Pat Burrell Retiring Due To Chronic Injury

The only light at the end of the tunnel was the draft pick. After all of that awful baseball, the Phillies could march right into the draft, and pick the best player in the country. That player was Pat Burrell. Phillies fans earned Pat Burrell.

There were ups, and there were downs. There were cheers, and there were boos. In 2003, there were a lot of boos. I’d say there were batteries, too, but then someone would show up in the comments and yell at me for resorting to stereotypes. And then they’d throw Internet batteries at me. I don’t want trouble. But we shan’t forget the cheers.

Grant found that Burrell was pretty much the most average first-overall pick ever. Cameron found that Burrell was pretty much the most average first-overall pick ever. What we can say with a high degree of certainty is that Burrell was pretty much the most average first-overall pick ever.

And as an average first-overall pick, that means that Burrell wasn’t a bust. You could say that Burrell disappointed. You could say that Burrell didn’t reach his ceiling. Maybe that would be fair. But most players don’t reach their ceilings. In that regard, most players disappoint. Pat Burrell wound up being about as good as one should’ve expected him to be, given his draft position.

As the first-overall pick in the 1998 draft, you’d expect Pat Burrell to be something of a hot prospect, and he certainly was. There were concerns with his athleticism and defense that proved prescient, but he was always expected to rake. John Sickels took a look back at Pat the Bat’s career:

Burrell got into 37 pro games for Clearwater in the High-A Florida State League, hitting .303/.416/.530 with 27 walks and 22 strikeouts in 132 at-bats. In the 1998 book, I wrote “the main question for Burrell is his ability to hit for average.

Some scouts see him as a .300 hitter, with lots of walks, perhaps similar to Jeff Bagwell. Other observers regard him as a .260-.270 hitter, similar to Eric Karros, productive but not outstanding. My guess is that he won’t be as good as Bagwell but will be better than Karros.” I gave him a Grade B+ and ranked him the Number 20 hitting prospect in baseball.When Burrell came up in 2000, he finished fourth in the National League Rookie of the Year voting behind Rafael Furcal, Jay Payton, and Rick Ankiel v. 1.0.

Phillies blog The Good Phight said its pharewell (haha!) to Burrell in November, when it became apparent that he’d probably have to retire. Quote:

Here is that double:

But when it comes to bWAR -- not a flawless metric, but surely one of the best metrics that can be distilled into a single number -- Pat Burrell was the midpoint between the first-ballot Hall of Famer that every team thinks they’re getting with the first-overall pick and the pain that comes with the complete busts. From Baseball Reference on first-overall picks:

47 matching player(s). 41 played in the majors (87%). Total of 799.2 WAR, or 19.5 per major leaguer.

It didn’t literally hurt Burrell to say that, because he didn’t say it with his chronically injured foot. But Burrell is obviously calling it quits before he ever wanted to call it quits.

18.7

16.3

6.3

-1.1