Duquette’s comparison to Aiken doesn’t hold true to Kazmir

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OAKLAND — Scott Kazmir was the 15th overall draft pick in 2002 as a high school lefthanded pitcher out of Cypress Falls high school who was raved about nationally.

When he was examined prior to signing with the Mets, there was something related to his elbow that raised a red flag. The Mets gave him a $2.15 million signing bonus, a club record at the time, and a dozen years later, he’s 13 wins away from 100 lifetime.

Now a radio host, Jim Duquette was working in the Mets front office and later became the team’s general manager. On Sunday, he recalled Kazmir’s situation in relation to Brady Aiken.

Aiken, another dominant high school lefty and the first overall pick in the 2014 draft, has an abnormally small UCL.

“He had an issue with his elbow on the — after we had drafted him and come to an agreement, there was an issue with the elbow, and guess what?” Duquette said on Sirius XM’s MLB Network Radio. “We went ahead and signed him, and he still hasn’t had a problem with the elbow. He still hasn’t blown out. So you know what I mean? There are plenty of examples the other way too (where you say) ‘OK, there’s an issue there but we’re going to still go ahead and sign him.'”

Kazmir, however, didn’t think his situation was comparable to Aiken’s. Kazmir on Thursday didn’t want to get into what exactly the issue — or rather, non-issue — was.

“No way to compare the two or really sympathize,” Kazmir said. “It was literally like, as soon as they got the imaging, ‘Oh, this, good, no problem.’

“It was one of those things, end up having just a little bit of stuff — like Little League stuff. I don’t know, it’s kind of tough to really explain about it, you know? Just one of those things. Didn’t seem like it was that big of a deal.”

evan.drellich@chron.com

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