St. Louis Cardinals: A Cardinals history of 19th overall in the MLB draft

It has been announced that the St. Louis Cardinals will be picking 19th overall in the 2019 MLB draft.

For those recognizing the number, it is the exact same position where the St. Louis Cardinals grabbed Nolan Gorman this past season. By selecting 19th in 2019, it is the eighth time the team with pick from this spot since 1965, when the draft began.

The Cardinals are no strangers to this position. They seem to have gotten early success from Gorman, and he is just one of two position players taken 19th overall by St. Louis. The rest are pitchers.

19th Overall History

The first year they selected in this position was in 1968, and they chose an outfielder by the name of James Hairston. As far as I can tell from a Google search of his name, he did not play in the MLB.

Bret Wagner was the next 19th overall pick of the Cardinals in 1994. He was a left handed pitcher and even cracked Baseball America’s top 100 pre-1995 prospect list. Though he did not make it out of Double A from the looks of it.

After that year, the St. Louis Cardinals did not pick 19th overall until 2004. This time around, they took another pitcher named Chris Lambert. Unlike the previous two, he did make it to the majors, just not with St. Louis. In 2007, he was the player to be named later in exchange for Mike Maroth.

Spoiler alert, the rest of these guys are going to be pitchers. Shelby Miller was the 19th overall pick for the Cardinals in 2009. He broke into the majors with St. Louis in 2012 and collected a 3.33 ERA through 2014. In November of 2014, he was involved in the trade that brought in Jason Heyward and Jordan Walden.

Back to back 19th overall picks in 2018/2019 is actually the second time that will happen. The first time was 2012/2013 when the Cardinals selected Michael Wacha and Marco Gonzales. We’ve seen Wacha several times and Gonzales has turned into Tyler O’Neill.

The stats point to the St. Louis Cardinals taking a pitcher in the 2019 draft. But, it is too early to even try to guess at that. For now, we just know where the team will be picking in the first round of the 2019 MLB Draft.