Stop the Carson Fulmer vs. Walker Buehler Draft Debate

Carson Fulmer opened yesterday’s game in an unfortunately common fashion: four runs allowed thanks to two walks and overall spotty command. It’s become the norm for someone as talented as Fulmer.

Every time Fulmer performs poorly, the debate once again sparks, and it goes something like this: “I can’t believe the White Sox chose Carson Fulmer over Walker Buehler.” If you don’t know the story by now, Carson Fulmer and Walker Buehler were teammates at Vanderbilt, and both were drafted in the first round of the 2015 MLB Draft. Fulmer went 8th to the White Sox and Buehler went 24th to the Dodgers. Buehler, for those interested, is 13-4 with a 3.25 ERA with the Dodgers this year.

So, you can see why a debate sparks every time: if the White Sox wanted a RHP from Vanderbilt, how could they possibly choose the wrong one?!? Our scouting department STINKS!!! FIRE RICK HAHN!!!!! …… All that fun stuff. I’m about to tell you why the White Sox chose Fulmer over Buehler, why it was the right choice at the time, and most importantly, why almost all of you would’ve made the same decision at the time. Buckle up for a trip down memory lane.

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What the Experts Thought

Per MLB.com, Carson Fulmer was considered the third best player on their Draft Top 200. Walker Buehler was ranked 11th. Fulmer’s upside was his electric fastball and curveball, with a developing changeup. Buehler’s upside was his consistency and repertoire. Fulmer had some command issues (duh), but there were few who thought he couldn’t overcome them. He perhaps would become an electric closer rather than a starter, according to some scouts; but hey, they said the same thing about Chris Sale, and Fulmer had proven to be a durable, consistent starter in the Spring of his Junior year. Truthfully, Fulmer had excelled in whatever role his team placed him in. Buehler, on the other hand, had an injury history that called his durability into question – he experienced elbow soreness during the Spring of his Junior year – the year he was drafted. Besides his “labrum,” elbow soreness is the last thing a pitcher wants to hear about. Sore elbows often lead to Tommy John, and Tommy John means pitchers drop in the draft. That’s how Dylan Cease fell from a first round pick to a sixth round pick in 2014.

Here are their tools listed out on a 20-80 scale coming into the draft:

Fulmer: Fastball: 70 | Curveball: 60 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 50 | OVR: 55

Buehler: Fastball: 60 | Curveball: 55 | CH/SL: 55 | Control: 55 | OVR: 55

Their opinions of each other were equally impressive:

“It’s been pretty cool to watch him go from a guy that just comes up throwing cheese to a guy that actually pitches and moves the ball and spins it and does all the things that a starter should do.”

Walker Buehler on Carson Fulmer

“It’s rare when he falls behind in the count, and he’s able to deal with all four of his pitches. He’s such a competitive dude. He’s not scared in any situation, and I just feel like every time he goes out there, he’ll put our team in the best position to win.”

Carson Fulmer on Walker Buehler

So, by the looks of it, it appeared that, outside of some scouts worrying about his delivery, most were incredibly high on both Fulmer and Buehler, but still felt Fulmer had the higher ceiling. But what did the mock drafters think? Did Fangraphs, Baseball America, or Bleacher Report see something the scouts didn’t?

Mock Draft Results

Here’s where each of the following widely-respected sites had both Carson Fulmer and Walker Buehler being drafted in their final mock draft:

Carson Fulmer

Baseball America: 7^th (BOS)

Fangraphs: Dependent on Bregman/Rodgers at top of draft. Anywhere from 7^th to 9^th (BOS-CWS-CHC)

Bleacher Report: 9^th (CHC)

Walker Buehler

Baseball America: 20^th (OAK)

Fangraphs: 15^th (MIL)

Bleacher Report: 20^th (OAK)

So, the mocks agreed with the scouts: Fulmer was going to be the higher pick on the draft. In what ended up being a very top-heavy draft (Swanson/Bregman/Rodgers/Tucker/Benintendi all went before Fulmer), Fulmer was clearly considered to be in the top tier of talent. Buehler, meanwhile, fell to the middle of the pack. Still incredibly respectable, but not top of the draft. He fell even further than projections, obviously.

So, so far we’ve looked at what scouts thought and what those at respected baseball sites thought. The thoughts are similar to those you and I had while watching Vanderbilt win the College World Series: Carson Fulmer is an absolutely electric competitor, and he would look great in black and white for years to come.

Hindsight is 20/20

This is my favorite part of this blog post. It’s easy to sit here now and say, “I obviously would’ve chosen Buehler in the draft, I don’t know what the White Sox missed.” Well, simply put: no, no you wouldn’t have. Don’t believe me? Well, I asked you all this back in May, and…….

NINETY PERCENT OF YOU WOULD’VE DONE THE EXACT SAME THING!!!!!! And I’m pretty sure I did this poll after a rough Fulmer outing, so I think part of that 10% knew I was up to something. Feel free to look at the results of the poll if you want/don’t believe me.

I feel the points here are pretty clear: in 2015, the White Sox made the correct choice by drafting Carson Fulmer. In 2019, the White Sox made the wrong decision by drafting Carson Fulmer. However, the White Sox didn’t have the benefit of having knowledge of 2019 back in 2015. Neither did you all when you voted in that poll, and the results are very telling. You can say that you wouldn’t have been that worried about injuries, or that Buehler clearly had the better makeup. Sure, we all say that today, but we need to think about things in 2015 terms.

For all the talk about mechanics and command, Fulmer simply outperformed Buehler in his career at Vanderbilt. Results carry more weight than anything else, which is exactly why we are in this position today. But, in 2015, the results were there for Fulmer, and they were, on the whole, better than Buehler’s results. That’s what ultimately got Fulmer drafted so high. Not bad scouting, not a bad draft strategy, but results.

So, What Happened?

I talked about this a lot in my last article on Fulmer, which you can find here. In short, I feel this was – and still is – absolutely a player development problem.

In many ways, Chris Sale was the worst thing to happen to the White Sox. He was rushed through the system, much like Rodon and Fulmer after him. However, Sale was able to succeed pretty easily. That’s because, well, he’s Chris Sale. So, when it came time for Rodon and Fulmer to start advancing through the minors, the White Sox used the Chris Sale Method. However, this time, it didn’t work for either of them. The struggle for both of them? The hardest thing to teach: command.

In the case of Carson Fulmer, the White Sox shot him up through the system WHILE tweaking his mechanics. You can’t do both at the same time – you have to let a pitcher keep his mechanics that led him to success, or, if you want to change his mechanics, you have to slow down his trip to the majors. Instead of a confident, consistent Fulmer that we saw in college, we now see a pitcher who changes his mechanics as quickly as the weather changes. There’s absolutely no consistency, and it sucks, because his pure stuff absolutely is MLB-quality. His command has held him back, and will continue to hold him back until he can find what works for him again. It will not be an easy road for the right-hander, and I hope he finds success with someone, but the White Sox certainly did him no favors in his development. Chris Sale’s legacy will live on with the White Sox in the form of Carlos Rodon and Carson Fulmer. I wish I could say it was a better legacy than it is.

The Conclusion: LET. IT. GO.

Carson Fulmer is likely going to get one last shot come Spring Training 2020. If he doesn’t make the team, he will be out of options, and therefore will be DFA’d. Another team will likely pick him up, and he will officially be labeled “bust” for the White Sox. I’m not giving up on him until this happens. Should this be the scenario that plays out, however, I feel for Carson Fulmer. He’s a guy that’s never been able to capture what he once had at Vanderbilt. It’s going to happen to teams and players all the time.

Look at any recent draft: there’s always top 10 picks that don’t pan out how everyone expected them to. That’s baseball, that’s going to happen. It’s unfortunate that it happened to Fulmer and the White Sox. But, the reality is this: given the information everyone had in 2015, the White Sox made the correct choice. The Cubs would’ve made the correct choice if they took him after the Sox. The Red Sox would’ve made the right choice if they took him before the Sox.

Fulmer had it all in 2015. Somehow, he lost it. Now, we have to live with the constant “what if…” scenarios. As I’ve just drawn out, that is unfair to do – especially for the ninety percent who voted for Fulmer in that poll. Kudos to the Dodgers for their excellent player development staff. Let’s hope the White Sox can do the same in the future and learn from their mistake. But, let’s all be humble enough to admit we would’ve made the same one.

The point of this entire article can be cut down to these last three words, and I want these to be what is remembered from this article: Let it go.

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Comments? Let me know on Twitter! @jlazowski14

Featured Photo: MLB Draft Countdown