Quote:
Originally Posted by Orcin
Great news... the way this season is going, you might get first pick in next year's draft!
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(smiles a distorted grin that is well telling he's dying from the pains)
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2000 AMATEUR DRAFT
We didn’t have a big plan for this. It was back to a “normal” draft for the Raccoons, who were going to pick fifth in every round, with one supplemental round pick. After a few fat years there just wasn’t anybody left to leave the team and will some more draft picks to us.
Probably the most immediate impact player available was corner infielder Daniel Sharp, who had turned 23 just three days before the draft. He was right on top of our list, but the fear was there (for a reason) that he was there on the lists of the four teams in front of us as well. Sharp was the no-doubt #1 pick for us, especially with our corner infield positions currently very weakly manned.
Should Sharp be picked early, there was a nice selection of outfielders to feast on, with potential power bats in a satisfyingly big number. Mathematically it was impossible to NOT draft a potential impact bat either from the outfielders (or Sharp) unless I did something stupid, but those outfield bats were many years away from the big leagues, and bust-prone. We have a history here.
Let’s get into this.
First pick was to the Miners, and they went with SP Henry Becker, a very good selection, certainly in our top 10 as well. The Aces went with infielder Oliver Torres, the Stars with pitcher Fernando Piquero. The Rebels took a corner infielder – but it was not Sharp, but Alfredo Gonzalez, and Sharp fell to us!
2000 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS
Round 1 (#5) – 1B/3B Daniel Sharp, 23, from Valdez, AK – elite contact bat with an incredible eye for the ball and its flight path; enough power for double digit homers, good defense on the corners of the diamond; essentially ready for the major leagues right now
Supp. Round (#30) – OF Rich Mason, 21, from Fort Worth, TX – strong bat across the bank, very agile and speedy, covers a huge piece of the outfield and has no problems pilfering bags
Round 2 (#70) – MR Matt Cash, 17, from St. Marys, OH – right-hander with a well-moving cutter and a droppy curve, knotting up batters in high school games. High potential at a backend bullpen job.
Round 3 (#94) – MR David Sutherland, 23, from Surprise, AZ – main weapon is a filthy slider, but the question is how much more can you develop it at age 23?
Round 4 (#118) – INF Alan Williams, 21, from Hampton, NJ – your stereotypical middle infielder with great defensive capabilities, able to hit .250, but with no power; has speed, though
Round 5 (#142) – LF Mike Willard, 21, from Trenton, GA – solid contact bat, and he can hit the ball for quite some distance regularly; also brings decent speed, but is not very adept defensively, and also has a weak arm
Round 6 (#166) – INF Tommy Herman, 21, from Frisco, TX – carbon copy of Williams, only a bit less quality in almost any category; could be a backup infielder at best
Round 7 (#190) – C Don Sharp, 18, from College Place, WA – good defensive catcher, but the bat doesn’t look promising
Round 8 (#214) – 3B Steve Searcy, 19, from Ballwin, MO – bat should be good for doubles, and he should hold his ground defensively
Round 9 (#238) – MR Claudio Salazar, 17, from Gurabo, Puerto Rico – throws dead straight, even the curveball
Round 10 (#262) – LF/RF Hanno Klinger, 21, from Wesseling, Germany – knows how to move, knows how to even run, but doesn’t know for his life how to bat
Round 11 (#286) – SP Cristián Mier, 18, from Santo Domingo, Dom. Rep. – four messy pitches to differentiate between, which is hard enough
Round 12 (#310) – MR Alfred Thomas, 17, from Masonboro, NC – not much in the way of potential, as we are picking up scrubs
Vince made most of the picks in the latter half, except for Mier, the then best remaining starting pitcher. There was another reliever, Stu Davis, who was even on our shortlist, but as we picked other relievers and are fairly stuffed with right-handers, he dropped round by round by round, until we didn’t even pick him at all. Neither did anyone else. We have offered him a minor league contract as undrafted free agent.
Sharp was assigned to St. Petersburg to get the bat warmed up. If everything goes well, we might purge somebody else by early July to get him onto the roster. Mason and Sutherland went to AA ball, Ham Lake. The rest is being assigned to the A level in Aumsville.
No position player the Raccoons chose with their first pick (excluding the last two, Chris Roberson and Darwin Tyler) has caught on in a regular role anywhere since 1992 (Luke Newton), and none has held a starter’s job for any meaningful length of time since Joe Jackson, who was our first choice in 1985! The best we did with a few of those first rounders in between was to package them up and flip them for Neil Reece in ’88.
But: No Daniel picked in the first round has ever failed us. That is what I am building all my hopes and dreams on, to have them washed away by the gruesome, ill-willing waves of destruction.