by Nes Lessman
It's hard to believe that GM Rob McMonigal is now entrenched for over ten years at the offices of the Yellow Springs Nine, especially since he hasn't exactly had a stellar record in the process. Coming in from a brief stay with the London Monarchs, McMonigal inherited a team with a history of winning that was starting to reach its expiration date. Unlike your award-winning Farm Reporter, who is always fresh!
The 2053 draft would be a key to keeping things going. Clearly the key got stuck in the door.
Now that we're ten years out, here's a look at how that draft went, including some notes and quotes. I will say that this draft wasn't exactly considered a stellar group of players. In fact, the top player (a pitcher) from that draft has only 24 WAR, 16 of which he got in his first four plus seasons. As a whole, the draft only has 10 players with 10 WAR or better for their careers. Not exactly a draft to remember. (For comparison, Carter Cramer, the Nine's first round pick in 2057 that got shipped off to Nashville for...reasons...has 8.4 WAR in one year, all on his own.) Still, it could have gone better for McMonigal, as we can see:
First off, the ones that got away players McMonigal could have drafted but didn't. Now there's a whole ton of these, but I think these three in particular really could have changed things for the team. (If I tried to list them all, the newpaper would have to put out a special edition.) Any one of these might have filled a hole the Nine still struggle with. I think you'll agree once you read on.
SP Arturo Meza. Meza went in the fourth round to Omaha, so it's not just McMonigal who let this guy go. In fairness, his ratings were middling scouts gave him 6s back when those were basically below average and his second year of college was dire. He'd lugged a 6.06 ERA in his sophomore season, again back when that was a very poor result. But once he hit the majors in 2055, he did well, amassing 16 WAR in a little over four years with Omaha, before being sent to Bikini, where he moved from being a solid 3/4 starter to one that's a more of a back end type. Given how many players McMonigal paid to do this over the mid 2050s, missing Meza was a big deal.
SS Pedro Gongora. No one is ever going to claim Gongora is a game-changer. He can barely hit (2062 saw him end with a .196 batting average) and he's never batted over .244 in a full season, and that was with Omaha and its notoriously small stadium (at that time, at least). But the second round pick of Edmonton can field a mean shortstop. He was still work 2.5 WAR last year as a result. McMonigal is still searching for a player there and has had nothing but limited success at best. Yes, Leslie Hartman is on his way, but imagine if Gongora had been around when the team was knocking on the door of the playoffs in 2056?
C Claudio Morgan. This one, though, is the one that really hurts. Note his position, because that's going to be important momentarily. Drafted by Las Vegas 31st overall, Morgan has 20.7 career WAR, two Zimmer Awards, three All-Star games, and a Puckett. He twice his .324, including as recently as 2061. He's been an anchor for the Hustlers since moving into the majors in 2054, just one year after being drafted. If anything, catcher has been even worse for the Nine than shortstop in terms of finding a mainstay there.
But instead of Morgan, the Nine went with...
Round 1: Jim Kantor, C
Kantor looked good from his college days, after going back into the draft when he didn't sign with Louisville. And his first year of pro ball, with 15 HR, 188 OPS+, 3.3 WAR looked promising. At the time, this signing looked just fine. Then the young man struggled in year one of Short A, but recovered in his second try, losing a lot of his power for some reason but holding on to a .290 batting average.
But his 2056 in Silver Springs was so bad, he went back to Cat Island and internally, team officials became worried. He once again rallied in 2057 and headed to AA in 2058, where he batted .225, and was forced into AAA duty mostly because of that first round pedigree. He batted .243 with moderate power (13 HR), and got a September call up, where he failed miserably.
Two further tries on the Nine didn't go any better, and by the end of 2061, he was out of baseball. Not even a GBC team has asked about his services. A total bust.
Here's what McMonigal said at the time of the draft:
"We needed some offensive spark in our minors," said McMonigal, and Jim's a power-hitting catcher with the tools to grow into being behind the plate. Jim's only 20 after all. He's also got a good eye, which helps keep his strikeouts down. We're happy to have him and look forward to the day he's wearing a Nine uniform, which I expect will be around 2056. He'll start in the rookie league, but I expect a promotion during the season unless he struggles, which he won't."
Note that he no longer tends to comment on his picks. I wonder why?
Career Line with the Nine: 84 games, .187 BA, 12 HR, .660 OPS, 1.1 WAR
Ouch.
Tomorrow, we'll look at the rest of the draft. Spoiler Alert: It doesn't get much better, with one late-round exception.
