5 best players drafted 1st overall

The Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft isn't like other amateur drafts.

In other sports, like football and basketball, newly drafted players can make a near-immediate impact for the franchise that calls their name, but baseball's draft is an exercise in long-term projection, with organizations taking players possibly a half-decade away from contributing.

With the 2016 MLB draft set to kick off shortly, let's take a look at five teams that were on point with their forecasting and managed to land a true stud with the first overall pick - just as the Philadelphia Phillies will hope to do Thursday night.

Ken Griffey Jr., OF - Seattle Mariners, 1987

For their first decade-plus of existence, the Mariners were a laughingstock, finishing no better than fourth in their division in each of their first 11 seasons while routinely drawing fewer fans than almost every team in the American League. Then they got "The Kid." Griffey, unanimously hailed as the country's top prospect ahead of the 1987 draft, made it to Seattle at age 19 and almost immediately made the club relevant, even as their struggles persisted. Never before had the franchise (or the game, really) seen a star like Griffey, who racked up almost every accolade imaginable through his first decade in Seattle and carried the club to three of their four playoff berths.

Chipper Jones, 3B - Atlanta Braves, 1990

Though the Braves seriously considered taking Todd Van Poppel, a right-hander out of Texas, with the first pick in 1987, the club decided to go with a switch-hitting shortstop from Florida after scouting director Paul Snyder threatened to quit if they passed on the kid they called "Chipper." The Braves' decision - as well as the $350,000 signing bonus they gave him, then a record for a high-school player - paid off handsomely, as Jones went on to become not only the most celebrated position player in franchise history after Hank Aaron, but also one of the best switch-hitters ever.

Alex Rodriguez, SS - Seattle Mariners, 1993

Six years after landing Griffey - who, by the start of 1993, had already earned three All-Star nods and three Gold Gloves - the Mariners grabbed another generational talent with the first overall pick, a sinewy shortstop out of Miami described by one scout as "similar to Jeter only bigger and better." Summoned to Seattle the following year after barely 12 months of professional instruction, that precocious 18-year-old went on the accrue more WAR than all but three players in Mariners history, and more than two decades later continues to cement his place as one of the greatest players of all-time.

Adrian Gonzalez, 1B - Florida Marlins, 2000

In the two seasons that followed that wholly unexpected World Series championship in 1997, the Marlins managed a total of 118 wins, so the club desperately needed to land a franchise player with the first pick in 2000. Adrian Gonzalez, a Mexican expat who played semi-pro ball before moving to California as a teenager, was that player. Except that he never played a game in Miami. In 2003, a couple months after his 21st birthday, Gonzalez was shipped to Texas ahead of the trade deadline for Ugueth Urbina, who helped the Marlins earn their second World Series title that year. Gonzalez didn't last long in Texas - he was dealt to San Diego ahead of the 2006 campaign - but over 13 years, the 34-year-old has quietly enjoyed an excellent career, averaging 28 homers with a 137 OPS+ from 2006-15.

Joe Mauer, C - Minnesota Twins, 2001

When the Twins took the highly touted local boy first overall in 2001, the club knew that Mauer, then the top-ranked football prospect in the country, might end up spurning them to play quarterback at Florida State. That never happened. In fact, the 18-year-old never played another down of organized football again. Unable to turn down a $5.15-million signing bonus, Mauer was playing full-season ball in his second season as a professional, and was up in Minnesota by 2004. Over the last 12 years, Mauer has become something of a franchise icon, earning six All-Star appearances and an MVP award before concussion problems forced him out from behind the plate in 2014 and derailed his Hall of Fame candidacy.