New article highlights Blue Jays misstep in 2015 MLB Draft

The Toronto Blue Jays thought they struck gold in the 2015 MLB Draft with their selection of right-handed pitcher Jon Harris.

Harris, who the Blue Jays had previously selected in the 33rd round of 2012 MLB Draft, was viewed as an early first-round talent by the Jays, so they assumed that he wouldn't be there when they were on the clock at No. 29.

They were wrong.

The Blue Jays selected Harris with the No. 29 pick with the thinking that he'd eventually grow into a mainstay in their MLB rotation.

They were wrong there too.

Harris ended up flaming out in the minor leagues, and is one of the biggest busts in recent Blue Jays draft history. And it was highlighted by MLB.com in a new piece that redrafts the loaded 2015 MLB Draft.

New MLB.com article highlights Blue Jays misstep in 2015 MLB Draft

The piece, which was penned by Jim Callis, redrafted the first round of the 2015 MLB Draft, where he had the Blue Jays selected Kevin Newman (was actually selected by the Pirates with the No. 19 pick) instead of Harris.

While it's a purely hypothetical exercise, it's interesting to think about how Newman would have helped the 2010s Blue Jays.

He ended up making his MLB debut for the Pirates in 2018, and spent five years with Pittsburgh before bouncing around MLB. He's hit .147 in 15 games with the Angels this year, and is a career .260 hitter.

His best year came in 2019 when he hit .308 and slugged 19 home runs while playing all over the diamond.

While those are fairly average stats, he's made more of an MLB impact than Harris.

Harris played collegiately at Missouri State, where he went 8-2 with a 2.45 ERA in 103 innings in his junior year before being drafted by the Blue Jays. MLB Pipeline had him as the No. 10 prospect in the Draft, and Callis himself called the pick "a steal" at the time.

The Blue Jays and Harris agreed to terms at $1,944,800, and he reported short-season Single-A after the draft. He pitched well between two Single-A levels in 2016, but ran into struggles in Double-A in 2017 (5.41 ERA in 153 innings).

He pitched at Double-A and Triple-A in 2018, and only managed to pitch in six games across three different levels in 2019 due to injury. He missed all of 2020 after the COVID pandemic canceled the minor league season, and had a 3.74 ERA in 43 1/3 innings in 2021 — his last professional season.

Their selection of Harris came when All-Stars like Austin Riley, Brandon Lowe, Paul DeJong, Ryan Helsley, Jake Cronenworth, Alexis Diaz, Cedric Mullins, Ty France and Jared Walsh were available.

That said, the MLB Draft is a bit of a crapshoot, as there were over 1,000 players selected in the 2015 Draft.

A lot needs to go right for a lower-round draft pick to bloom into an All-Star, and there's no guarantee that any of those players would have had the career they had if they would have been drafted by Toronto.

Callis' redraft is full of incredible 'what ifs.'

Alex Bregman going to the Cubs with the No. 1 pick. Kyle Tucker going to the Astros with the No. 2 pick (they actually took him with the No. 5 pick). Riley going to the Rockies.

All crazy scenerios to think about.

It's also interesting to go down the rabbit hole of players the Blue Jays did pick in the rest of 2015. They took right-handed pitcher Brady Singer in the second round in the hopes that they'd be able to lure him away from the University of Florida, but then failed to reach an agreement with him.

They ended up drafting and signing four players who made it to MLB (Jose Espada, Travis Bergen, Danny Young and Taylor Saucedo), and also drafted future MLBer Ryan Feltner, who didn't sign.

While the Blue Jays' misfire on Harris didn't end up setting the franchise back too far (they made the postseason in 2015 and '16 and likely would have underdone a rebuild even if Harris was a solid MLB pitcher), it was still a tough misfire for the Alex Anthopoulos regime.