Boston Red Sox: 10 biggest first-round draft pick disasters

Red Sox 2010 Draft

No. 20 – Kolbrin Vitek
No. 23 – Christian Yelich (Marlins)

Kolbrin Vitek spent parts of four seasons bouncing around to various levels of Single-A with a couple of brief stints with Double-A Portland. He was primarily a third baseman but moved to left field in 2013 before his career came to an end.

While the player who the Red Sox picked saw his career crumble years ago, Christian Yelich has since emerged as one of the best in the game. The 2018 NL MVP was the runner-up for the award last season.

Yelich’s superstar breakout didn’t come until after the Marlins traded him to the Brewers. However, he was still a young five-tool talent who was steadily improving during his tenure in Miami. His emergence didn’t come out of nowhere. Miami traded him as part of their plan to blow up the roster and reduce their payroll to one of the league’s lowest.

The Red Sox clearly wouldn’t have given away a blossoming star simply because he was getting expensive and might leave them in free agency in the near future. Oh wait, that’s exactly what they did with Mookie Betts. So, make that two MVP-caliber outfielders who would currently be anchoring the Red Sox outfield if they hadn’t failed in the draft and in payroll management.