A day into Major League Baseball’s draft warranted a professional nod from several local talents. Including two pitchers from Vanderbilt, Sonny Gray who’s going to the Oakland A’s (currently fourth in the AL west) and Grayson Garvin who will be making his way to the Tampa Bay Rays (third in the AL east) next season, ironically this duo really sums up the first round of the draft-pitchers reign supreme.
While it’s not a complete surprise how pitching heavy the draft has been this year, the fact that the vast majority are mound bound is a little shocking when one considers how many teams are currently in the process of establishing more of an offense. In fact, the first four picks were all pitchers, a surprise to many observers.
Either way, Gray and Garvin should be solid picks for both ball clubs. Meanwhile, Kentucky has their own pitcher going to the Washington Nationals (fifth in the NL east) in Alex Meyer. While Western Kentucky’s outfielder, Kes Carter will be joining Garvin in Tampa.
The draft is set to continue into Wednesday with the second round today, and in the currently undrafted top 50 prospects Vanderbilt has another possible draft in third baseman/shortstop Jason Esposito, while outfielder Alex Dickerson of Indiana is hopeful that he’ll get the note for the bigs within the next two rounds.
The second round is set to commence at noon today, while the last rounds will occur Wednesday at noon.
By the way, if you were curious the top teams currently in the National League are the Philadelphia Phillies out of the east, the St. Louis Cardinals in the central division, and the San Francisco Giants out of the West. In the American League, the New York Yankees lead the pack in the east, while the Cleveland Indians are up in the central, and the Texas Rangers are currently ahead of their competition in the west.
Image courtesy of M. Cornelison of Kentucky Sports
