Elliott: 2020 CBN Draft Blog; Day 2

By Bob Elliott

Canadian Baseball Network

Much has been made of the 2019 draft eligibles and how little time they had to strut their stuff in front of pro scouts.

The high school season south of the border was almost nonexistent and the college season consisted of anywhere from 15-to-20 games rather than the usual 60.

Yet, the players who are really hurt from a lack of exposure are those eligible for the 2021 draft: the Canadian Junior National Team had its March trip cut short, its April trip to Florida cancelled, its May trip to the Dominican cancelled. Plus, likely zero trips south in July for the elite teams. Will there be fall ball?

That’s the group I feel sorry for since pro clubs won’t have much of a history on them.

The top Canuck high schoolers for June of 2021 are Toronto Mets’ LHP Mitchell Bratt (Newmarket, Ont.), who has committed to Florida State. Next are RHP Simon Lusignan (Varennes, Que.) of the Okotoks Dawgs, who has committed to the Stetson Hattes and Ontario Terriers’ INF Elijha Hammill (Oakville, Ont.), bound for the Utah Utes.

And of course last year’s college juniors will be draft eligible since the NCAA granted all student-athletes another year of eligibility.

An executive ‘s pre-draft review on Jays first-round pick SS Austin Martin: “The best overall hitter in the draft. Bat is quick, he can hit 15-20 homers, with lots of doubles. Should move fast through the system. A middle infielder whose best value is at second base, a pure, pure hitter. Has played infield and outfield. He’ll go high in the first round.”

Vanderbilt Commodores OF Cooper Davis (Mississauga, Ont.) Ontario Blue Jay: grad gives his review on Martin: “One of the best players I’ve ever played with. He is the true definition of a ball player. He plays the game right and plays it fast. He has so much potential and I have no doubt he will do great things for the Toronto Blue Jays.”

One Scout’s take on the 2020 draft: “This year it is tougher than ever to shoot for the moon and dream on someone because there is not enough rocket fuel to get there. Because of the five rounds, because of the talent and how much time we got to see them.”

College whiffs and misses: The Western Canada League, which features teams in Alberta and Saskatchewan has cancelled it season. The same for the Western College League with Kelowna. However, the Texas Collegiate League is up and running. Former Blue Jays third base coach and day one employee John McLaren will manage San Antonio in the double-A stadium.

Other Texas teams will be Victoria Generals, the Btrazo Valley Bombers and Texarkanna Twins, plus two clubs in Louisiana, the Acadiana Cane-Cutters and the Baton Rouge Rougarou.

Looking back: Most scouts we spoke to leading up to the draft had Arizona State’s Spencer Torkelson, going No. 1 to the Detroit Tigers. And that’s where he went. And Arkansas’ Heston Kjerstad would go second to the Baltimore Orioles.

LHP Asa Lacy of Texas A&M was supposed to go third and SS Austin Martin was supposed to go fourth. That left the Jays with Minnesota Golden Gophers RHP Max Meyer. One team did six mock rounds -- picking who they thought the team would pick, not who they needed -- and in five mocks Minor was a Blue Jay.

Of course Meyer went third to the Miami Marlins, Lacy, who is an Andy Pettitte clone, went fourth to the Kansas City Royals and then Jays grabbed Martin.

Scouting blues: The Los Angeles Angels furloughed all their scouts. So, scouting director Matt Swanson will run the draft with his two cross checkers. How would you like to have a wife and two kids and be looking for a job on June 1? The cross checkers are done Wednesday ... The Oakland A’s have furloughed their scouts including Matt Higginson (Grimsby, Ont.), the Canadian Baseball Network Scout of the Year,

Vernon Wells played 1,731 games to be the best of the Jays 13 No. 1 picks in the 1990s.

Glory days: The Jays had 13 first-round picks (counting extra picks for free-agent losses) make the majors in the decade of the 1990s under scouting directors Bob Engle and Tim Wilken, their cross checkers and area scouts:

RHP Steve Karsay (357 career games), OF Shawn Green (1,951), RHP Jeff Ware (18), OF Shannon Stewart (1,386), OF Todd Steverson (31), RHP Chris Carpenter (350), INF Kevin Witt (146), Hall of Famer RHP Roy Halladay (416), RP Billy Koch (379), INF Joe Lawrence (55), OF Vernon Wells (1,731), INF Felipe Lopez (1,185) and OF Alex Rios (1,691).

Big red is No. 1: Who needs a full season? Not OF Owen Caissie of the FieldHouse Pirates was with the Canadian Junior National Team in March facing a Team of Toronto Blue Jays minor leaguers. He homered into the batter’s eye at TD Bank in Dunedin off RHP Connor Overton on a 95 MPH pitch. Not yet 18, Caissie took Overton, a 2014 draftee deep.

Overton was drafted from Old Dominion and pitched at class-A Batavia, class-A Auburn, class-A Greensboro, triple-A Syracuse, class-A San Jose, double-A Sioux City, triple-A Sacramento, double-A Richmond and class-A San Jose In the Nationals. Giants and Marlins organizations (pitching 259 2/3 innings in 145 games allowing only 14 homers).

Slot money for Caissie is $1.65 million US, who went in the second round to the San Diego Padres. Not a bad start for rookie Padres Burlington, Ont., scout Chris Kemlo.

The Padres have always been high on Canuck talent -- sitting second all-tome in six-figure signings bonuses -- with RHP Cal Quantrill (Port Hope, Ont.) of Stanford University given a $3,963,045 bonus, RHP Matt Brash (Kingston, Ont. -- Canada’s first capital) from Niagara University and LHP Erik Sabrowski (Edmonton, Alta.) of Cloud County Community College given a $125,000 bonus. And the Padres traded for former No. 1 pick Josh Naylor (Mississauga, Ont.).

The Padres also selected probably Canada’s best shortstop in Kevin Nicholson (Surrey, BC) from Stetson College. As well San Diego signed C George Kottaras (Markham, Ont.) from Connors State College and INF Chris Bisson (Orleans, Ont.) from Kentucky.

When it comes to spending on Canadians the Padres are second to only the Pittsburgh Pirates. After a strong 2019 the Toronto Blue Jays moved up to eighth.

Ah, 1, 2, and a 3: MLB Pipeline’s draft guru Jim Callis said it best ... How it made sense for Trei Cruz to go in the third round to the Detroit Tigers. After all, he is Jose Cruz III.

Trei was born in Toronto on July 5, 1998. Papa was not there but that night with LF Shannon Stewart, CF Shawn Green and RF Mark Dalesandro in the outfield the Blue Jays edged the Tampa Rays 2-1 before 31,240 at SkyDome. Roger Clemens pitched 7 1/3 innings followed by relievers Dan Plesac, Paul Quantrill and Randy Myers.

Carlos Delgado knocked in a run with a fly ball and Tony Fernandez hit a game-winning single in the eighth. Cruz batted .253 with a .757 OPS in 105 games. He had 14 doubles, three triples, 11 homers and 42 RBIs for manager Tim Johnson.

Jose Cruz, a 30/30 player with the Jays, had 1,167 career hits, his father had 2,251 while brothers Hector had 361 and Tommy has seven at-bats. Trei would like to add to the Cruz totals of 3,779. Slot money for Trei in this the third time he was drafted is $857.400.

A wascailly wabbit: The Los Angeles Angels chose speedy OF David Calabrese (Maple, Ont.), from the Ontario Blue Jays. He flashed his speed every time out: Tournament 12, Perfect Game World Wood Bat and the Future Stars Series. He was clocked at 6.88 in Jupiter and circled the bases at Fenway Park when the outfield fumbled the ball. He crossed the plate standing. Calabreese ran a 6.4 60 at Fenway. He is a rated as a 70 runner (on a 20-ro-80 scale). At 5-foot-9, 145-pounds, but he also ran a ran a 6.47 60. Scouts believe he can play centre.

He went 82nd overall with a slot of $740,200. He was between RHP Robbie Vael (Surrey, BC) of Eastern Utah College who went to the Cleveland Indians in 1997 and LHP Steve Wilson (Victoria, BC) University of Portland chosen in 1985 by the Texas Rangers.

He’s coming to a team one way or another: Most drafted rafted collegians are on partial athletic scholarships. Not LF Jordon Nwogu who went 88th overall in the third round to the Chicago Cubs. Nwogu is a 6-foot-3 235 pounder. Nwogu earned an athletic scholarship to Michigan after attending a camp -- and he didn’t have either his glove or cleats.

Nwogu was born in Ottawa, while he only lived in the capital for a few formative months. His father Okey attended the University of Ottawa and worked at the National Research Council -- 20 years in all -- before moving to Ann Arbour, Mich. Jordan helped Michigan to the College World Series in Omaha, where the Wolverines lost to the Vanderbilt Commodores.

This spring he led off all 15 games in virus-shortened season hitting .353 with two home runs, finishing with 24 hits and a double. He scored a 1,440 out of 1,600 on his SAT, had a GPA of 3.96 out of 4.0. If baseball doesn’t work out he hopes to work for a club in the front office.

Standing tall: Logan Hofmann was a 5-foot-10, 190-pounder when he stood on the rubber. Now, if the late Philadelphia Phillies general manager Dallas Green was around he would have kept on walking. Green wanted his right-handed pitchers to be 6-foot-3.

Yet when Hofmann (Muenster, Sask.) stood on the mound for the Northwestern State Demons he looked like a giant. He went 4-0 in four starts for the while not allowing an earned run as he struck out 38 to lead the conference. His 28 scoreless innings were THE BEST in the NCAA Div. I, with an 0.68 ERA. He gave up 14 hits, walked five and hit one batter,

Hofmann earned second-team All-American honors from Collegiate Baseball Magazine and Southland Conference Pitcher of the Week honours. His slot money, for being selected 138th is $402,000. He was chosen between RHP Nic Pivetta (Victoria, BC) of New Mexico Jr. College, who went to the Washington Nationals in 2013 and RHP Tom Robson (Ladner, BC) of the Langley Blaze and the Canadian Junior National Team, selected by the Blue Jays in 2011.

One player increase in first five rounds: With the draft slashed from 40 rounds to five (slashing an average of 21 Canadian drafts the past eight years) there were only five Canucks drafted. In 2019, 27 Canadians were chosen, including four in the first 10 rounds last year:

OF Dasan Brown (Oakville, Ont.) of the Ontario Blue Jays and the Canadian Junior National Team went in the third round to the Toronto Blue Jays; OF Jake Sanford (Cole Harbour, NS) Western Kentucky University went to the New York Yankees in the same round; RHP Matt Brash (Kingston, Ont. -- Canada’s first capital) from the Niagara University was selected by the San Diego Padres in the fourth and RHP Josh Burgmann (Nanaimo, BC) of the University of Washington went to the Cubs in the fifth.

Bottom line: The five Canadians drafted was the lowest since 1990 when only one Canadian was chosen. The draft is supposed to climb to 20 rounds next June.

Players drafted

By team: Angels 1, Cubs 1, Padres 1, Pirates 1, Tigers 1.

By province: Ontario 4, Saskatchewan 1.