Apparently no relation to Rick Wrona (who was from Tulsa), Lockport IL's Dave Wrona was described as "the slickest-fielding shortstop I've ever seen" by one rival high school coach. Moving on to Southern Illinois, Wrona hit a scorching .395 as a senior in 1990, and was named All-American (third team) and became the Brewers' 13th-round pick that year. (He was inducted into the SIU Hall of Fame in 1997.)
Rather than send Wrona to a rookie-league team, the Brewers started him off at Beloit in the Midwest League, where he hit .300 for the last month of the season, with a .374 OBP. But he only managed 3 2B in 80 AB, so his ISO was a mere .038. Even still, you would have thought they might have moved him up to Stockton (California League) the next year, but instead the Brewers sent him right back to Beloit, and he struggled there, as well as in Stockton when he was bumped up at midseason.
So he ended up back at Stockton in 1992. His manager, Tim Ireland, had fond memories of Wrona, and it had nothing to do with the sterling .445 OBP Wrona posted. No, it was in the field, where Wrona got the season started by successfully pulling the hidden-ball trick on an opposing base-runner, a feat he later duplicated against Damon Mashore of Modesto. Of this latter trick, Ireland wondered why Mashore was off the bag for "a good 30 seconds" before Wrona finally tagged him out.
"Well," Wrona told his manager, "I had to finish my conversation with him first."
Unfortunately, despite that amazing OBP, the Brewers decided that they'd finished their conversation with Wrona, and cut him loose. I mean, yeah, no power whatsoever (1 HR in 2+ pro seasons), but he had a career OBP of .388. So you have a skilled and clever SS who knows how to get on base…how is that not worth taking a chance on? And these were the same Brewers who were cutting Bobby Benjamin because they wanted better athletes in the OF; do they want power or not? Very strange.
Attachment 574520Attachment 574519