Revisiting the major problems with the 2011 Texas Rangers draft class

It is no secret the Rangers are bad at drafting. When people mention the 2011 MLB draft class, names rattled off are Gerrit Cole, Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor among others. The talent was widespread and the Rangers tried their hardest to avoid all of it.

Their draft class started at pick 33 and ended at No. 1,523. The in-between had some good major league careers but almost none of them made any contribution to the big league ball club that selected them.

The highlight of the draft class is arguably Jared Eickhoff simply because he was in the package that got the Rangers Cole Hamels. Other than that, there is not much to celebrate in this draft class.

Why was the 2011 Rangers' draft class that messy?

Two whiffs in the first round

The Rangers were awarded the 33rd and 37th picks via the Cliff Lee signing to Philadelphia and this brought in prospects Kevin Matthews and Zach Cone.

To say that these two contributed an amount that would warrant losing a player of Cliff Lee's caliber would be the understatement of the century. This was sadly two horrible misses early on.

Neither had the silver lining of being traded for MLB players making this as big of flops as possible. It also didn't help that following these first two picks were 2 players that never even debuted and 3 players that didn't sign.

The lack of talent found in the first round despite the talent in that draft is shocking. The caliber of players selected after these picks compounds these 2 flops to make them even worse.

Players flourishing for other MLB teams

There were 3 key players selected that had successful careers elsewhere. Those names are:

• Kyle Hendricks (round 8, pick 264)

• Nick Martinez (round 18, pick 564)

• Carl Edwards Jr. (round 48, pick 1464)

All three of these players combined for 35.5 career WAR with just 2.1 of that WAR being for the Rangers and all from Martinez. Hendricks and Edwards Jr. were packaged to the Cubs in exchange for right-hander Matt Garza.

Not only did the key contributors from this draft class break the Curse of the Billy Goat, they were sent there for half a season of -0.1 WAR Matt Garza. Not only did the Rangers fail their draft class selections but the best players never got time to play on the Rangers

The Garza trade sealed the fate for the 2011 draft class to be potentially the worst in team history. Rather than getting late steals that made this salvagable but the hits were traded for an even bigger miss.

Failing to sign the 5th, 6th, and 7th round picks

When guys don't sign after being drafted, it is usually the result of poor process by the drafting team. Not enough research was done behind the pick to assess whether the player would sign for a certain amount of money.

This is exactly what happened with Brandon Woodruff in the 5th round, Derek Fisher in the 6th round, and Max Pentecost in the 7th round. There is a strong name that stands out in that group.

Not signing Woodruff was a tragic failure of process. Woodruff was picked 27 picks prior to Texas Rangers star Marcus Semien. They successfully found a great player and failed to get it done.

Derek Fisher could have been a successful player as well. Fisher may not have had a fruitful career in the MLB but could've been sent for a good MLB player in a trade. He gained high prospect status and that could've been capitalized on.

The middle tier of the MLB draft can bring in top tier talent to a team. The failure to sign 3 of these picks is a terrible process that showed itself to be a failure for the team and lead to a lack of talent that would lead to long term problems for the organization.