On Sunday, the day before the draft, our leader Bryan Murphy posted a Draft Prediction thread, and challenged us to “Assert your dominance on the internet by being right”.

Well… I’m just going to brag about this.

I got the second round pick, #51 being Logan Wyatt! I’m damned proud of this, because predicting second round picks in baseball drafts is hard. Heck, even the #10 pick had almost every mock draft predicting someone different. (Sure, I got that wrong, but Hunter Bishop topped my wishlist, so I call that a win!).

I’m not saying this means anything about what I know about baseball, or that you should listen to anything I have to say, but… well, maybe you should?

Oh, and just ignore where I said the Giants would take more pitchers in this draft than position players. I meant to hit the other button, that’s all. Nothing to see there.

Farhan Zaidi’s first draft was an interesting one, but I want to start at the top.

Zaidi’s first pick as Giants GM was absolutely perfect. Hunter Bishop is exactly what Zaidi needed coming out of this draft. Let’s check the checklist.

He is an exciting player with a high ceiling.

He has power. Not Bonds power, but good power.

He is an outfielder, addressing a long sticking point with fans about development.

He’s a local kid and homegrown Giants fan.

That last one is probably one a few of you reading might say “Who cares?” or dismiss all together. But it’s important. Sure, Bishop doesn’t have a sad kid photo of him worried that his team is about to move. He probably doesn’t even remember Candlestick Park. But he did grow up a Giants fan, idolizing Barry Bonds and wanting to hit balls into McCovey Cove.

That’s important to the large group of Giants fans out there. The more casual ones, who aren’t investing the couple of hundred dollars to go to games as often any more. The older ones, who don’t really understand analytics but who can afford season tickets. The ones we don’t see as often in the comments.

They like the players. Sure, they like winning, but liking the players are almost as important. They fear the coming (or truly present) rebuild because the core of players they’ve come to love will just get traded away for prospects they don’t know, and on top of it, there’ll also be losing. And they’d rather lose with the guys they love rather than strangers.

Now, we know that rebuilding means winning later, and having a transition period, sure, but we should also know the vast majority of people like instant gratification. And, it has to be known that ultimately, the ownership still needs those fans. The longer the bad seasons go, the further those fans stray, and the harder it will be to get them back.

Hunter Bishop, assuming he makes it in some form, is a promise for fans like them. That despite these new ways these damned kids look at the game, there will still be players they can make a connection with, who grew up idolizing their home team, and that we still want to root for for reasons beyond the laundry.

That’s a perfect first draft impression for Farhan Zaidi. Zaidi’s Waiver Wire Funhouse has been disconcerting, and the coming trade dissolution of our ringholders is obviously in the air (isn’t that right, stupid New York reporter?). But Zaidi has given fans a glimpse of the future with him, and every fan, even the casual ones that only an owner can love, have to like what they see.

The Breakdown

This is where this draft gets interesting.

Before the draft, Zaidi said of the system “I think our relative strength is on the pitching side.” I’m not sure I personally agree with that, but I could see overall depth leaning that way. But that statement still did not prepare me for this.

The Giants drafted only 15 pitchers versus 25 position players, and drafted just one pitcher in the first ten picks (8th round). For those who are new to the draft, let me share something: Outside of the top few picks in a draft, the chances of a first round pick making the majors is about 50/50; the chances of them being an impact player are lower. In the second round, a player’s chance of making the bigs is probably closer to 20%, with a sub-10% chance of being an impact player. Those chances get lower and lower each round. Beyond the top 5 rounds, pretty much every player is a lottery ticket, with a 5% chance of even just making the Majors.

This draft was a weak pitching draft, true, but taking such a dearth of pitching is striking. After all, even if you aren’t counting on them making the majors, someone has to actually pitch in the minors.

Now, maybe it won’t matter too much in the long run. The Giants did get a steal of a pitcher in Trevor McDonald in the 11th round, a player who was ranked by MLB as #183 in the draft class, and #151 by Baseball America…which equates to a 5th or 6th round pick. And in 2018, the Giants were pitching heavy, with seven of the top ten picks being pitchers (behind first round pick Joey Bart).

But it’s still curious.

Here’s your positional breakdown:

OF: 9

CIF: 6

MIF: 9

C: 1

RHP: 14

LHP: 1

Now, let’s talk about the other unusual breakdown: High school picks. The Giants had three high school picks in the Top 10 (3rd, 5th and 6th rounds), as well as McDonald in the 11th round. That in of itself isn’t unusual. It’s actually pretty normal. The Giants’ 2007 draft, in which they had six picks in the top 51 picks, saw five of those go to high schoolers (including Madison Bumgarner). That’s extreme.

No, what’s unusual is the number of high school players they picked starting in the 27th round. In the final 14 picks, the Giants picked 7 high school players. Some of them are the biggest talents the Giants picked. And yet, I’d be surprised if more than one of them actually signs.

In general, the practice of spending a late round pick on a high schooler who is almost certainly going to go to college is not unusual. It’s not just a lottery ticket, it’s buying a lottery ticket that, if you win those odds, you just get another lottery ticket. It might get you in good graces for when that player becomes eligible to be drafted after their college career…not that they have any more control over where they go at that point, because they’ll still be in a draft with 29 other teams picking.

But the Giants starting to do it in the 27th round is pretty early. 7 picks that are essentially thrown away, not even getting good minor league soldiers, is a lot. Their 27th round pick was the only non-Puerto Rican high school player taken in that round. In this draft, you started to really see the throwaway high school picks start in the 30th round more earnestly.

(Puerto Rican high school players don’t have the same stigma, as they traditionally have higher signing chances. The Giants also took a player from one of the baseball academies in Puerto Rico in the 25th round.)

I don’t know what to think of this strategy by Zaidi and Michael Holmes, the Giants amateur scouting director. The reality is that a lot of those late round picks aren’t going to be Major Leaguers anyways, but they might be solid minor league contributors to help start the careers of the others. But there are other opportunities to fill those spots, including signing undrafted players.

Here’s the breakdown of the places where the Giants drafted from:

4-Year College: 26

Junior College: 2

High School: 12

If you’ve followed this draft at all, you’ve probably seen this video in the last few days:

That is Rodney McCray, crashing through an outfield fence in Portland, way back in 1991. It literally got McCray into the Baseball Hall of Fame… on the Hall’s blooper reel.

Rodney McCray is also the father of the Giants’ third round pick, Grant McCray, a high school center fielder with a lot of tools. McCray has a lot of potential for development and growth, and could be a young talent in the system.

Well, I have a new video for you.

That is 22nd round pick Javeyan Williams, of Southern University, crashing into a wall that’s slightly more reinforced than the ones in Portland back in 1991. Gotta love the enthusiasm. The best part has to be that… uh… throw back into the infield. At first I thought he’d spiked it on purpose, until someone told him to go get it. Hell of a catch… but I hope he doesn’t do it on the bricks at AT&T Park.

Williams’ college coach, Kerrick Jackson, started off a comment on Williams after his team’s playoff run ended with one of the bluntest comments I’ve ever heard, which turned positive. “When I got here last year, his swing was not very good and his baseball IQ was not very high. He started last year in the first half of the season hitting .150 with .310 on‐base percentage. When we made some adjustments, he decided to buy in. He finished last year hitting .260 with a .420 on‐base percentage. This year, he just took off for us. He was able to buy into the things we were asking him to do and make those adjustments.”

I love me players willing to be coached, make adjustments, and succeed.

One theme that has continued from the pre-Zaidi days is that the Giants drafted a lot of guys who get praised for their mindset and mental abilities. Reading into almost every one of the guys the Giants drafted, you see comments about being a good student, a good leader, strong personality, high baseball IQ. All of which is a good thing.

That brings me to Chris Wright, a starting pitcher from Bryant University the Giants drafted in the 12th round. There’s a great article from the Cape Cod League (college baseball’s premier summer league), and general manager Ned Monthie of the Brewster White Caps, the 2017 Cape Cod League champions. After years of prospects coming in, he had figured something out. Talking about the top-flight talent who were future high-round draft picks, he said, “They’re out here for them,” Shevchik said. “They’re out here because they see dollar signs. They don’t necessarily grasp the fact of team baseball.”

Shevchik had loved a Bryant outfielder named Mickey Gasper, saying he embodied it like no other, and called up Bryant head coach Steve Owens, asking for a new recommendation. And he recommended first baseman Chris Wright, who had the same mindset. Without listening to stats or scouting reports, Wright was signed to the Cape Cod league.

Wright did not hit very well, only .187, but the two way pitcher impressed with his pitching, striking out 21 with five walks in 11.2 innings. Wright had been a mediocre starter two seasons before, and pitched a total of 1.1 innings the previous spring at Bryant, so the pitching surprised. Wright went back to Bryant, and struck out 64 in 34.1 innings working strictly as a reliever. Now that he will be concentrating on hitting, he might be a strikeout man out of the bullpen.

One more thing about Shevchik. His thoughts about that former Bryant outfielder, he shared them about his team’s co-MVP from 2017, a talented but then-underperforming freshman from Arizona State. One named Hunter Bishop. You might have heard that the Giants drafted him, too.

As you can tell, the world of baseball prospects can be a pretty small world. It’s a very, very tangled web out there, and there’s always connections between guys. But sometimes, players run into each other early.

13th round pick Harrison Freed played high school baseball in Westfield High School, outside of Indianapolis, with a very talented pitcher and teammate, Ryan Pepiot, who he had been playing with since he was 11 through high school and travel ball. Freed suffered in in high school. He had injuries throughout his high school days. In his junior year, his Aunt was murdered, something he and his brother took very hard. Freed began to write her initials in the dirt before every at-bat to remember her. Freed came out of high school with only one offer to play college baseball, a walk-on opportunity at Butler University. With his high school teammate Pepiot.

“Harrison is one of the most under-recruited players I have ever seen with his talent level,” his highly recruited teammate Pepiot said. “The fact that he wasn’t getting any offers to play collegiate offers was unbelievable to me.”

Freed was a hitter without much pop his first two years at Butler, but during Summer League ball, the 5’11” hitter found some pop. His Junior year, he hit 17 home runs in 52 games, leading the Big East Conference, and getting himself a 13th round draft opportunity with the Giants.

Oh, and his childhood friend and longtime teammate, Ryan Pepiot? He got himself drafted, too. In the 3rd round.

By the Los Angeles Dodgers.

(Boy, I hope both make it, and don’t get traded. That is rivalry material made for the movies.)

The Giants drafted only one catcher in this draft, Brandon Martorano, in the 16th round out of University of North Carolina. Like others in this draft, Martorano has drawn a lot of comments about his high character and competitiveness.

In fact, as a high school catcher in 2015, Matarano was being compared very highly. As in, compared to Buster Posey.

“To be compared to an All-Star caliber player such as Mr. Posey is such an honor,” said Martorano in an interview as a senior. “Ironically enough, Mr. Posey is the player I try to model my game after the most. His ability to be a great defensive catcher as well as a force in the middle of the lineup is something that I aspire to be at the next level.”

The comparisons did not stop there. Although his batting stats were never great, batting .246/.375/.491, he was named to the Watch List for the National Collegiate Catcher of the Year Award… formerly known as the Johnny Bench Award, but recently renamed the Buster Posey Award. He did not become a finalist for the award, but the Posey comparisons just kept rolling now.

Now, he’s in the same organization as Buster Posey.

Funny how these things work out. I imagine the first conversation between them will be very, very interesting. And maybe a little starstruck.

As I followed the MLB draft on Days 2 and 3 with the fine fans here on McCovey Chronicles in the comments, I kept hearing one name repeated over and over by some of our readers as a future draft pick, not for 2019, but for 2020: Spencer Torkelson.

A slight dip into him, and it’s easy to see why… there’s plenty of connections. Spencer Torkelson plays at ASU, teammates with this year’s first round pick Hunter Bishop. Like Bishop, Torkelson is a Bay Area native. And the right-handed Torkelson has elite power, having demolished the ASU freshman home run record of 11 home runs — Torkelson had 25.

Oh, and you might recognize the now-former record holder. One Barry Lamar Bonds.

So, aside from all that, and having an amazing baseball name (I can already hear the dulcet tones of Duane Kuiper saying “That ball was absolutely Torked!”), I bring him up for one other reason: Giants’ 15th round pick Carter Aldrete, also from Arizona State University.

If that name sounds familiar, yes, Carter is the nephew of former Giants’ first baseman Mike Aldrete. Carter’s father Rich was also a Giants’ draft pick, in the 31st round of 1987, though he never made the Majors.

Now, let’s be honest about Carter. He’s got a huge Baseball IQ (there’s that trend), but he doesn’t have any major stand out tools. His versatility is his calling card, playing well pretty much everywhere but catcher and pitcher, and he’d probably pick up a glove for either of those spots if asked to. And while Torkelson hit 25 home runs as a freshman, Carter had a total of six home runs…Nover two seasons at ASU.

So, of course, when Carter ended up in the 2018 Cape Cod League Home Run Derby finals against Torkelson (and USC’s Blake Sabol, who was a nonfactor), I mean, of course everyone knew what was going to happen. But then, I wouldn’t be writing this is what everyone knew would happen actually had.

Torkelson hit 10 home runs in the final round, which was double what Carter had hit in his first round. But somehow, Carter got into a groove, and finished the final round with 11. (Sabol ended third, with seven). Carter Aldrete had beat Spencer Torkelson in a home run derby.

Fun was had with the teammates, but there was no way these two weren’t going to have a rematch in the desert.

In an impromptu home run derby at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, home of the Sun Devils, they had their rematch. And Carter Aldrete repeated the feat, winning 13-12.

Carter, in the video above, says he will not compete in another home run derby again, so his head-to-head title remains safe, for now.

But then again… if Aldrete and Torkelson somehow end up in a Giants Spring Training camp in 2021 together, teammates again… you never know what might happen.

Speaking of home run derbies, let’s talk about Giants 6th round pick, Dilan Rosario, a shortstop out of Colegio Marista High School in Puerto Rico. The Giants always seem to have a high draft pick out of Puerto Rico (like first rounder Heliot Ramos), and Rosario comes to the Giants with one strong scouting report: defense. He’s the best in the Puerto Rican class at shortstop, and his defense will carry him. But his MLB.com scouting report says the one thing holding him back right now is strength. Even though he puts the bat on the baseball, he has no strength behind his swing to make solid contact. Now, weight just 175 pounds at 6’, there’s room for him to add more strength.

That said, despite that reputation, he ended up the Champion of a high school showcase Home Run Derby pulling top prospects from across the island (though not first round pick Matthew Lugo. Rosario hit seven home runs in each of the rounds to finish with fourteen total to win the title.

Here’s a link to a Google Translated article from Spanish about the derby. It may be tougher for Rosario to hit those home runs with wooden bats as he gets started, but there’s always room for his defense at shortstop.

Scouting the draft in baseball has always been difficult. Players are scattered around two countries (The U.S. and Canada), and a lot of times, you only get second hand written reports or poorly filmed game footage, filmed by a parent in the stands on their third cup of espresso, often in portrait mode of all things! (Never film in portrait mode, people. We aren’t heathens!)

Well, in a world of YouTube and Social Media, some enterprising individuals have taken to doing their own job spreading the word about young players in a new way. Now, I have watched a lot of scouting videos. A lot. But nothing prepared me for this video:

The Music. The sound effects. The selfie stick fisheye lens shot. The bad explosion video effects. This is exactly the video I would have made as a 10 year old with modern video editing. (When I was 10, all I had was The Print Shop, but my birthday invitations used every font possible!) I mock it, but I also think it’s awesome in every wrong way possible.

Of course, in today’s world, we have very professional video made by a lot of sources; meaning, there’s no piped-in generic soundtrack music, no weird titles, just the baseball in high def and the simplest on-screen information. But it wasn’t that long ago that this was the norm. Check out this scouting video from 2016 for Brandon Martorano (16th round pick) on MLB.com, from when he graduated from high school. That music is even worse. That was just three years ago.

On the other end of the scale was the social media showing off Kanoa Pagan, the Giants’ 19th round pick, Santa Clara’s Mission College.

Kanoa Pagan facing live hitters. Fastball at 93mph followed by changeup at 79mph.



Kanoa is 6’2, 185lbs. Sits 93-96mph, touches upper 90’s. I am representing Kanoa as his advisor. Contact me for more info. pic.twitter.com/Kla2yDmBtn — Nick Sanzeri (@SanzeriBaseball) May 28, 2019

Kanoa Pagan was sitting 94-97mph in his bullpen today. Kanoa is 6’2, 185lbs. Only 20 years old, Noa has a ton of projectability.

————————————————

I am representing Kanoa as his Advisor. He wants to sign in June. Contact for me for more info. pic.twitter.com/qoS2Gmo1mI — Nick Sanzeri (@SanzeriBaseball) May 24, 2019

Short, straight, to the point…and in portrait mode, of course. But as his representative posting these tweets, I think some super agents like Scott Boras might disagree with the tactic of announcing “He wants to sign this June.” Then again, it got him noticed by his local Major League team, so who am I to judge?

Local Connections

Hunter Bishop (1st) - Palo Alto native, attended Serra High School in San Mateo

Armani Smith (7th) - Martinez native, went to De La Salle High School in Concord

Kanoa Pagan (19th) - Leigh High School, drafted out of Mission College in Santa Clara

Nolan Dempsey (33rd) - hometown is San Carlos from Serra High School and De Anza JC in Cupertino before going to Fresno State

Best Names

Connor Cannon (17th)

Najee Gaskins (Nah-gee) (20th)

Javeyan Williams (22)

Reese Sharp (28)

Brooks Crawford (29)

Connor Cannon is a baseball name, but let’s be honest, Cannon is a name that belongs to a pitcher. Well, MLB’s Draft Tracker thought it did for a moment.

When Cannon was drafted by the Giants in the 17th round, when his name was first entered into the system, it was entered as a pitcher. Unfortunately, Cannon is a first baseman. It was quickly fixed, but that’s the power of a good name.

Cannon, though, does hit moonshots like they are shot out of a cannon. He has 80-grade power that he can capitalize on in games, which is good. So why did the UC Riverside star last so late with that much power? Injuries. His injury report was described by one evaluator as “Scary”. He’s had shoulder surgery, and surgeries on both knees, leading him to DH most of the season. But, scouts love his makeup and drive, with BA saying it is regarded as among the best in the entire draft class, so there’s hope he can overcome his injury history.

In this wide world of baseball, how do scouts figure out who to go and scout? Maybe one Giants scout just brought up the Big West Conference press release on 4/29 and said “I’ll go watch these two!” 17th round pick Connor Cannon was Big West Player of the Week and 23rd round pick Taylor Rashi was Big West Pitcher of the Week.

Hey, do you have any better ideas about how to do it?

Everyone’s got to have a dream after school, and even after baseball. The game doesn’t last forever.

Local kid Armani Smith (7th Round) knows this. Coming out of De La Salle High School in Concord, he was accepted to UC Santa Barbara, and he knew his plans right away, majoring in business. “I’d love to own my own business,” Armani said. “I would love to train athletes and help them out in whatever their sport is, focusing on speed and strength.”

That said, the Bay Area native said his other dream would be to play for the San Francisco Giants, so… one dream down, one to go.

On the other side of the country, the ultimate IQ guy in this draft has a very different business goal. In the 9th round, the Giants took Simon Whiteman, from Yale. So first off, dude went to Yale. That’s fairly impressive. He didn’t just play for Yale, he was named the Captain of the baseball team. While doing that, and stealing 28 bases in 28 attempts, Whiteman was also named a Rhodes Scholar nominee, although he did not become a finalist.

That’s all okay, since they don’t really appreciate Baseball in New England. He did win the Francis Gordon Brown Prize, given to members of the Junior Class “Who most closely approaches the standards of intellectual ability, high manhood, capacity for leadership, and service to the University set by Francis Gordon Brown.” Among the former winners is former U.S. President George H.W. Bush (1948). He also won Yale’s William Neely award in 2019, given to the top Senior male athlete at Yale.

So, all this education has Whiteman studying chemical engineering, in particular, he’s interesting in energy production, specifically solar energy and photovoltaics.

Now, he gets to play for the team that was first to install a solar energy system in its stadium. And maybe, when he makes it to the San Jose Giants, he can pop up the road in Silicon Valley and talk to Elon Musk a bit about his post-baseball career. But baseball first!

I’m going to let you choose how to feel about 31st round pick Tyler Wyatt.

Wyatt was taken out of Grand Canyon University, where he was a teammate with Jake Wong (Giant’s 3rd round pick of 2018). He grew up outside of Phoenix, Arizona, in the suburb of Peoria, and he was a natural athlete. He played baseball and football, although baseball was his love. But he loved sports so much, he couldn’t do it just once.

Growing up, both youth sports played on the same day. “So like Saturdays I would play baseball in the morning, football in the afternoon, and baseball again at night,” Wyatt said in an interview. He became a two-way player in baseball, playing both infield and outfield, and pitching. He also became a very unusual two-way player in football, becoming the starting Varsity Quarterback and Varsity Kicker on his high school’s football team.

His senior year of high school, he took his high school football to the Championship game, where they came up short. As baseball season started the following Spring, his family was struck by tragedy when his father suddenly passed away. Wyatt chose to fight on. “We didn’t put years of work in to get nothing. We didn’t put years of work in for me to just give up now that he’s passed,” Wyatt said. “He wouldn’t want that. He wants me to keep going and he wants me to push and to be the best that I can possibly be and continue the work that he started with me.”

Wyatt took his baseball team to the championship game…and once again, came up short.

At Grand Canyon University, he started at least one game his freshman year at every infield position except catcher, and was one of only two players in the Western Athletic Conference to log over 50 innings on the mound, and 100 at-bats as well in the same season. His sophomore season he threw just 0.2 innings, and didn’t pitch again his Junior or Senior seasons.

Interesting that the Giants took him as a pitcher. I have no scouting reports on his stuff.

But, I told you, I’d let you decide how to feel about Wyatt. So here’s the flip side to Wyatt, at least in some eyes. When Illinois visited Grand Canyon University, they had a No-Hitter going and a 5-0 lead over GCU in the 8th, when Logan Wyatt came up.

.@andfisher8's no-hit bid is over in the 8th inning. pic.twitter.com/MldeaMahya — Illinois Baseball (@IlliniBaseball) March 9, 2019

That… was a bunt to break up a no-hitter. That is not exactly a popular move in baseball. The comments on Twitter were toxic to put it mildly. It prompted this article on “Barstool Sports” to say such a move should be “Punishable By Death”. Just this week, a minor league no-hitter was broken up by a bunt, and it prompted the benches to clear, and the offending hitter to receive death threats.

Like I said, you can choose how to feel about Wyatt, and his bunt. And I’m all for unwritten rules. But, uh, my dudes and dudettes, I’m not so enthused about endorsing a side that has some who repeatedly think that death is even an appropriate hyperbole/joke for a perceived offense in a baseball game.

While the Number One overall pick in this year’s draft, Adley Rutschman, caught at Oregon State, he spent a lot of time catching Bryce Fehmel, the Giants’ 21st round pick. His 33 wins over four season gives him the third-highest win total in school history.

Not bad, considering he started pitching at OSU because they didn’t have any spots open for him to hit. He was scouted out of high school as a third baseman, and got interesting from a lot of Division I schools, but rarely pitched in high school. He mopped up games mostly, and never started.

Unlike some players, Fehmel said “I wanted to get away from home,” as to why the Southern California native chose Oregon State. But he came to OSU the same time as two star infielders, Cadyn Grenier and Nick Madrigal, the latter of which was the 4th overall pick in the 2018 draft. With the infield filled with prospects, pitching coach Nate Yeskie asked Fehmel if he’d like to work out of the bullpen, just so he could get on the field faster.

Fehmel appeared in 26 games as a freshman, 20 in the bullpen, before moving to the rotation, leading the team in victories and ERA. He never went back to the infield.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Fehmel says.

Fehmel does not have overwhelming stuff, topping out at 91. Pat Bailey, OSU’s head coach, explains him this way: “He reminds me of a Greg Maddux/Tom Glavine kind of pitcher. He’s not going to overpower you. He’ll add and subtract (speeds), move you up and down. He’s going to make you a comfortable 0 for 4. That’s a great compliment for him. You look at him warming up, you think, ‘I can hit this guy.’ Before you know it, you’re 0 for 4.”

“He’s blue collar,” says pitching coach Yeskie.

It’s harder to make stuff like that work in the pros, but something tells me that Fehmel is up to the task.

Commemorations

In the week before this draft, the Giants family was hit hard by the death of Heather Holmes, former women’s head volleyball coach at Wake Forest, and wife of the Giants’ new Amateur Scouting Director Michael Holmes. While grieving, Michael continued his duties for the team, although everyone would have understood him taking off time to be with family.

The rest of baseball also took note. The Boston Red Sox dedicated their 20th round selection to Heather Holmes. The Los Angeles Angels, in the 40th and final round of the draft, dedicated their pick to the memory of Heather as well.

While the Giants likely dedicated the entire draft to Heather, they made one other dedication in the draft.

The Giants dedicated their 33rd round pick to their scout Ed Creech, who is retiring this year. Creech has spent more than 38 years in professional baseball, 33 of which was spent scouting. He was inducted into the Professional Scouts Hall of Fame in 2015, and has been a part of the Giants organization for eight years.

And there you go. There are a lot of guys in this draft class I didn’t mention. For them, hopefully you’ll get to hear their stories in the seasons to come. While only two or three guys from any draft class might make the majors, minor league baseball is filled with stories like these. That’s part of what makes this sport great, is all the guys who play it and the stories they’ve lived. So get up to Keizer, Oregon, or Augusta, Georgia, or Richmond, Virginia, or maybe just San Jose or Sacramento. Watch these guys play.

It’s the best part of the game.