[Westheim]

Contrary to usual procedures, I will drop the draft in ahead of time. I played the Buffaloes series yesterday, and will finish the week probably tomorrow morning, but I did this tonight, and why hold on to it for any longer...?

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2023 AMATEUR DRAFT

Going into the draft, I had made up my mind about which player I wanted to draft once he fell to the #4 pick. Yeah, there was this pitcher and that pitcher, but what my heart was really longing for was to finally have a batter again to root for and to be sure about that he would put things just by swinging his stick. And that player was Tim Stackhouse. Who doesn’t like a slugging middle infielder!?

Here is that hotlist again… High School players are marked with an asterisk:

SP Geoff Swayze (12/12/6) * – BNN #4
SP Matt Diduch (14/12/11) – BNN #3
SP Pat Okrasinski (12/14/11) – BNN #1
SP Bobby Reed (10/11/10) *
SP Josh Weeks (11/12/11) – BNN #2
SP Zach Ward (10/13/10) *

SP Adrian McQuinn (10/14/12)

C Elijah Bean (13/12/10) *

2B/SS/3B Tim Stackhouse (12/14/14) – BNN #5
1B Brad Woods (9/10/14)

RF/LF/1B Brian Marshall (9/9/12)
OF/1B Kyle Brown (10/11/11)

**** the ****ing Bay****birds!! They selected Tim Stackhouse at #2, between the Elks selecting Geoff Swayze and Matt Diduch going to the Stars. All my dreams were dead, yet again, and as usual. Grief-stricken and robbed of purpose, the Raccoons were reduced to selecting Elijah Bean, a somewhat powerful, but not very selective batter for their first high-rank pick of almost a decade. And from the start I already didn’t like him, and thought, well, that could have been Stackhouse…

I will make sure Bean feels my dismay about his very existence. For starters, I refused to appear on the photo the ABL took with each of the top 10 picks and the respective team brass, and when I tried to sneak onto the Bayhawks’ photo with Stackhouse, I got booted by their GM. Life is hard.

The Warriors completed the top 5 by signing Pat Okrasinski, with #6 pick Bob O’Dell, an outfielder, being the first player not on our hotlist to get selected. The Cyclones took him. Oddly, the hotlist would not be exhausted for quite a while. Well, all pitchers were gone by the #26 pick, but then there were still three batters from the hotlist left over – all that weren’t named Stackhouse (weeps) or Bean (grunts). Brian Marshall was not taken until the #30 pick, and Kyle Brown not even until the Miners took him at #42. Remember that the Coons had no supplemental round pick due to no eligible free agents (and that was a pattern that might repeat again and again in the next years as we were trapped in a spiral of defeat and horrors), and their next pick didn’t roll around until #47. At that point, Brad Woods was still lingering in the draft pool, and the Coons shrugged, then pulled him out.

While we picked off the shortlist for the rounds after that, there were a few players on the shortlist that I didn’t get but would have liked, although as usual for all the wrong reasons. For example, the Raccoons selected a utility player and switch-hitter with good contact potential in the fourth round rather than the strong defensive shortstop I had my eye on. That shortstop, Peyton Hill, was signed by the Titans at the end of the round with the 115th pick, four ahead of the Coons’ next go. Then again, how many more strong defensive shortstops do I really need before I hit 100 losses?

We actually managed to pick from the shortlist all the way through the tenth round, which might speak a bit for the quality of the scouting we’re conducting, and we even had another two players left on the shortlist by the 11th round, but a) both were catchers, and we didn’t need any more of those, and b) that is the Nick Brown Memorial Pick round!

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2023 PORTLAND RACCOONS DRAFT CLASS
Round 1 (#4) – C Elijah Bean, 19, from Columbus, OH – his biggest claim to prominence might be a power bat with decent average; power goes to all fields, although he could use a more selective approach at the plate; no additional perks, as in only decent catcher ability, a rather soft arm, and of course as slow as catchers usually come
Round 2 (#47) – 1B Brad Woods, 20, from Hoffman Estates, IL – ticks most of the boxes of the big, strong, dumb first baseman; not very good at moving himself in any capacity, although he can whack a ball for a country mile; too bad that he hacks at everything.
Round 3 (#71) – SP Travis Taylor, 21, from Bellflower, CA – right-hander that throws 92 and an assortment of barely-working breaking stuff; there is some promise to the cutter and curveball, but there is more concern about his general inability to hit the zone…
Round 4 (#95) – OF/2B/3B Sean Catella, 18, from Bentonville, AR – if some of the following puzzle pieces can fit together neatly, he could make a worthwhile player: switch-hitter with a sharp eye, nice contact bat, some speed, and versatility – the problem lies in an abundance of “somewhat” and a lack of “yeah definitely” with him, as he scratches many boxes, but probably never will tick any of them.
Round 5 (#119) – SP Steve Costilow, 21, from Hazleton, PA – now, the box says starting pitcher on this right-hander, but we have our doubts. He lacks any signs of being able to develop a third pitch, which is a shame giving his gorgeous curveball he throws in addition to the 93mph cutter.
Round 6 (#143) – CL Dale Autry, 22, from Davis, CA – the closer moniker is maybe a bit hysterical for this right-hander, who throws neither real heat, nor very precisely.
Round 7 (#167) – 1B/C Rich Hood, 17, from Rancho San Diego, CA – he’s a strange beast, pretending to be a catcher, despite lacking the necessary ability, and pretending to be a slugger, but hitting only two home runs and seven doubles in the past high school season. There must be some method to his madness, although the Raccoons have previously drafted a Rich Hood and that didn’t work out, either.
Round 8 (#191) – 2B/SS Judah Clayton, 21, from Harrison, TN – middle infielder with absolutely no power, decent defense, but no base stealing aptitude.
Round 9 (#215) – CL Kevin Davis, 20, from Otsego, MI – right-handed relief type with a neat changeup in his small repertoire, but he throws only 89 with the fastball.
Round 10 (#239) – C Josh Sink, 20, from Sumter, SC – he was in the draft as a catcher, but the Raccoons will turn him around into a pitcher (which yielded semi-usable relievers in the past) given his ability to throw a neat curve and the fastball at 90mph.
Round 11 (#263) – SP Mike Mattice, 18, from Spring Hill, FL – this left-hander does not have much going, just like Nick Brown did in ’95…
Round 12 (#287) – 3B/LF/RF/1B Shane Frink, 19, from Waycross, GA – him occupying all four corners spots is really all about him that reminds me of the awesomeness that once was Mark Dawson…
Round 13 (#311) – SP Nick Brill, 20, from Columbus, GA – we may or may not have selected this left-hander by sorting the remainders alphabetically and taking the name right at the top of the list.

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Our minor league teams weren’t quite as packed with players this season, so there were actually few termination notices handed down, although of course a few guys were struck by lightning. There was left-hander that the Riddler had dragged in a while back and who had a 9+ ERA in Aumsville that got sent back to Puerto Rico. In fact, we had only held on to him until now because there were no replacements in the international complex who I considered able to even pitch THAT well.

Also canned was C Brandon Tally, our seventh-rounder from ’21, who was batting .182 and had done so since arriving in Aumsville. The next pick from that draft, eighth-round infielder Joe McGary was released as well for being a waste of oxygen. 2020 seventh-rounder, outfielder Steve Blackard, was also released for his consistently wanting performance.

The next on the list might have been that odd Colombian kid from the Hebrew high school in New York we took in the ninth round last year, batting a consistent sub-.500 OPS, but somehow the Riddler really saw promise of any kind in him. He’d get a stay.

All of this year’s signings were also sent to Aumsville.