Diamondbacks first-round picks under Mike Hazen have produced a mixed bag, but there’s still room for the story to change.
The clearest success by far is Corbin Carroll. Drafted in the first round after Hazen became GM, Carroll has already piled up 18.9 bWAR, a return that dwarfs everyone else on the list. His performance also brought the Diamondbacks an extra draft pick, and that pick was used on Ryan Waldschmidt.
Beyond Carroll, the results get more uneven. Using Baseball-Reference bWAR as the cutoff for a positive impact, only three of the 10 first-round draftees after Hazen took over have cleared that line so far: Carroll, Drey Jameson and Bryce Jarvis. That means 30% have already made a positive impact, even though two of those three were pitchers.
That pitcher success rate stood out. Of the first-round players drafted under Hazen, seven of 10 reached the Majors within three seasons, not counting the unsigned Matt McLain.
An eighth player, Blake Walston, got there in five seasons. That works out to 70%, which sits a bit below the roughly 81% first-round major league reach rate cited for teams in general, but still lands in acceptable territory.
The split between position players and pitchers was notable too: 83% of the position players reached the Majors, compared with 50% of the pitchers.
The picture could still shift in the years ahead. In each of the next three seasons, two Diamondbacks first-round picks will reach their third season, and those players could move the numbers in a meaningful way.
There’s also a path for more of these picks to become real contributors. Based on a three-step estimate - projecting future bWAR, subtracting bWAR value tied to salary at $9 million per bWAR, and then rounding to reflect the uncertainty - three of the seven first-round draftees who have not yet made a positive impact could still do so. Those players are Ryan Waldschmidt, Jordan Lawlar and Tommy Troy.
If that optimistic outcome comes through, the share of Hazen-era first-round picks who have made an impact could climb from 30% to 60%.
That’s the big takeaway from the Diamondbacks’ first-round track record so far: one true star, a couple of useful major leaguers, and several players whose best chapters may still be ahead.
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