Worth the Price

I originally wrote this post in July 2010, just after David Price‘s first All-Star selection. With the news this offseason that he won’t pitch in 2023, I figured it deserved an update.

David Price isn’t going to pitch in 2023, his longtime agent Bo McKinnis said. He isn’t using the retirement word but if this is it he finishes 157-82 and with a 3.32 ERA.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 7, 2022

Back before the 2010 MLB draft, a story in Sports Illustrated described agent Scott Boras telling the Nationals that two “50-year players” — the kind of talents that only come around twice a century — would be available to them in 2009 and ’10 in the form of Stephen Strasburg, a 50-year pitcher, and Bryce Harper, a 50-year hitter.

And as good as Strasburg was to start his career, he was not the first pitcher selected No. 1 overall to finally be worth the choice. In 2007, two years before Strasburg was drafted, the Rays took David Price out of Vanderbilt. A little more than a year later, he was closing out the Red Sox to send the Rays to the World Series. Three years and a month after being drafted, Price, at 24, became the youngest All-Star Game starting pitcher since a 23-year-old Dwight Gooden in 1988. (That’s how good Gooden was back then — at 23 in ’88, he made his second career All-Star Game start, two years after his first.)

Looking back at the pitchers selected first overall, it was not a notable bunch before Price came along. He was just the fourth pitcher taken with the first pick to become an All-Star (after Floyd Bannister, Mike Moore and Andy Benes), and his five selections are tied with Gerrit Cole for the most (Strasburg has three). Before Price, only Benes had accumulated more than 30 bWAR, and now Price, Cole and Strasburg are all higher than Benes.

While Price will soon be passed by Cole as the best pitcher to be taken with the No. 1 pick, the lefty out of Vanderbilt will always be the first true ace taken with that selection.

Pitchers selected No. 1 overall

Year	Pitcher	Throws	Team	WAR*
2018	Casey Mize	RHP	Tigers	2.7
2014	Brady Aiken	LHP	Astros	DNS
2013	Mark Appel	RHP	Astros	0.3
2011	Gerrit Cole	RHP	Pirates	33.7
2009	Stephen Strasburg	RHP	Nationals	32.3
2007	David Price	LHP	Rays	40.1
2006	Luke Hochevar	RHP	Royals	3.7
2002	Bryan Bullington	RHP	Pirates	-0.2
1997	Matt Anderson	RHP	Tigers	-0.6
1996	Kris Benson	RHP	Pirates	12.9
1994	Paul Wilson	RHP	Mets	2
1991	Brien Taylor	LHP	Yankees	—
1989	Ben McDonald	RHP	Orioles	20.8
1988	Andy Benes	RHP	Padres	31.5
1983	Tim Belcher	RHP	Yankees	26
1981	Mike Moore	RHP	Mariners	27.9
1976	Floyd Bannister	LHP	Astros	26.4
1973	David Clyde	LHP	Rangers	0.6

*WAR figures from Baseball-Reference as of December 2022. Brady Aiken did not sign with the Astros in 2014.