[Westheim]

1996 AMATEUR DRAFT POOL

The Raccoons will have the 23rd pick in every round, plus two picks in the supplemental round, which gives us four of the first 90 picks, and I think that is more than what he have had for quite some time. Now you just need a good draft pool and some boys being overseen by all other teams. Sounds doable!

In fact, it was a rather rich draft, especially on the pitching side. While there weren’t really several future Pitchers of the Year in there, the pool held a whole group of guys that would have no problem to pitch in the big leagues for a long time, without getting abused every five days. Also, the relievers available held quite a few with closer potential.

The pool was a bit more shallow as far as hitters were concerned, with a few projected killers in there, but in total the peak of the hitters pool was a bit smaller, at least according to our scout, Vicente Guerra. We earmarked the following pitchers and players for preferred grabbing:

SP Dave Crawford (11/16/12)
SP Jeff Moore (9/18/18)
SP Randy Farley (11/15/14)
SP Cal Holbrook (13/13/12)
SP Tommy Sullivan (12/12/12)
CL Johnny Smith (20/16/14)
MR Juan Diaz (20/10/11)
MR Manuel Martinez (16/17/17)
CL Donald Sims (18/13/12)

SS/2B Kurt Metting (20/20/20)
LF/RF Will Taylor (16/20/20)
1B Brian Nichols (20/6/15)
1B Lawrence Wilson (15/15/14)
LF Lionnel Perri (13/12/13)

Metting, who hails from Germany, is also said to be a very good middle infielder. If he is real, the team that picks him could have a torture device in its lineup for a very long time. The others all somewhat suffer from questionable defense, but Metting could be that once-in-a-generation player.

We are at this point about two and a half weeks removed from the draft. We will now care about more important things, like … taking an axe to those Loggers.