Bleacher Bums Forum

This might be a supplemental first round pick, but one of the absolutely worst first round picks the Cubs made was Matt Clanton in 2002. 

Granted Dave Stockstill whiffed on a lot of high picks in that draft, where he had anywhere from 4-6 high picks to draft players the caliber of Joey Votto, Brian McCann, Jon Lester, Curtis Granderson, and Jonathan Broxton and whiffed on all of them.  (That was one loaded draft, and the Cubs blew a ton of high picks that year.)

But of all of those blown picks, Matt Clanton was definitely the most unconscionable.  He was only regarded as a 3rd-4th round talent by most to begin with and had such a bad attitude that he got kicked off his JUCO team right before the draft.  Yet Stockstill picked him ahead of what was a really loaded 2nd round that year, and Clanton wound up pitching a grand total of 4 IP in the minors. 

Have you seen this?

http://cubs.scout.com/2/527823.html
 
Clanton says, his voice filled with emotion, cracking in spots. “Jim Hendry once quoted to me 'This [organization] is not a democracy.  It's a dictatorship.  You shut the f--k up."

As has been said ad nausium, most picks, even most first round picks, fail.  Brownlie and Christensen and Ratliff were late first round choices, and most late first round choices are more likely to fail than not.  Even Noel was only a 17th  pick in the first round, and probably had about a 10 percent chance to go on to stardom.

Vitters (5?) Montenez (3?) and Davison (6?) are much more spectacular failures.

A quality, quality guy....

He and Milton Bradley are two excellent examples of why GMs need to require psych evaluations on many of the guys they shell out big money for.

July 7, 1993 - Tom Browning decides that he has seen the view from the dugout often enough, so he leaves Wrigley Field and watches the Reds beat the Cubs 4-3 from the roof of a three-story building across Sheffield Avenue. He is fined $500 for leaving the dugout - not to mention the ballpark - during a game.

Had he started, and been taken out of that game?  I remember seeing him up there, but don't remember the details.

Nope.  He had last started three days earlier, and next started on the 9th.  On the 7th the Reds beat the Cubs 4-3, the same score it was at the end of the 3rd inning.  http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN199307070.shtml

In other words Browning deserved every penny of his fine and then some.