[Westheim]

2072 AMATEUR DRAFT

While the Raccoons got their heads done in by the Blue Sox in their final game in Nashville, me and Oscar Semchez were busy ruining the future of the franchise at the annual amateur draft in New York on Wednesday.

I had already complained at length about the dire lack of exciting hitting talent in the pool last month; the Raccoons were virtually guaranteed to not get anything exciting with their #21 pick. We also had a supplemental round pick for the loss of Alejandro Olivares.

128 players had been shortlisted from the draft pool, including that Kyle Brobeck imitation Josh Kruse. Overall we had 68 pitchers listed and 61 position players, making this the THIRD straight year where we were attracted to more tossers than pokers. Just as a refresher, here was the traditional hotlist of a dozen-or-so players that looked least hopeless, all of whom were already in college this year:

SP Greg Hall (12/12/13) – BNN #3
SP Steve Jovine (11/13/12)
SP John Hughey (12/12/10) – BNN #1
SP Bryce Schaad (11/13/12) – BNN #9

CL Juan Gallegos (16/12/10)
CL Aaron Palmer (16/15/10)

INF Bubba Wilt (12/11/10) – BNN #5
INF Kevin Finney (15/3/9) – BNN #2
3B/SP Josh Kruse (7/10/11 | 12/11/6)

We didn’t really have any favorites here, because it was entirely likely that only the closers would fall to us at #21.

And the first pick (by the Blue Sox) this year was … not on the hotlist! Okay, that hadn’t happened in a while, but the Sox selected SP Mike Keller with their #1 choice. John Hughey was taken by the Elks at #2, followed by another non-hotlist player, outfielder Greg Gann, going #3 to the Wolves. This continued with two more outfielders going, Isaiah Powell to the Thunder and Tim Doss (who was not even on the shortlist!!) to the Stingers, before #6 was the *second* hotlist selection of the draft, the Falcons taking Steve Jovine. Okay, maybe *we* are off here? (looks at Semchez, who looks just as confused as Honeypaws)

Non-shortlist (!) outfielder Rodolfo Cabrera (Caps) and pitcher Steve Moore (Buffos) followed before the hotlist got some more use, Bryce Schaad and Bubba Wilt filling out the top 10, taken by the Gold Sox and Rebs, respectively. From there, the Knights took Kevin Finney at #13, the Indians picked Greg Hall at #16, and at that point we were down to the closers and Brobeck II. And we’d not even have that much choice: the Elks drafted Juan Gallegos with the #18 pick, and by the #21 pick there was only the closer Aaron Palmer and the two-way Kruse left over. And drafting closers in the first round was daft, but Palmer looked like a future lights-out lefty at least, and Kruse… didn’t. But don’t you worry – Kruse still wasn’t taken by the time our supplemental round selection came around, and of course we hadn’t smartened up by then, either.

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2072 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS

Round 1 (#21) – CL Aaron Palmer, 20, from Baltimore, MD – left-handed groundballer with a toxic slider that has only control issues to iron out.
Supp. Round (#42) – SP/3B Josh Kruse, 20, from New York, NY – two-way player dabbling with six different pitches, and some of them he could even throw for strikes. Had some power, too, but sometimes struggled to make contact at all. Yes we were totally trying to burn that pick for some ill-advised Kyle Brobeck nostalgia (and Kyle Brobeck wasn’t that great to begin with)…
Round 2 (#70) – LF/RF Kevin Hale, 21, from Santa Monica, CA – looks like a rather broadly talented corner outfielder, not especially excelling in any category, but solid-to-good for all the tools you might look for, including potential double-digit home run power.
Round 3 (#94) – SS Andy Close, 21, from Jacksonville, FL – left-handed hitting shortstop with some power and good speed that might actually have more power than glove; a move to second base might be possible and/or advised
Round 4 (#118) – SP Dean Trotter, 19, from Boone, NC – right-hander with six pitches, none of them particularly refined, but a lot of enthusiasm and a good projection
Round 5 (#142) – C/1B Hunter Pace, 18, from Carlstadt, NJ – Semchez sees a solid defensive catcher with the ability to hit for both average and power, and speed on the base paths, but OSA absolutely doesn’t agree
Round 6 (#166) – SP Bill Zych, 18, from Caribou, ME – last in the alphabet, last village in Maine before civilization officially ends, and a very fine curveball on this left-hander; whether he’d find a third pitch nobody was so sure about
Round 7 (#190) – CL Steve Whipple, 20, from Heber-Overgaard, AZ – right-hander with a 92mph fastball and a spiffy curve
Round 8 (#214) – INF Adam Collins, 18, from Chesapeake, VA – great defensive versatility, some speed, and sometimes he even manages to hit a little
Round 9 (#238) – INF/RF/LF Brett Pierce, 18, from Sloatsburg, NY – make it double with another one like that, and this one even dabbled with the corner outfield positions
Round 10 (#262) – CL Frank Bowers, 22, from Brenham, TX – fastball at 90mph, and a slider, and also a great resentment towards physical exercise were the top bullet points on this right-hander
Round 11 (#286) – SP Nick Valentine, 18, from Columbia, SC – throwing all of 86mph, but there really weren’t many left-handers left for our leftover lefties spot here
Round 12 (#310) – SP Dave Berrett, 18, from Stockton, CA – another guy throwing all of 86mph; it’s almost like outlawing snowball fights in Cali in ’43 had a detrimental effect on kids’ arm strength
Round 13 (#334) – INF/LF Bill Denton, 19, from California City, CA – good defender that can’t hit a lick and doesn’t seem to be too bothered about it

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Aaron Palmer, despite only being 20 years old, was immediately assigned to AA Ham Lake. The others got sent to Aumsville.

There were not as many departures from the system as usual as we had quite a few injuries in the minors as well right now, but that didn’t mean we wouldn’t purge the odd former high-ranking pick.

For pitchers, we released Tom Allen (2068, 11th round), Logan Kerschen (2070, 11th round), Derrick Wilson (2071, 12th round); position players included 2B/SS Bobby Hutchinson (2071, 10th round) and – this was the big one – Benito Otal.

The 28-year-old Otal had been a $22k July IFA signing in 2062 and had spent considerable time in the majors across the last four seasons, but after a strong quarter-season’s worth of batting .287 in 2068 never did anything remotely in that realm and last year hit just .152 in 19 games, and he wasn’t doing any better than that in AAA this year. In 323 major league games, he had batted .262/.299/.348 with 249 hits, 11 homers, and 99 RBI. He also stole 44 bases.