This Appears To’ve Worked Out Alright

What you see in this image here (which you should right click and open in a new window for intimate viewing) is a selection from Baseball-Reference’s draft database thing. Specifically, it’s a selection from the second round of the 1971 amateur draft — a round in which generational baseball talents George Brett (91.6 fWAR) and Mike Schmidt (110.6 fWAR) were drafted one after the other.

FanGraphs Contributor and Ace of Database Jeff Zimmerman sent this to me and asked the question, “Are there any other HOFers drafted back to back?” To which question I replied both “I don’t know” and “I have zero of the skills required to find out such a thing.”

Luckily, NotGraphs isn’t about “knowing” “facts.” It’s about embedding photos and then decorating them with spirited prose.

Photos like this mysteriously damaged one of George Brett and his brother snuggling:

And this one, of Mike Schmidt, impregnating all the women in Philadelphia with a single meaningful glance:

In any case, to guess at the answer to Jeff’s question, I’d say no. The amateur draft was instituted in 1965 and, since that time, Schmidt and Brett rank third and eighth among hitters in WAR (or so this WAR Grid would have me believe), which is pretty good. Barrys Bonds (169.7 fWAR) and Larkin (69.8 fWAR) were actually separated by only one pick — Kurt Brown, a catcher drafted by the White Sox who never made the Majors — in the first round of the 1985 draft.

Rickey Henderson was (114.1 fWAR) was taken with the last pick of the fourth round in 1976 — just two picks before Jack Morris (56.9 fWAR).