Ahead of Draft, few saw Pujols’ potential

The 1999 Draft was held 17 years ago Thursday. Josh Hamilton went first to the Rays, Josh Beckett went second to the Marlins, and 399 other players were selected before the Cardinals finally took a chance on Albert Pujols, with the 18th pick of the 13th round.

“It’s a chip on my shoulder that I will have for the rest of my career, until I’m done wearing a uniform,” Pujols says now, even with 571 home runs, 10 All-Star Game appearances and more than $350 million in career earnings separating his Draft day.

“I still think about it.”

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With the 2016 Draft exactly a week away now, even the benefits of modern technology and the reams of analytical data compiled by today’s front offices can’t strip the subjective, uncertain nature of the Draft, a process that is rarely kind with the benefit of hindsight. The 1999 version remains a classic example of how easy it can be to overlook young players, because it took Pujols only 24 months to go from an unheralded draftee to one of the game’s premier players.

He thought the Rays would make him their second pick, after Hamilton, but they didn’t budge.

He was told he could go within the first five rounds, but it never happened.

He thought the Mets would get him in the ninth round, but his representative at the time, a lawyer-turned-agent who reportedly scared away teams with his financial demands, overplayed his hand.

He thought the Red Sox would take him in Round 10, but they didn’t offer to pay for his schooling, which Pujols required as a fallback option if baseball didn’t work out.

The Cardinals wound up getting him on a $30,000 signing bonus, with another $30,000 promised for a college tuition that Pujols ultimately never needed.

“I told my wife that I was going to play three years in the Minors, and if I don’t make it, I’ll retire,” said Pujols, nearing the midway point of his fifth year with the Angels. “I was just frustrated at the time. If I were still playing in the Minors, I would’ve continued to play. But it took me one year, man. And that was just to prove people that they were wrong.”

Of the 402 players …

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