Stanford's Highest and Lowest Picks in the MLB Draft

Stanford baseball has produced some terrific stars in Major League Baseball, including two All Stars this season with Kansas City's Kris Bubic and Miami's Kyle Stowers headed to Atlanta for the Midsummer Classic.

Sunday night was also the first day of the MLB Draft, which covered the first three rounds of the 20-round process. No Cardinal have been selected in this year's draft just yet, which marks the first time (outside of 2020) since 2017 that the Cardinal have not had at least one player selected in the first or second round of the MLB Draft.

Stanford on SI thought it might be fun to take a look back at the highest and lowest draft selections in Stanford history.

Houston Astros take Mark Appel

Back in 2013 the Houston Astros were not a very good team. Their team highlight reel for numerous seasons was one of their players sliding into second base and right into an opposing player's backside. This was well before they were banging on trash cans and making it to every American League Championship Series.

One of the players they selected in the Draft was Mark Appel, in an effort to help change that franchise narrative. After the draft, he was ranked as a top-100 prospect by both MLB Pipeline and Baseball Prospectus for three seasons, reaching as high as No. 17 on Pipeline in 2014.

Unfortunately, injuries and lack of production slowed his development process, and he never made it to the big leagues with Houston, though they ended up being just fine.

Appel was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in the deal that landed Houston closer Ken Giles, though Houston's inclusion of Vince Velasquez, Brett Oberholtzer, Thomas Eshelman, and Harold Arauz provides some insight into what Appel's stock was as a trade piece just a couple of years after he was selected.

Appel stuck around with the Philadelphia Phillies for a couple of seasons before walking away from the game at the age of 25. Yet, he'd come back to the organization in 2021, posting an ERA over six in Triple-A with them, before putting it all together in 2022 and holding a 3.15 ERA across 40 innings.

He pitched well enough that season that by the end of June, the Phillies called him up to make his MLB debut at home against the Atlanta Braves. He'd end up making six appearances for Philadelphia, totaling 10 1/3 innings and a 1.74 ERA split between two stints in the big leagues. Three of those appearances came against the Braves.

Following the season, he signed another free agent deal with the Phillies for the 2023 season, but he had a rough spring and ended up getting released after putting up an 11.12 ERA in 5 2/3 innings of work.

Latest Stanford Cardinal picked in the MLB Draft

The MLB Draft has fluctuated in how many rounds it has since its inception, and the current format includes just 20 rounds. Yet, back in 2011 there were 50 total rounds, meaning that over 1,500 players were selected and added to minor-league rosters.

It was that year that the San Francisco Giants used their selection in the 42nd round to select Danny Sandbrink with the 1,287th pick in the Draft. The 22-year-old right-hander had posted a 3.39 ERA with Stanford that season and was a terrific control pitcher over the course of his time in pro ball.

Unfortunately, he was unable to earn a promotion past High-A San Jose in his three seasons with the club, totaling a 4.20 ERA with 2.4 walks per nine and 6.5 strikeouts per nine in his minor-league career.

These days, Sandbrink is the Director of Greenfield Partners (according to his LInkedIn profile), which is a growth equity firm. He went back to school in 2020 and attended the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, which happened in between his role as Vice President at Greenfield and his promotion to Director.