The Brewster

The BBA amateur draft was conducted weeks ago. This week, the Portland Lumberjacks announced that they have signed their first round draft pick, 5th pick overall, in the form of college pitching prospect John O'Leary. The team announced O'Leary signed a $6 million signing bonus to become a part of the Portland organization.

The 20 year old O'Leary is a right handed starter from U.S. Army College. He had an up and down amateur career dating back to his high school days at Mobil HS. In high school, O'Leary went 7-9 in 3 years as a pitcher with only his senior year being anything worth mentioning in a positive light. After high school, he was drafted 18th overall by Phoenix, but the Talons and O'Leary failed to come to an agreement and John went off to college. College was only slightly better for O'Leary, as he went 7-8 in 3 years with 2 solid years of ERA until this past year when it ballooned yet again to a 5.19 clip.

Draft expert Aaron Weiner had this to say about the Portland pick:

5. SP John O’Leary (Portland): Another example of why we’ve all become Egyptologists, since the Library of Alexandria would have had a record of O’Leary landing somewhere between pick number 100 and 150. And they said it was a nonsense major! The former #18 pick by Phoenix in 2056, O’Leary has a longer amateur track record than most pitchers in any draft and it’s good/better/best, where his best was a Mike Swanson and a runner up in the Fox Mulder voting. Good stamina and a light injury history is a good match, and good intangibles will help.

Sort of a hard read evaluation from Weiner, as for what Portland thinks of O'Leary, Sandy "Paige" Mound has this to say:

"At 20 years of age, we think O'Leary could be in Portland as soon as 2060 or 2061. He's had some hiccups in the road during his amateur career but we see a guy who could be pitching in Portland sooner rather than later. The one thing we truly love about O'Leary is the movement he seems to possess on his pitches. Guys with a lot of movement seem to be having some success of late. So we see O'Leary having some success in Portland. The hope is he'll be ready when some of our veterans' contracts either expire or their careers do. We think he could be a part of a solid rotation down the road with Patachli and Esperanda. Perhaps Portland's next "big 3".

Portland went heavy on pitching over the next few rounds. More on them to come....

Always discouraging to see a team doing as well as Portland get to sign such a high pick too!

Best turn around I ever had was going from 69 wins to 82 wins with Portland so this is pretty rare. And I think that was the year I finally started getting prospects developed.

Had this had a little more talent at the top of the pile then I'd be really salivating. I think O'Leary is at best a #3 starter.