California’s back-to-back No. 1 overall MLB Draft picks Mickey Moniak (La Costa Canyon) and Royce Lewis (JSerra) both gained state player of the year honors during their four years of high school. Photos: CSNPhilly.com & @JSerraLionsBB / Twitter.com.
As a prelude to the 2020 MLB Draft and to run in conjunction with a couple of feature stories we have coming up on significant California players, here’s as complete a list as possible of high school players and former high school players from the state who have been chosen in the first round of every Major League Baseball Draft since the event began in 1965. Special kudos to school that leads the way with the most first-rounders with eight: Rancho Bernardo of San Diego.
This is a post for Gold Club members only on CalHiSports.com. There will still be several premium baseball features and state record updates coming this spring and into the summer. You can sign up today to get all of our Gold Club content for just $3.99 for one month. For details, CLICK HERE.
The first player ever taken in a Major League Baseball draft was Rick Monday in 1965 and that also was the first MLB draft ever held. Monday, a graduate of Santa Monica High, later played at Arizona State. That 1965 draft went 20 picks in the first round.
One of the projects we will be completing at Cal-Hi Sports without any current games going on any sport probably until late August is to compile lists of first-round draft picks from California high schools in the sports we focus on. The first one for baseball was completed in May with this year’s MLB Draft held June 10-11 in a remote, video conference format similar to April’s NFL Draft. The all-time first-round draft list for football and women’s basketball also have been completed.
