John Romano: In the dark when sleep doesn't come, this is what Rays fans fear

John Romano, Tampa Bay Times on Jul 15, 2026

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

TAMPA, Fla. — It’s not the same situation. On some level, we should all understand that.

The players are different. Management is different. It’s a different era and, in some ways, a different game.

So, tell me, why did the recent draft feel like a recurring nightmare for Rays fans?

In case you’re late to the party, Tampa Bay had a choice between taking a shortstop — the top high school player in the country, no less — and a college catcher considered one of the five best players available in the draft on Saturday.

The Rays took the shortstop.

Again.

The backdrop was eerily similar to the most infamous draft in Rays history when they took high school shortstop Tim Beckham in 2008 instead of Florida State catcher Buster Posey. Beckham went on to a forgettable career while Posey is a good bet to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2027.

So is it fair to be rehashing the Posey mistake all these years later? Probably not. Grady Emerson, the Fort Worth-area shortstop the Rays chose on Saturday, was 4 months old when the Rays were deciding between Beckham and Posey in the summer of 2008.

And yet, the reasoning behind choosing a teenaged shortstop still holds true today.

For an organization like the Rays, a team with limited revenues, there is no such thing as blank-check signings. Tampa Bay will never transform the roster by signing a free agent along the lines of Gerrit Cole or Shohei Ohtani or Bryce Harper. That means finding a budding superstar in a trade (like Junior Caminero) or on the international market (like Wander Franco). Or, in this case, near the top of the draft.

That’s what the Beckham decision came down to. The Rays knew Posey was a safer pick. He was older, he had proven himself against the best college competition and the chance he was going to be a solid major-league catcher was about as certain as it gets in the crapshoot of a draft. (Where the Rays erred is Posey was even better than they realized.)

But the ceiling was higher for Beckham. He had the potential to be a generational talent. For a team that was never going to sign an Alex Rodriguez in free agency, the possibility of getting a superstar shortstop was worth the immense risk.

And while Beckham turned out to be a dud, the lessons of history justify taking a big swing on a high school player at the top of the draft.

Here’s what I mean:

Since 2000, there have been 32 draft picks that have compiled a career WAR of 40 or higher, according to Baseball Reference. Those 32 careers have been evenly split between 16 prep players and 16 college players.

But the truly elite players, the players with a WAR near 60 and above, are usually found in high school. Six of the top eight players to come out of those drafts were prep players. Guys like Mike Trout (90.5 WAR), Mookie Betts (76.7), Freddie Freeman (66.6), Joey Votto (63.6), Manny Machado (62.3) and Nolan Arenado (59.5). The only college players in that timeframe that have that level of WAR are Paul Goldschmidt (65.4) and Aaron Judge (64.4).

For their part, the Rays have proven to be open-minded near the top of the draft. Before Saturday, Tampa Bay had chosen in the top 6 of 10 different drafts. They’ve chosen five prep players (Josh Hamilton, Rocco Baldelli, B.J. Upton, Delmon Young and Beckham) and five college players (Dewon Brazelton, Jeff Niemann, Evan Longoria, David Price and Brendan McKay).

On the day before Friday’s draft, I asked Rays amateur scouting director Chuck Ricci if it made more sense for a team from a low-revenue market to make a high-risk/high-reward choice when picking near the top of a draft.

“Well, I think you could look at it that way,” Ricci said. “The way we look at it is it’s an opportunity. We really trust our development. We trust our international scouting, our pro scouting. We have to all be successful. We have to be better than everyone else to compete. Call it a badge of honor or anything you want, we’ll take on the challenge.”

None of this means the Rays considered Emerson a risky pick at No. 2. But it’s probably fair to say Rays scouts considered Emerson to have a higher ceiling than Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey, who went to the Twins at No. 3.

Were they right about that?

Ask me again in five years.

____