[Westheim]

1999 AMATEUR DRAFT

With the #11 and #16 picks (and four more through #66) in hand, we came up with the basic strategy of drafting either Gerardo Rios, Juan Valdez, or Darwin Tyler at #11, and Marcos Bruno at #16. This assumed that at least Tyler would remain at #11. We didn’t actually expect either Rios or Valdez to hang around for our first pick. Bruno would move up to #11 if all three top outfielders were gone by then. We also had an eye on Juan Nunez, but as the single most promising starting pitcher in the draft you could consider him gone by #11 as well. If Nunez were around at #11 and none of the outfielders remained, we’d take Nunez at #11 and Bruno at #16 again. If none of the five players were around at #11, we’d instead throw a tantrum and head for the bar.

The Miners had the first pick to select consensus #1 pick Gerardo Rios, but chose not to, and selected 1B/3B/RF Miguel Cortez, a 21-year old right-handed batter from Arlington, TX, instead. After that, Juan Valdez went at #2, followed by fellow outfielders Martin Covington and Pedro Pujols. The Falcons took SP Juan Nunez at #5. Gerardo Rios fell all the way to #7 and the Knights, and Darwin Tyler fell into our dirty little paws, and we also got Bruno as the first reliever taken in the draft, so things went pretty well.

The only other players remaining from the shorter shortlist published before at our next pick were relievers Alan Lash and Mike Harvey, so we skipped them right there and instead went with an infielder in Matt Love, who has Marvin Ingall-like characteristics of a good contact bat with nice defense (less than Ingall though) and some speed, but not enough to steal double digit bags. And he was from just down the road, in Beaverton!

Lash was gone at our fourth pick, together with another interesting player, LF Fernando Guerra (who reminded me of sadly gone Vern Kinnear). We went with Harvey, and after that it was off to the less juicy desserts.

The pool got picked thin by the fifth round already, with very few, if any, cherries remaining. We picked a wonky starting pitcher in the fifth round, then an inept batter, but fantastic fielding shortstop two rounds later. Taking some risks here and there, the reward could be huge in the end. And I lamented about Conceicao Guerin’s inability to make bat meet ball for years. There were actually relief pitchers from the longer shortlist remaining in the eighth round, but at that point we already had four relief pitchers picked and at some point you need other players.

Vince Guerra picked the last four rounds himself, with pretty much all talent gone.

1999 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS
Round 1 (#11) – LF/RF/1B Darwin Tyler, 17, from Walker, MI – while his agility and range are pretty limited, he possesses a powerful bat to hit both for average and extra bases
Round 1 (#16) – CL Marcos Bruno, 23, from Grosse Pointe Woods, MI – 99mph fastball, vicious slider from this right-hander should be enough to survive in the Bigs; has actual closer potential
Supp. Round (#33) – 1B/2B Matt Love, 22, from Beaverton, OR – good contact bat with a solid glove and a potential to make the majors quickly
Supp. Round (#48) – CL Mike Harvey, 18, from Wichita, KS – right-hander with a moving fastball and a circle change that keeps batter swinging into empty air
Round 2 (#60) – RF/LF Jorge Rodriguez, 21, from Marcaibo, Venezuela – kid with good power, who could go somewhere if he could just stop hacking at junk; good defense, terrific base stealer
Round 2 (#66) – MR Bob Evans, 19, from Turlock, CA – perilous stuff which has him whiff more than 19 per nine innings in high school ball; nasty moving fastball, poisoned changeup
Round 3 (#90) – C/1B Bob Wood, 18, from Waltham, MA – smart kid, good with his pitchers; the bat looks not too promising, though, and he’s lazy
Round 4 (#114) – MR Ed Bryan, 18, from Westlake Village, CA – southpaw with a curve that he can hit the strike zone everywhere he wants to
Round 5 (#138) – SP Guiseppe Loffredo, 17, from Barquisimedo, Venezuela – there is some potential in this right arm, but also much work upon us to get his slider and changeup working
Round 6 (#162) – C Brian Weeks, 20, from Concord, NC – doesn’t amount to much physically, but is fairly speedy and skilled with the glove, helping his team to turn the running game in its favor
Round 7 (#186) – SS Javier Hernandez, 21, from Toluca, Mexico – he could very well fail to ever get out of A ball because of his puny bat, but he is the most agile shortstop Vince Guerra could find in the draft pool
Round 8 (#210) – 2B/SS Yoshifumi Kino, 21, from Mitaka, Japan – another small bat player, but with speed and agility
Round 9 (#234) – OF Glenn Campbell, 22, from Chino Hills, CA – while agile, he has trouble reading balls in flight, which is bad enough, and he also has zero power in his bat and only walks if the opposing pitcher insists really hard
Round 10 (#258) – C Juan Martinez, 20, from Santo Domingo, Dom. Rep. – no obvious path to the majors
Round 11 (#282) – LF/RF Raúl Yzquierdo, 18, from Bayamón, Puerto Rico – Guerra picked him mainly for the chuckles of me mispronouncing and mistyping his name in all attempts
Round 12 (#306) – MR Jesus Sanchez, 21, from Mexico City, Mexico – left-hander giving up home runs to all fields

Bruno and Love were assigned to AA to start their careers, while all other players were sent to A ball. While we moved a dozen or so players around in the system, we also released a good bunch, including most notably 1994 second rounder Carlos Salazar, who wasn’t cutting it in AA ball.

Also, I’m a Mets nut, so I will probably refer to our fourth pick as Matt Harvey more often than not…