[Westheim]

2014 AMATEUR DRAFT

Oh, the bubbling, fizzling excitement! It’s Draft Day! Some 300 young baseball players will voluntarily subjugate themselves to the slaveries of minor league baseball for as long as they can scrape by on meal money before breaking either physically or mentally. Or both.

The Raccoons had a good assortment of picks, having maintained all of their own, and had received a supplemental round pick and a second round pick for the loss of Yoshi Nomura (sniff!) to the Capitals.

As detailed earlier, pitchers and outfielders were available in much plentiness in the draft, but at #16 you can not really look at any one guy and claim him yours. That’s not how the #16 pick works. Instead you can look at organizational weaknesses and try to patch those, but we had in fact no clear-cut future major league position player at any level on the farm, and everybody always needs pitching, so that didn’t help.

Well, I am not exactly telling the truth. I had my favorite among the available starting pitchers on Juan Calderón’s hotlist:

SP Andrew Gudeman (15/12/14) – BNN #8
SP Roger Kincheloe (14/13/12) – BNN #5
SP Tommy Weintraub (13/18/11)
SP Sid Fletcher (13/13/11)
SP Seth Powers (13/12/13)
SP James Silmon (13/13/12)
SP Corey Samora (12/13/11)

CL Frank Blewett (15/12/12)
CL Harry Merwin (12/15/12)

INF John Muller (14/12/13) – BNN #9
1B Ryan Crissinger (9/13/11) – BNN #6
2B Todd Jankowski (11/10/10) – BNN #3

RF/LF/1B Matt Hamilton (12/12/12) – BNN #10
LF/CF Brad Tesch (10/11/12) – BNN #1
OF Jason Gerling (11/10/11)
OF Todd Sanborn (11/10/11) – BNN #7
OF/2B/3B Travis Givens (10/9/11)

I liked Tommy Weintraub the most. Right-hander, three pitches, great movement on the fastball, with control issues, but every 19-year old has those. I liked Weintraub and I was going to pick him if I was to get my paws on him to –

The first overall pick in the draft – by the Gold Sox – was SP Tommy Weintraub. While I was biting into my clenched fist, fingers white, the top five slowly but steadily were filled with John Muller to the Blue Sox, John Gudeman to the Condors, Brad Tesch to the Loggers, and James Silmon to the Indians. In an unprecedented situation, ALL of the first ten picks were from the hotlist, and the next two picks were position players that we didn’t even have on the longer shortlist with almost 100 players, with pitcher Marcus Garner to the Falcons and outfielder Nick Holt to the Knights.

By the time our pick rolled around, there were then still seven players left on the hotlist, all but one pitchers: Kincheloe, Fletcher, Powers, Samora, Blewett, Merwin, and Givens. Blewett and Merwin had no Grant West-type profile so they were not going to be our top pick, and Givens wasn’t a world beater in Calderón’s book, either. So it was down to a starting pitcher. Among those four, Kincheloe, Fletcher, and Powers were out of high school, and all 3-pitch guys with a good solid mix. Powers’ fastball was lagging behind the other two, who were quite similar to another, although Kincheloe was perhaps a notch up on Fletcher overall, although Calderón was not able to make a clear argument for one over the other. Powers and Samora were southpaws. Samora was a college guy with five pitches, but it was all a bit muddled. No one great blastaway pitch, and a rather tame 91mph fastball, comparable to Kincheloe and Fletcher, who were three to four years younger than him. We went back and forth quite a bit in the draft room and exceeded all of our five minutes’ time allotment to make our pick, before coming back with … Kincheloe. [If he ever makes it, I will cuss endlessly because I can’t type his ****ing name without screwing up!]

Fletcher and Powers went with the next two picks, Merwin also went in the first round proper, and the Stars picked Samora two picks ahead of our next chance. I still didn’t feel like drafting a relief pitcher without the overwhelming force behind him, and Calderón nudged me towards a third baseman that was not on the hotlist, but was quite interesting.

2014 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS

Round 1 (#16) – SP Roger Kincheloe, 17, from Pittsburgh, PA – right-hander with a hellacious slider and a very good changeup for a third pitch, solid control, and some nice movement on the fastball. Not overwhelming in any one point on his profile card, but a very good mix overall, and no easily spotted weaknesses.
Supp. Round (#33) – 3B Chris Schmitt, 18, from Pasadena, TX – able to hit for average and power and lay off the junk; very eager at the plate and not exactly looking for walks, if you know what I mean. Very solid defense with a murder arm. Not much speed, however.
Round 2 (#46) – OF/INF Tim Bean, 22, from West Valley City, UT – he is tremendously agile, can play all over the field, and is also a fast runner; the bat promises some pop and perhaps getting on base at a good rate. If he can get hitting at all, he might make it just by his versatility, but he might also be a defensive centerfielder.
Round 2 (#53) – SP Ryan Nielson, 21, from Rio del Mar, CA – left-hander with some ill control, but a big swooping curve that freezes hitters; changeup a work in progress.
Round 3 (#77) – INF Sam Armetta, 17, from New York, NY – you’d never guess it, but he has Italian and Norwegian heritage, the former granting him the name, and the latter a dangerously pale skin for playing in the south; very adept defender with a good contact bat that is so far easily fooled by breaking stuff; potential to be a great base stealer.
Round 4 (#101) – 1B Scott Thompson, 22, from Redding, CA – prototypical first baseman: mash a ball hard and far, then sit on a lawn chair next to first base, hoping nothing comes your way.
Round 5 (#125) – INF/LF Adam Walker, 18, from Fallbrook, CA – hits like a shortstop, but is a bit clumsy, yet that is nothing that changes by moving to second base… Has good speed and baserunning intelligence, however.
Round 6 (#149) – MR Adan Nelson, 23, from Pearl River, MS – entered as starting pitcher, but he really isn’t one, at least professionally. Only two pitches for this right-hander, who has a slider with potential, but will have to work on it quite a bit more.
Round 7 (#173) – RF/LF/1B Julius Jordan, 18, from Abilene, KS – not great at moving, not great at fielding, not great at laying off the junk; he can whack a ball deep, but needs to learn plate discipline foremost.
Round 8 (#197) – MR John King, 20, from Queens, NY – cutter, changeup, slider, but bad control is limiting the current performance and perhaps the potential of this left-hander that flies wide open during his delivery.
Round 9 (#221) – MR Jim Fickbohm, 20, from Chicago, IL – another left-hander with a decent slider to his 90mph fastball, but even more control issues.
Round 10 (#245) – SP J.J. Rodd, 18, from Staten Island, NY – yet another left-hander, this one mixing his curve and change well with his fastball, which is all but fast at 87mph.
Round 11 (#269) – OF Mitch Vanoy, 18, from Homestead Meadows South, TX – more of a defensive outfielder, with great range and moving quickly, but not much of an arm, to be honest; bat shows no power at all, but he might hit a lot of doubles thanks to hitting the ball to all fields, including the gaps and up the lines.
Round 12 (#293) – CL Ray Weiss, 21, from Freeport, IL – right-hander with a cutter, slider, and not a lot in terms of velocity or control.

All our picks will start their career in Aumsville. We will also cut some personnel over the next week or two to make room for all this fresh blood.