Jim Ingraham: Cleveland has had its share of whiffs when it comes to taking pitchers in the first round of the draft

Baseball fans only get one first look at a pitcher their team selected in the first round of the draft. Guardians fans got their first gander at Gavin Williams, a hulking 6-6, 250-pound flamethrower to dream on Wednesday night. Pitchers built like linebackers tend to score high on durability projections, but being durable isn't of much use to a pitcher who can't get outs. Hall of famer Greg Maddux wasn't much bigger than a jockey, but as a pitcher he was Secretariat. Best-case scenario for the Guardians is that they throw a saddle on Williams, and he spends the rest of this season rounding up and striking out the bad guys. But first things first. Wednesday night was Williams' Major League debut, his first chance to show Guardians fans why their team selected him with the 23rd pick in the first round of the 2021 draft and why, furthermore, the normally fiscally-unadventurous franchise went into the vault and came out with a "welcome aboard" $2.25 million signing bonus. In college at East Carolina University, Williams was more than a pitcher. He was a force of nature. In 15 appearances in his draft year of 2021 he was 10-1, with a 1.88 ERA and more than 100 strikeouts (130) than walks (21). He averaged 14.4 strikeouts per nine innings. That's a pretty good way to get yourself drafted in the first round and to have the drafting team slide $2.25 million your way. In his two minor league seasons with Cleveland, Williams struck out 230 batters in 175 innings, an average of 11.8 per nine innings. He is the first college pitcher selected by the Guardians in the first round of the draft since they took Drew Pomeranz with the fifth pick of the 2010 draft. The Guardians' history of selecting pitchers in the first round of the draft is spotty at best and spotty at worst. In the 58-year history of the draft, the Guardians/Indians have selected 34 pitchers in the first round. Cleveland was a little late to the party in the early years of the draft. In the first 15 years of the draft, Cleveland only selected five pitchers in the first round. In the history of the draft, Cleveland has chosen 34 pitchers in the first round, most of them forgettable. However, in the spirit of top 10-ism, here's one man's opinion of the top 10 pitchers selected by Cleveland: C.C. SABATHIA (1998): Incredibly, there were 19 players, including nine pitchers, drafted before Cleveland took him. That 2007 Cy Young Award clinches it. CHARLES NAGY (1988): He was the 17th pick in the first round out of UConn. He pitched 13 years for Cleveland, winning 129 games and finished in the top seven of the Cy Young voting three times. GREG SWINDELL (1986): He was the second player selected in the first round (Cleveland has never had the first pick in the draft), behind Pirates infielder Jeff King. Swindell pitched 17 years in the majors, seven with Cleveland. JARET WRIGHT (1994): Talk about a fast riser. Wright was the 10th pick in 1994 and he started Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. PAUL SHUEY (1992): It's not often that a reliever is the second pick in the draft (after Phil Nevin), but Shuey was in 1992. In his 11-year career, including nine with Cleveland, Shuey appeared in 476 games, none of them starts. JEREMY GUTHRIE (2002): Another rarity was Guthrie had a career record of 91-109, but none of the wins or losses0 were for the team that selected him with the 22nd pick. DREW POMERANZ (2010): Selected fifth, Pomeranz never pitched in a game for Cleveland but was part of the trade with Colorado that brought Ubaldo Jimenez to Cleveland, where he anchored the team's 10-game, end-of-the-season winning streak that got them into the 2013 postseason. TRISTON McKENZIE (2015): He was the 42nd player picked, a sandwich pick that is considered a first round-pick. He had a terrific season last year, but his injury history is becoming a concern. JEREMY SOWERS (2004): The sixth pick, he went 18-30 in his four-year major league career, all of it with Cleveland. STEVE DUNNING (1970): The second player drafted that year, behind catcher Mike Ivie, Dunning had a non-descript career with seven major league teams. But he was non-descript-est with Cleveland, for whom he was 18-29 in four years. So, with the exception of the top third of this list, the bar for Gavin Williams in this particular category hasn't been set very high. He is, moreover, pitching for an organization with a reputation for developing pitchers, even one built like a linebacker. Contact Jim Ingraham at jingraham4@gmail.com.