5 biggest draft busts in Cleveland Guardians history 

Later this week, every MLB team will gather in Philadelphia for this year’s iteration of the MLB Draft. And, like every draft in every sport, this year’s draft will have plenty of players who will get labeled with the “bust” tag as history goes on. 

Although no team wants to draft a bust, it happens every year, whether it be to injury, stagnation or factors outside of a team or player's control. With that in mind, here’s a look at five of the biggest draft misses in Guardians history. 

Note: While the Guardians have picked plenty of lemons throughout this history, we decided to just focus on draft picks who didn’t end up providing value to the Guardians via trade. So even though players like Clint Frazier, Alex White and Justus Sheffield didn’t do much of anything in their big league career, they all avoided this list since they helped net the Guardians something in a trade.

These five players are the biggest draft busts in Guardians history 

5. Bradley Zimmer (No. 21 pick, 2014)

Cleveland took Zimmer in the first round in 2014 out of San Francisco on the back of a dominant junior year where he was the only collegiate player ranked in the top 50 in stolen bases (21) and slugging percentage (.573). 

While Zimmer showed flashes of that power/speed combo during his time with the Guardians, he was never able to reach his peak due to injuries. 

He made his big league debut for the Guardians in 2017, but missed the end of the season with a broken hand. 

That ended up being a harbinger of what was to come, as he played in just 162 games with the Guardians over the next four seasons. 

Cleveland traded him to the Blue Jays at the start of the 2022 season, and he ended up finishing that season with the Philadelphia Phillies. He bounced around the minors the next two seasons before officially retiring last fall after not playing in 2025. 

4. Will Benson (No. 14 pick, 2016)

While the 2016 draft is going to be remembered as a pretty “meh” draft, the Guardians still misfired with their selection of Benson, who was viewed as one of the top prep players in the country going into the draft. 

Benson struggled through his first five seasons in the minors for Cleveland, but put it all together at Triple-A Columbus in 2022 and ended up being one of the 14 players to make their MLB debut for the Guardians that season. 

His time with the Guardians didn’t last long, however. Benson appeared in 28 games for the Guardians in 2022 before they traded him to the Reds ahead of the 2023 season. He appeared in 377 games with the Reds across four seasons, but was never able to secure a full-time roster spot. 

The Reds designated him for assignment last week. 

3. Jeremy Sowers (No. 6, pick 2004) 

Ten years before Cleveland misfired on Zimmer in the first round of the draft, they took Sowers with the No. 4 pick in the draft in what ended up becoming a much bigger misfire. 

Cleveland took Sowers in the first round out of Vanderbilt in the hopes that he’d be a mainstay in their rotation for the next decade-plus. 

And it initially looked like that was going to be the case, as he made his MLB debut two years after being drafted and finished the 2006 season with a 3.57 ERA in 88 1/3 innings — albeit with just 35 strikeouts. 

He ended up posting a 5.63 ERA in 311 2/3 innings over the next two years before being designated for assignment ahead of the 2010 season.

This pick was a clear miss. 

2. Carson Tucker (No. 23 pick, 2020)

The 2020 MLB Draft produced some weird results, but perhaps none have been weirder than the Guardians taking Tucker in the first round. 

The Guardians took Tucker out of Mountain Pointe High School in Phoenix, where he slashed .390/.455/.574 with 68 RBIs, 20 doubles, nine triples and five home runs in 92 games in his high school career. 

He couldn’t make his organizational debut until 2021 due to the pandemic, and he finished his Guardians career with a .164 batting average in 73 minor league games before Cleveland released him.

For what it’s worth, he signed a minor league contract with the Padres over the winter and has posted a .707 OPS in 50 games at Double-A, but that doesn’t do anything to take away from the fact Cleveland’s pick of him was a huge waste. 

No. 1 Brady Aiken (No. 18 pick, 2015)

The granddaddy of them all. 

Aiken’s the rare player to be a draft bust for two franchises, as the Astros took him with the No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft, but he didn’t sign due the Astros dropping their signing bonus after an MRI found inflammation in his arm. 

He ended up undergoing Tommy John surgery after going unsigned, but that wasn’t enough to scare away the Guardians, who picked him with the No. 18 pick in the next draft. 

He never bounced back from that surgery, however, and ended up posting a 6.23 ERA in 179 innings in Cleveland's minor league system. The Guardians released him after the 2021 season, and he now works as an MLBPA certified agent for Excel Sports Management.

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