Blue Jays: A 20-year review of the top-ranked organizational prospects

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TORONTO – APRIL 21: Alex Gonzalez #11 and Vernon Wells #10 of the Toronto Blue Jays celebrate Gonzalez’s run against the Kansas City Royals during a MLB game at the Rogers Centre April 21, 2010 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Abelimages / Getty Images) /

As the Jays Journal wrapped up the 2020 Top 30 prospects list I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the past 20 seasons of the #1 prospect. Who are they and did they pan out?

Most avid Toronto Blue Jays fans take a very invested commitment into the Jays farm system and closely follow who is coming next and start to salivate about the potential impact they will have at the MLB level. So let’s take a look at how the past #1 Jays prospect has made out in their careers.

The thing about Top Prospects Lists is that there are several of them. There are pre-season lists, mid-season updates and the end of season lists. There are numerous publications that make their own lists so to keep things somewhat consistent I will utilize Baseball America’s pre-season lists for the years of 2000-2019. So let’s get this started.

2000 & 2001 – Vernon Wells

Vernon Wells was the Jays #1 prospect in both 2000 and 2001. He was also ranked as the #4 and #11 in the top 100 prospects rankings. The Blue Jays originally drafted Wells in the 1997 amateur entry draft in the first round (5th overall). By 2002 Wells was firmly planted as the Jays centerfielder. Wells would play in parts of 15 MLB seasons and would be a 3x all-star, 3x gold glove and a silver slugger award.

Hindsight Alternates- None. They got this one right.

Who did they miss in the draft- Not sure you can complain about what Wells did.

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