[Westheim]

2056 DRAFT POOL ANALYSIS

With the end of May, draft season was upon us yet again. The Raccoons had 133 players on the shortlist (including a two-way guy we’d talk about in a second), and of course there was also another hotlist that I insisted on Eric Hartwig begrudgingly compiling (*high school player):

SP Jason Bair (11/15/11) * – BNN #8
SP D.C. Kozick (12/11/16) *
SP Carson Miller (11/11/12) *
SP Mike DeWitt (13/15/11) *

CL Elijah LaBat (14/16/11)

C Curt Goodwin (11/14/13)
C Josh Heath (8/15/9) * – BNN #3

1B Danny Starwalt (8/14/17)
1B Joe Agee (7/10/14)
INF/LF Elliott Grant (14/8/10) *

OF Tyler Wharton (15/12/13) *
OF Eddie Marcotte (12/16/14) * – BNN #10
OF Tommy Branch (9/15/11) – BNN #9
UT Jorge Moreno (11/1/10) *

Yup, one of those years where I found the selection of college starting pitchers entirely unimpressive. That one surely hurt less if you were drafting #24 and #36, and just barely four times inside the top 100 in total.

It should also be noted that Eric Hartwig was a nationally renowned misanthropist and didn’t like ANY player, so a 15 for contact or 11 for stuff was quite impressive and the guy should be going on the Hall of Fame ballot right now…. Somehow we were also miles away from BNN’s top 10 this year, but don’t let yourself be confused by Jon Agee being given seven contact by Hartwig. OSA had him at 10/10/12, he was one of the most talked-about prospects in the nation, and if there was anything putting me off him it was his porous defense at first base. The story was similar for Starwalt.

But the one guy that needed another light shone on him was D.C. Kozick. The quick description was “Kyle Brobeck, but better”. Rated 13/10/6 by even Hartwig as a batter, he promised to be a capable, but unimpressive defender at third base, with some speed at least (still brings me back to Matt Nunley comparisons, although Kozick was a righty hitter). But he might just be a lot more valuable as a pitcher, despite a rather unimpressive 87mph at this point. His selection of cutter, changeup, and circle change in addition to that fastball made me foam from the mouth, however, and I’d love to get my paws on this 17-year-old, which sounded wrong in all the wrong way, but that we only had the #24 pick sounded way worse for me…..