[Westheim]

2042 ABL DRAFT POOL ANALYSIS

The Raccoons were well-equipped with draft picks for the 2042 minimum wage personnel market, having acquired the #16 pick by performance in the 2041 season, as well as three compensation picks for the losses of Bernie Chavez, Drew Johnson, and Tony Morales, which would give them four picks in the top 50 and five in the top 60-or-so.

There were certainly picks available for whatever the heart desired, at least if you were picking at the top of the pile. We had 132 players on the shortlist, and certainly didn’t have to suffer for a lack of options for our usual hotlist with a dozen-or-so players that we’d like to add to the farm (players with * are high school players):

SP Sean Fowler (13/13/12) * - BNN #9
SP Gary Perrone (13/14/12)
SP Jim White (13/13/12) – BNN #6
SP Lance Parent (12/12/9) – BNN #7
SP Jeremy Chaney (11/17/13) – BNN #8

CL Sam Gibson (17/13/8)

C Ray DeFrank (11/11/17) * - BNN #4

INF Nathan Whitehurst (14/9/11) *
3B Seth Lyon (13/6/13) *
SS/2B Jonathan Ban (14/5/11)
INF Billy Canning (9/11/10)

OF/1B Billy Quinteros (10/13/17)
LF/RF Justin Griffith (12/8/10) *
LF/RF David Sanders (12/5/11)

Not that all was rosy with all of them: Whitehurst was certainly more a corner player than a middle infielder. Second base was an option for him. Seth Lyon struck me as a Matt Nunley type of player, which was immediately intriguing. Griffith and Sanders were both interesting corner outfielders with defensive deficiencies. DeFrank was also stick-first, glove-later, which was not ideal for a catcher. A move to first base was an option.

As far as the pitchers were concerned, Chaney was throwing only two pitches at this point, and OSA hated a couple of our selections. But we’d happily pick all of these players… or at least one of them.

There was a second catcher that was put at #1 on BNN’s list, high schooler Blake “Fireworks” Mickle. He had a better arm than DeFrank and had major power potential in the cards. Whether he’d ever make enough contact to actually get to hit homers in the majors was an entirely different question. We certainly had him on the radar, but whether you’d want to burn a first-round pick on him was a matter of discussion.