Taking a look at 13 top-3 Draft picks to not make Majors

By joining the Rangers and making his Major League debut Friday, Matt Bush is off an ignominious list. It was a long and rocky road to get there, but the shortstop-turned-reliever will no longer be among the No. 1 overall picks in the MLB Draft who never reached the Majors.

That list is down to two — left-handed pitcher Brien Taylor, selected by the Yankees in 1991, and catcher Steve Chilcott, selected by the Mets in 1966. In fact, there are only 13 players who were drafted in the top three overall spots whose careers ended before they got to don a Major League uniform, including four No. 2 picks and seven No. 3 picks.

While some more recent Top 3 picks are still finding their way to the bigs, to one degree of success or another, the unfortunate 13 who came up short of becoming Major Leaguers before hanging up the spikes are as follows:

1. 1991, LHP Brien Taylor, NYY He was 6-foot-3 with a rocket arm and seemed to be a can’t-miss star. The Yankees paid him a record $1.55 million signing bonus hoping for big things, but he wound up being a cautionary tale, particularly as it relates to drafting high-school pitchers. It went sour for Taylor relatively quickly in the Minors, and he never pitched beyond Double-A ball before retiring for good in 2000. Taylor wound up being imprisoned on a federal drug charge, and was released in 2014.

1. 1966, C Steve Chilcott, NYM Until Taylor came along, Chilcott was one-of-a-kind, the only No. 1 pick to fall short of the Majors. He had been picked by the Mets out of Antelope Valley (CA) High School in the second-ever amateur Draft, but a shoulder injury suffered in his second season at Class A wound up derailing his career. The No. 2 pick in that 1966 draft? A guy from Arizona State …

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