally knows that they don’t know who’s going to make it.

It's Captain Obvious level stuff - yes, everyone knows you never know who's going to make it and who's going to fall on their face.

Show me who's coveting prospects? Give me examples of what you consider covetous behavior. If you had any you'd have already posted them. They are talking about players they'd like in a specific trade, if that is coveting then there simply can't be any talk of trades, by your standard, that isn't considered coveting. FFS.

Semantics and boring. Who are they? What do you mean by behavior specifically? Who is everyone? How do you know what I would do, Captain mind reader? What specific trade in what thread and time?Do you know what coveting means? It means the desire to have something. The impressive thing is is how you can read people’s minds and thoughts and know what they’re saying even if it’s not what they said.

If only we had Connor Griffin. I covet him. I’d trade Pozo for him.
I want Seattles top prospects. I covet them.

[Carp4Cy]

When is the last time the Cardinals had a truly great 1st round pick. I’ll go with Ted Simmons. Who’s your choice?

If the requirement is to become a HOF, you boiled the list down to the only one....

They have had some picks who had pretty good ML careers.

Garry Templeton 1974
Andy Van Slyke 1979 (never should have been traded.)
Todd Worrell 1982
Joe MaGrane 1985
Brian Jordan 1988
Matt Morris 1995
JD Drew 1998 (He debuted in his draft year!)
Lance Lynn 2008 (here is part of the problem, 10 years between Lynn and Drew)
Kolten Wong 2011
Jack Flaherty 2014 (I know some hate him on this board, but he has put up a few good seasons)
McGreevy 2021 may be OK. But the point of your post and the problem is we have now had another 10 year donut hole.

Wacha was also taken in the first round, even if he wasn’t our first pick

[rockondlouie]

So, the now appears to be when was the last time the Cards had a first round pick who became a HOFer. Okay, how does it compare to all major league teams first round pick HOFer. What percentage of first round picks become HOFers?

Was Steve Carlton a first round pick?

Nope. Draft started in 1965. Carlton signed with Cards in 1964 for $5000

And then lost him as he was about to enter his prime over another lousy $5,000 because of ABII's massive ego.