Mariners Analysis: Top 5 First Round Picks in M’s History

Baseball has dominated the airwaves is Seattle as of late, but the focus of sports fans in the Emerald City will once again turn to the Seahawks on Thursday night.

The 2016 NFL Draft is set to open at 5 pm PT from Chicago this evening. All the budding superstars will be dressed in their most gaudy threads as they eagerly await the announcement of where they will call home for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, the Mariners are off tonight, so Seattle fans will not have any guilt over ignoring the M’s for a night.

In the spirit of the NFL Draft, we have decided to rank the top 5 first round picks in Mariners’ history. The M’s have done a nice job mining players like Kyle Seager in later rounds, but today will just be discussing first rounders.

Unfortunately, recent drafts have not yielded many returns in the first round. Busts like Jeff Clement, Dustin Ackley and Danny Hultzen come to mind. Mike Zunino has showed flashes of brilliance, but he is currently playing in Tacoma with the Rainiers. The M’s last two first round picks (D.J. Peterson & Alex Jackson) have both struggled to varying degrees over the last two seasons.

Perhaps worst of all is the fact that a number of the names in this list barely spent any time in a Mariners’ uniform, and some never even set foot in the M’s clubhouse. It’s difficult to forgive trading away what turned out to be some of the best players in a generation.

Despite their checkered history, the Mariners actually boast a strong reputation of identifying top tier talent early in the draft. Not many organizations can stake claim to selecting two of the top players in baseball history (Ken Griffey Jr. & Alex Rodriguez).

We will begin by discussing a few players who just missed the top 5.

Next: Honorable Mentions