The 2009 MLB draft was notable for numerous reasons, not the least of which was Mike Trout lasting until the 25th overall pick, where the Los Angeles Angels snagged him in one of the biggest steals in draft history. The Arizona Diamondbacks missed out on a pair of opportunities to take the future Hall of Famer — they picked back-to-back at 16 and 17 — and misfired on a few of their higher-round selections as well. Which isn’t to say they had a bad draft — anything but. Not only did a dozen of the players the D-backs drafted and signed go on to reach the big leagues, one of them was arguably as big of a steal as Trout. In the eighth round, with the 246th overall pick, they took Paul Goldschmidt out of Texas State University.

Tom Allison was the lead architect of Arizona’s 2009 draft. Serving as the club’s amateur scouting director under general manager Josh Byrnes, he not only oversaw the Goldschmidt pick, but also the selections of AJ Pollock, Chase Anderson, and Matt Davidson. There were disappointments — taking Bobby Borchering at 16 didn’t work out the way Arizona hoped — but that goes with the territory. The amateur draft is an inexact art, and a mix of hits and misses is inevitable, which is something a longtime scout like Allison knows all too well. Now a special assignment scout with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Allison addressed that very subject when looking back on 2009.

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David Laurila: To the extent that a draft can be predictable, did things more or less go as you expected, or were there a lot of curveballs? Your club obviously had a number of extra picks early on.

Tom Allison: “First, it’s always great looking back at drafts, especially ones that had so many of these different outcomes. But that’s a great question. With those extra picks, we had the attention of the agents and advisors. They knew that, ‘OK, the Diamondbacks are interested and we have an opportunity to get them in there.’ That presented itself a lot of times with accessibility, which is really impactful. We had pre-draft workouts. We were in a different timeframe than we are now — it was a non-Combine time — so having a pre-draft workout was a big thing.

“I come from the John Barr-Jack Zduriencik teachings of having these guys in and getting that last interview process. That played itself out tremendously. We had a huge amount of major league talent on the field at Chase Field before the draft. This past weekend, I was actually up at the University of Oregon and saw [Ducks assistant coach] Jack Marter, who we took that year [in the 30th round] out of high school. He was a shortstop that our scout loved, and he’d been at that workout. Jack talked about how it was, ‘Oh, there’s Nolan Arenado. There’s AJ Pollock. There’s Joe Kelly. Having all of these players there that day gave us a chance to really zone in on those different — as I’ve referred to it many times — lanes of players where we were picking.

“So were there some surprises? There are always some surprises, but we had done so much work utilizing our efficiency and looks. At the same time, you’re still going to get to a point of, ‘Man, if I would have done this,’ or ‘If I would have done that.’ That’s with any draft. It starts with Mike Trout, right?”

Laurila: What can you tell me about Mike Trout in that year’s draft?

Allison: “Well, our area scout, Shawn Barton, and the area scout next to him, Matt Merullo — both were major league players — had this guy on their summer teams and knew him inside and out. They loved the player. And Joe Bohringer, who later went on to become an assistant GM with Seattle, is from Millville, New Jersey. He knew Mike Trout.

“We spent a lot of time with him — I’ve referenced this quite a bit — especially with our selection of Bobby Borchering. That summer before, the 18U Team USA… Mike was on that. You were watching him play the infield. You were just… you know, here was a Northeast guy with a crazy toolset, but he was still refining himself baseball-wise. I remember going in the first time. Here’s Mike, playing New Jersey baseball — it’s cold — and he played very well for me. I was like, ‘Wow, this guy.’ I actually called Craig Landis, who was his agent at the time, and said ‘Hey, we’re picking 16 and 17, and we’ve got him in our radar.’

“I’ll never forget this. I was in Philadelphia, trying to fly to Long Island to go see Steven Matz. Our scout was on the ground in New York, and the weather was iffy. It looked like he wasn’t going to pitch, because the weather was going to be a no-go. That gave me options and I was like, ‘Well, I can go see Mike Trout again.’

“[Longtime scout] Tim Wilken once said to me, ‘Don’t laugh at mine and I won’t laugh at yours.’ Another one he would always say is, ‘Once you see a guy good, don’t go back.’ But there I was in Philly and Mike was right down the road playing. So I went to see again and the look wasn’t as clean.

“I remember that he was hitting BP, and one of the other scouts was like, ‘Hey Mike, I know you’ve been messing around on the left side, why don’t you get over to the left side.’ I was like, ‘What? Whoa.’ There was a little more question to the bat, and that more than anything probably set me up for some recency bias. My last look, compared to the body of work we had with Mike… I mean, our board was lining up, and you’re also dealing with some of the biases of drafts in the past. Here was a right-handed hitting outfielder from the Northeast, one for whom we’d had a lot of looks, but not all good. That kind of played itself out when we came to selections 16 and 17.”

Laurila: The Borchering selection obviously didn’t pan out. What did you see in him, particularly in terms of how he compared to Trout?

Allison: “Bobby also was on Team USA, and he was a very highly rated prospect. He was a switch-hitter and the power was there from both sides. He was also a really great looking mover — the body and the way he played the game. Our area scout, Ray Blanco, God rest his soul, and Greg Lonigro, the supervisor, knew this kid inside and out. I mean, there were other comps, but one was a young Chipper Jones.

“Because of the accessibility of Bobby playing in Florida, we had more looks at him. The last time I saw Bobby was at the Florida [high school] All-Star Game, in Sebring. Of course, he steps up to the plate and hits the ball out. I’m like, ‘OK, there it is.’ Those things got into the mix as far as comparing them side by side. I mean, you look back at it now and it’s all clear.

“There was another guy in the mix, as well: Rey Fuentes. We really liked Rey — all of the things he could do left-handed, hitting at the top of an order — and he ended up going a few picks after Mike to the Red Sox. So that was kind of how the Mike Trout thing played itself out. Mike is a Hall of Fame-caliber player, so tremendous credit to Eddie Bane and the Angels for his selection. And then, obviously, to Mike for everything that he’s done.”

Laurila: Outside of AJ Pollock, who you took immediately after Borchering, which other players were in the mix for your top selections?

Allison: “We talked a lot about Kyle Gibson. There was that big matchup of Kyle Gibson versus Mike Leake at ASU when Missouri was in. We had a lot of our executives there. We were really considering him. He ended up having a little bit of medical down the stretch, and that was the only reason he was getting down the draft board a little bit.

“We also did move Rey Fuentes down — we had Mike above him — and ended up with Borchering and then Pollock, who’d come to that workout as well. We kind of had that frame around AJ Pollock, that he was a really good player and a safe player. He was a college performer. I always give Mike Daughtry, who just retired this year from scouting, credit. He always saw bigger tools than what I think was perceived from AJ. Mike was able to get AJ to our workout, and he and Steve McAllister, who was our Midwest cross-checker, kept saying, ‘Watch when this guy runs. Watch when he hits.’ And man, did he put on a show. It was ‘Wow. There’s more power there. There’s more twitch and athleticism.’ That really solidified our AJ Pollock selection.”

Laurila: Matt Davidson, who you took 35th overall with a compensation pick, ended up pitching at the end of his big league career. How did you view him?

Allison: “Two-way players weren’t a huge thing. We had seen him pitch — Jeff Mousser was our area scout — but we were in on the bat. We loved Matty as a third baseman. He was yet another guy that came to the workout, as did Nolan Arenado. It was fun watching those guys get after it. And again, in the world of outcomes, you look back and sure, Nolan Arenado has had a tremendous career. That’s what we should have done. But trying to get it right, compared to doing it right, is always a big obstacle you face in this job.”

Laurila: Arenado went 59th overall, one pick before your second-round selection. Do you recall if he was next on your board?

Allison: “The competitor in me would say, ‘Of course, David, we were going to take him.’ But I could say that about our one, two, three, four, five picks before that. What I learned from Nolan Arenado — this is as an evaluator — was talking too much about what he couldn’t do compared to what he does. I will be broad in my statements here, but that was something that kept hanging up in my mind. With Nolan, it was ‘Could we put him behind the plate to compensate for him not being a runner?’ He certainly wasn’t the Gold Glove defensive player that we see now.

“So were we going to take him with our next pick? We should have. We talked about him a lot with our picks at 41 and 45, and obviously we took Chris Owings and then went pitching [with Mike Belfiore]. You look back at guys from that draft — Arenado, Joe Kelly, Jason Kipnis, Steven Matz, Kyle Seager, Jake Marisnick. You can’t get them all.”

Laurila: With Arenado, the defensive profile was his biggest question mark?

Allison: “We were a little murky on that. And again, looking at what the player can’t do compared to what he can do… in scouting, we will tear a player up. We will pick them apart and then forget to put them back together. I take full ownership for that.”

Laurila: You drafted Paul Goldschmidt in the eighth round with the 246th overall pick. Having him last that long is every bit as remarkable as Mike Trout being bypassed 24 times…

Allison: “I always ask this question when people start talking about the draft: As an industry, ever since 1965, how often do we get number one [overall] correct? There are certainly the Ken Griffey Jr.s, the A-Rods, Chipper Jones in 1990. Bryce Harper. Sometimes we do get it right. But the draft is hard. You’re betting on outcomes, and you’re betting on people.

“When it comes to the story of Paul Goldschmidt, I always defer to our area scout, Trip Couch, who is currently an assistant coach at the University of Arizona, and to Steve McAllister, who was our cross-checker and just retired this year. Goldy was on Trip’s list since high school. He went to The Woodlands High School and was drafted out of there by the Dodgers [in 2006]. He played on the same high school team with Kyle Drabek, and when Drabek would pitch, Paul Goldschmidt would play shortstop. That’s the type of athlete he was.

“The fall before Goldy’s draft year, we were going in and seeing some of the top-rated guys that our area scouts liked. Trip Couch made sure that we not only went in and watched Texas State, but that we got to have time with Paul afterwards. He was like, ‘You have to meet Paul Goldschmidt. I want you to get to know the human.’ We have that grading scale from 20 to 80, and Trip had an 80 on him. He was a little light. Paul had 90 makeup.

“Paul had a really good performance at Texas State his draft year, but it wasn’t against a premier D-I level of competition, and he played in a ballpark that was very hitter-friendly. One of the things that Paul had done was get bigger and stronger to hit home runs, and I think that took away some of his athleticism. He was a little bit slower, and not as twitchy, because he was maybe chasing a little bit more power. But Trip, knowing who the player was and who he could be, was like, ‘Listen, I get all of those things. He’s going to get beyond that.’ So we stayed with him. Trip Couch was wearing me out, and so was Steve McAllister. It was, ‘Take him!’ So, props to those guys. And one more thing on Goldy. After we drafted him, he worked really hard to regain a lot of that athleticism, which he did. I can’t say enough good things about him.”

Laurila: Any final thoughts on the 2009 draft?

Allison: “You have swings and misses, and there are lessons you learn. Looking back, it was a draft that we prepared for so much. Josh Byrnes, our general manager. Our front office had [director of scouting and player personnel] Jerry Dipoto, A.J. Hinch, Peter Woodfork, Shiraz Rehman. We also had a young woman named Helen Zelman who had come to us from MIT. How she helped impact that draft, because we went into a hybrid form, putting all of our resources into it because we had all of these extra picks. She put together an algorithm based on how we had the players evaluated going into the year. We sat down — Helen, Jerry Dipoto, and I — and mapped out our coverage. We mapped everything out.

“In baseball at that time, it was ‘Oh, he’s a pro scout, he’s an amateur scout, he’s an international scout.’ We decided that we were going to have good scouts go see players. So, Tim Schmidt, Mike Piatnik, Joe Bohringer; they were mostly pro guys. It was a great decision to use all of these guys and get more evaluators out into the field. We made sure that when we sat in the draft room, we had a ton of evaluations of all the players that we were targeting. That everything didn’t work out perfectly is just how it happens. We were very prepared.”

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