[Westheim]

2031 AMATEUR DRAFT

Once I had shaken off my new friend – I coyly rolled myself through under a garbage truck, while the insensitive taxi driver ran into the side of the same vehicle – I was able to make it to the draft room unmolested. Our scout was already waiting for me with his assembled reports, including the hotlist:

SP Chris Crowell (13/14/14) * – BNN #9
SP Mark Holliday (11/14/11) – BNN #7
SP Denny Marsh (12/11/12)
SP Al Scott (11/14/9) – BNN #1

CL Austin Holt (18/14/12)

1B Chris Delagrange (10/14/14) – BNN #5
1B/LF/RF Will Luna (12/11/7) *
1B/RF/LF John Marz (13/9/7) * – BNN #8

OF Manny Fernandez (12/10/9)
OF Ryan Murray (12/11/14) – BNN #2
OF Joe Ritchey (13/10/16) * – BNN #6

As elaborated earlier, the Raccoons had three picks in the top 30 and the shuffle would start with the #5 pick for them. What the Critters really wanted was one of those outfield bats. We still didn’t know 100% which player we liked the best of those three. We’d be really glad to get ANY of them.

…and while I was still huffing and puffing, the draft began in earnest already. The Rebels had the first pick and took Joe Ritchey at #1. Alright, well, still two more on the board then … at least until the Stars selected Ryan Murray at #2. The Cyclones took Chris Delagrange with the #3 pick, leaving us still a slight chance to grab Manny Fernandez…! - … and we’d get him! The Aces took Chris Crowell – a wonderfully exciting pitching prospect that didn’t deserve to be slighted like this by us – with the #4 pick, and next were the Coons and pounced on Manny Fernandez like any hungry coon pounced on a piece of apple pie with whipped cream!

The Scorpions took outfielder Chris Sandstrom at #6 before Mark Holliday went #7 to the Crusaders. Denny Marsh fell to the damn Elks at #8. More hotlist players departed to Washington (Al Scott, #11) and Tijuana (Austin Holt, #13). This left only the two hotlist players that we considered first basemen even though they were listed as corner outfielders as secondary or even primary position, Luna and Marz. Both were high schoolers. Luna batted lefty, Marz from the right side. It was narrow – and while Marz was ranked in the top 10 by BNN and Luna wasn’t, our scouts saw more power potential and a bit more agility in Luna, who wasn’t just bluntly fat and immobile. We took him over Marz, who was also completely off the tables with that, since we didn’t need the two of them standing on each other’s paws in Aumsville. This didn’t become a huge conundrum – Marz was taken #19 by the Wolves, officially concluding the hotlist for this year.

There was no need to address going forward and we tried to find the best player at any given time with no regards for what we already had in the system after this – except that we didn’t need another first baseman in the low minors, and we also satisfied our need for catchers when we took Matt Hartley in the fourth round, so catchers were no longer interesting after that. So by the eighth round there were still about ten players on the shortlist, but only three of them were not ruled out by previous picks, and that point we only had taken three pitchers, so maybe look into that some more…

+++

2031 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS

Round 1 (#5) – OF Manny Fernandez, 21, from Caguas, Puerto Rico – left-handed batter with a broad assortment of tools, including contact ability, a healthy amount of power, excellent defense, and really quick hindpaws! We are excited!
Round 1 (#15) – 1B/LF/RF Will Luna, 18, from Chesterfield, MO – a hitter first, a defender much later; Luna has strong contact and power potential, but will likely always be a defensive liability, no matter where he shows up.
Supp. Round (#27) – SP Jonathan Dykstra, 21, from Blaine MN – right-hander with a 4-pitch mix that includes the classic staples of a curve and slider as well as an interesting forkball. Also has Dutch ancestry and knows how to dance with those wooden shoes.
Round 2 (#50) – LF/RF/1B Eric Davidson, 20, from Los Angeles, CA – really can do a bit of everything, with solid ratings for contact, power, and eye, good speed, and workable defense at a corner position.
Round 3 (#74) – SP Jerry Hodges, 17, from Central City, KY – right-hander with a 5-pitch mix that we are already looking forward to sorting out. Very nice changeup; needs work on the 87mph heater. Probably won’t pile up strikeouts at any level, but could be molded into a control guy.
Round 4 (#98) – C Matt Hartley, 20, from Wilson, NC – good defensive catcher with a ravenous arm and remarkable contact potential when at the plate himself; he does run like a catcher, though.
Round 5 (#122) – 2B Barry Schuster, 20, from Rossmoor, CA – excellent defensive second baseman, maybe a perennial Gold Glover! That he is to be found in the triple digits in picks probably has a bit to do with his lackluster bat; if you can make a singles slapper out of him, you’ve already gained something.
Round 6 (#146) – SP Josh Ridenour, 18, from Ontario, CA – if I say that this kid reminds me of Mark Roberts despite being right-handed, I mean the interesting stuff as well as the launchpad potential. Fastball’s dead straight. See you later.
Round 7 (#170) – SS/2B Eddie Lavender, 18, from Seattle Hills-Silver Firs, WA – another singles-slapping glove-first kid, but he’s interesting because his arm his probably his strongest asset in the field and nobody ever had the idea of dropping him at third base, where his good, but not great, range will probably be hidden and he could really zing it. We will try that approach.
Round 8 (#194) – CL Chris Stine, 20, from Holliston, MA – right-hander firing at 93 with a potentially good curveball, but definitely not big-league closer material.
Round 9 (#218) – CL Tom Miller, 21, from Edison, NJ – another right-hander but with less zing than Stine; throws only 90, and the curve is not nearly as groovy, or curvy.
Round 10 (#242) – SP Travis Sims, 18, from Collier Manor-Cresthaven, FL – really only has two-and-a-half pitches, headlined by a 87mph heater (“warmer”?), and then there was video of him getting taken deep three times in one game in high school…
Round 11 (#266) – SP Mitch Hajduk, 18, from Detroit, MI – throws left-handed (surprise!) and has a swooping curve. Now we just have to make him throw the 87mph heater for a strike…
Round 12 (#290) – LF/RF Eli Dunn, 20, from Bloomingdale, IL – not that much to like here, to be honest. *Some* contact and power potential, coupled with poor range, poor speed, and what seems to be a case of blindness as to what’s a ball and what’s a strike.
Round 13 (#314) – SP Matt Kissick, 17, from Five Points, FL – left-hander from Five Points with five fingers and a curveball… we really have drafted a lot of curveball pitchers this time… will any of them make it? Probably not.

+++

All picks will be assigned to Aumsville.

To make room in the minors, we axed a number of other players from the system, including some notable ones. Headlining the group of goners was right-hander Steve Costilow. The 29-year-old former fifth-rounder had appeared in five seasons for the Raccoons, totaling 47 games and a 7.48 ERA with a 3-3 record. This year he was getting torched in St. Petersburg and the clock was up for him. He was joined by Billy Ramm, 28, left-hander in Ham Lake(!). He had been in the Coons’ rotation to start the 2029 season, which had quickly derailed into something ugly for both the team and him. Total lack of control at all levels and no hope to reel him in again. 46 appearances in the majors, including 16 starts (32/16 for the Coons), with a 9-7 record and 4.11 ERA and over five walks per nine innings. Now, Matt Stonecipher would line up neatly with those guys, but he’d get one last chance, mainly because he was much further away from 30 and had wicked stuff after all. Just no harness for it. But he was moved back to St. Pete after spending most of this season in Ham Lake, and it was about delivering now.

Also released was 2B/SS/LF/RF Edwin Alvarez, who was depth in AAA for a few years. This season, the 29-year-old was batting .143 in St. Petersburg. He had gone 1-for-13 for the Coons last year and was a career .198 batter in the Bigs.

Further draft picks whisked away: southpaw Pat Guttormson (2026, 4th round); right-hander Brett Morgan (2026, 9th round); 2B David Bartelt (2030, 7th round); outfielder Jesus Morales (2030, 9th round); outfielder Brian Cannon (2029, 5th round); most of them were too old for the level they were stuck at (like, 26 and in AA), and some (Bartelt, Cannon) were just galactic busts that couldn’t hit the least lick on a stick…

Alright, now catch a plane to Nashville, then fly back here to New York on the weekend… not great timing…