Coal Sox Hoping Draft Yielded Hidden Gems
by Patrick Bailey, Charleston Gazette
6/7/09: YUMA, AZ – Draft day is infamous in baseball front offices. Two, three, sometimes four years of scouting reports, statistics, box scores and articles have to somehow sort themselves out into a dozen, maybe two dozen names. Even the most carefully predicted mock drafts can be rendered worthless by a single surprise pick.
Unfortunately for the Coal Sox, the scene on draft day this Sunday was relatively tame. Earl Valentine, West Virginia’s director of player development, sat in the draft office with his feet resting lazily on the table. Outside, the commotion on the draft stage could be heard. The draft was in the middle of the first round and Valentine wasn’t even paying attention. His TV was playing highlights from last year’s All-Star Game.
On draft day, Valentine is the man in charge. After endless hours of input from the team’s scouts, analysts, coaching staff and the general manager himself, Valentine is trusted with selecting the players who will shape West Virginia’s future. Thanks to aggressive dealing in the off-season that saw the team’s first-round pick head to Aurora and second-round pick head to Connecticut, he wasn’t needed for over an hour after the draft started.
“Of course we do our due diligence on all players eligible for the draft,” Valentine mused, absentmindedly thumbing through a sheaf of papers. “But this year, our scouts were able to save a bit of gas money. Let’s just say one of our scouts was in the same state as Bill Bradley and we considered that a report.” Valentine let out a hearty laugh. “The upside of our situation was that we were able to spend more time looking at some guys most clubs probably passed over.”
That was the game plan for the Coal Sox – digging deep to find quality picks in the later rounds. Although always a good idea, the Sox had to pull it off this season since it was their only opportunity. When Valentine announced the Sox’s first selection of the 2009 draft, with the 11th pick in the third round and 59th overall college closer Tony Castillo became the newest member of the Black Lung Brigade.
The towering power lefty from Michigan State was everything the Coal Sox were hoping to find – a great prospect with obvious flaws. With a career WHIP of 1.42, Castillo at first glance looks like a player who would be fortunate to be drafted at all. His career BABIP (.404) goes a long way to explain that number, and combined with a 10.82 K/9 his stuff should translate well to professional baseball.
Thanks to a trade with Reno the Sox had another pick in the third round and continued their strategy of drafting players with flaws, this time opting for Arizona’s center fielder José Velásquez and his dislocated shoulder. Velásquez was having the best season of his collegiate career before dislocating his shoulder diving for a ball in March. If he can make a successful recovery, then the Sox have added a player who OPSed .930 while playing a premium defensive position.
Another notable selection in the draft was the Sox’s first selection in the 6th round – Ernesto Nevárez. A shortstop who projects as a third baseman, Nevárez’s senior year numbers were not out of this world – .343/.410/.621 – but what was impressive was the trend. In his junior year Ernesto Nevárez posted a .895 OPS, and his sophomore year a .651. “We think Ernesto Nevárez, working closely with our coaching staff, has a great potential to sustain the success of his senior year,” Valentine stated. Ernesto Nevárez will immediately begin learning his new position when he reports to Kauai.
When the day was over, Valentine appeared content. The Coal Sox had achieved one of their additional draft goals by taking several starting pitchers in the late rounds and had even found a fringe catching prospect in Michael Ray. The newest members of the organization are all being assigned to short-season Kauai, where the season will get underway tomorrow. Some of the more advanced prospects, particularly the collegiate selections, may shortly thereafter be promoted to full-season Rosarito.
The overall success of the draft, like all drafts, will not be known for years. But the success of the Coal Sox’s 2009 season will shortly reveal whether the strategy of trading away the team’s top picks was worth the risk.