At some point in nearly everyone’s childhood, they decide they want to follow in a family member’s footsteps. For some, it’s their mother or father. For others, it’s a brother or sister. And while many ultimately choose another path, some stick with it and follow through on that initial decision.
That includes the relatives of professional athletes, who do so knowing they won’t be viewed the same way their peers are; they’re entering a playing field tilted in everyone else’s favor.
“People have certain expectations just because of your last name,” Notre Dame outfielder Torii Hunter Jr., son of the recently retired five-time All-Star of the same name, told Bleacher Report’s Seth Gruen. “You just learn to shake those expectations and play the game you know how to play and just not let it affect you.”
While Hunter Jr. and his fellow legacy picks in this year’s MLB draft do their best to blaze their own paths, the name on the back of their uniform most certainly had an effect on the teams that selected them.
In some situations, it’s the deciding factor. When the scouting reports are close and the front office is torn about who to select, taking a chance on the son of a Hall of Fame player, like Craig Biggio’s son, Notre Dame second baseman Cavan, is more appealing than picking someone without big league bloodlines.
“The name can only take you so far,” Cavan told Gruen. “It’s going to catch people’s eye. But at the end of the day, if you can play, you can play.”
Name recognition likely played a part in a number of selections, including Brandon Bonilla, Quinn Hoffman and Bo Weiss, while it wasn’t enough for the likes of Brandon Grudzielanek, Jake Matheny and Darien McLemore to hear their names called.
Rather than list the odds for every legacy pick, we’ll focus instead on the most notable, using the following criteria to define a legacy pick as “notable”:
- What level of success did the former player have during their playing career? Do we remember them, or are they among the hundreds of players we’ve forgotten about, only to be reminded of when looking through dusty boxes of baseball cards in our parents’ attic?
- Was there any buzz surrounding the prospect heading into the draft? Those who cracked Baseball America‘s top 500 draft prospects list got stronger consideration for inclusion than those who didn’t.
Is it a perfect system? Of course not. But for this exercise, it’s good enough. Can we say the same about the odds of the most notable legacy prospects one day showcasing their skills in the majors? Let’s take a look.