Randy Dickson: MLB draft always hard to figure
It didn’t take long for the news that former Crestview star Blake Dean had been selected by the Minnesota Twins in the 10th round of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft on Wednesday.
In fact, it seemed as if people knew many of the details about Dean’s selection before the news made the local papers or television.
I could hear young fans talking about Dean’s status in the draft as I sat in my favorite spot watching the Bulldogs take on Columbus, Ga., in the Justin Richards Scholarship Tournament.
Some of them had him being drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies twice and the New York Yankees in addition to being selected by the Twins. The kids were only slightly wrong in that the Phillies called Dean twice and the Yankees once and he rejected the courtship of those two teams.
Whether or not Dean signs with the Twins in the days to come or goes back to Louisiana State to play his senior year for the Tigers might not be decided until August.
When the day comes when Dean does decide to move into professional ball, either this year or next year, one of his biggest supporters is confident he’ll do extremely well.
“I think he’s a Major League player,” Bulldog coach Tim Gillis said. “I think he’s a first-round draft pick and that’s my take on it, but I don’t get to make that decision. If you look at what he’s all about and what he’s done over his career the results speak for themselves.
“I still say he’s a Major League All-Star. I don’t know if that’s a lot of pressure, but I just think he has that type of ability. It will just be up to him to perform and get it done, but I think he can do it.”
A former teammate of Atlanta’s Chipper Jones in the minor leagues, Gillis speaks as one who was close enough to taste the Major Leagues.
Even so, Gillis is the first to admit sometimes it seems as if nobody really knows what teams are looking for in the draft.
I’ve asked my share of questions about the draft to Gillis and former Northwest Florida State College baseball coach Keith Griffin. I’ve done some research into the subject too. And the only conclusion I came up with is Gillis is right, nobody really knows what teams are looking for in the draft.
Neil Gielser has the highest single-season (.432) and career batting average in Northwest Florida State history. He also hit .357 for the University of South Carolina his senior year, and yet he was never drafted again after his freshman year with the Raiders. He also stands 6-feet-5 and weighs better than 200 pounds and played third base, shortstop and first base in college.
So you tell me why he wasn’t drafted.
Really the two biggest factors in whether or not a player is drafter seem to be their potential or upside and the ability to sign him.
Baseball scouts tend to look at raw numbers such as speed, arm strength and power rather than field numbers such as batting average or how many batters a pitcher strikes out.
That might be crazy, but that’s baseball.
There are some things that neither statistics nor the measuring tape can capture and those are desire and work ethic.
Blake Dean has the tools to make it to the Major Leagues, and he has the statistics along the way to back up those physical tools.
If you throw Dean’s heart into the equation it could be just a matter of time before the former Crestview star is a Major League All-Star just like Gillis predicted.
