2063.03 2053: Oh What a Night of Failure A Review of the Nine's Draft Night Part 2
Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2025 5:46 pm
by Nes Lessman
We're back to look at the rest of the 2053 draft, one that I'm sure GM Rob McMonigal would rather forget. (In fairness, so would just about everyone. As I noted yesterday, it was not a strong draft class, with just 10 players making 10 WAR or better in the BBA, 10 years out of the draft.)
It's time to review, starting with round two. Just what in fact did McMonigal do?
Round 2: Luis Abdul-Halim, P
Abdul-Halim had okay but not amazing stats through his journey in the Nine system, which ended after the 2056 season. There was nothing wrong with his numbers, but you never felt like he was going to make it.
That ended up being true. He played for another 5 seasons for three other teams, but never even got a September call up. He finished with a minor league career ERA of 3.37, with 70 wins and a minor league WAR of 26.1, so he can hold his head up high even if McMonigal shouldn't for picking him second.
Career Line: None.
Round 3: Leonardo Arevalo, 1B
My crosstown rival Valerie Davies wrote an award-winning piece on the Nine's colossal botching of their handling of Arevalo, signing him to a deal and then forgetting to roster him. In the end, I'm not sure how much it mattered Leonardo never has made it to a top-level GBC team but it was completely embarrassing. My colleague Erwin Wardman really came down like a ton of bricks on McMonigal for this. And he hasn't let up since, as readers of this fine paper know. I tend to be more charitable, but looking over this draft list is giving me second thoughts. At any rate, Arevalo ironically ended up in London and scouts in the GBC called him a Top 100 prospect for many years, rising as high as 49th. But he still couldn't get a call up. Instead he ended up coming back to the states with the Twin Cities River Monsters, where he did well in their org but again, no call up. Now he's considered a prospect, for some reason, with Sao Paulo, but doesn't look likely to go anywhere there, either. At just age 25, it feels like he's been around forever.
But in the end, perhaps painting would have been a better vocation. I guess there's still time. Someone send him a Bob Ross video instead of a batting cage one.
Career Line: None.
Round 4: Sergio Torres, Util
Torres could play multiple positions, which is why McMonigal liked him. But even at the time, hopes were strained McMonigal even said he'd be "happy to have a roleplayer as good he as he projects to be."
Whoever made those projections probably should be fired. Torres only ended up being able to play second well in pro ball, with some okay time in the outfield and was a career .248 in the minors, never making it past AA Santa Cruz. After being let go by the Nine, no one else even gave him a look.
Career Line: None.
Round 5: Ryan Edwards, P
Edwards goes back to when the BBA controversially still signed 16 year olds. Would he have had a better career arc if the Feds had intervened sooner? Who knows. At any rate, McMonigal knew he was a bit of a project, one he let go of fairly quickly, in 2055, after not playing well in Cat Island at just age 19. It was very surprising to me at the time because he'd played well in 2054 in Alamogordo, with a 54 FIP-. But he's never gone above AA ball and is now 26, ironically in the same org as Leonardo.
Career Line: None.
Round 6: Erik Johnson, P
Erik was a feel-good story. Someone who should not have made it as far as he did, but he worked his butt off. No one ever confused him with a genius, but he tried, and made it all the way to AA before it was clear he couldn't ever shake his control issues enough to get a look at Indianapolis. He was not picked up by anyone else after his release.
Career Line: None.
Round 7: Ignacio Garcia, P
A third straight pitcher, a third straight miss. Garcia stayed in the Nine org until 2058, at which point he moved on to the Popes minor leagues but didn't get anywhere there, either. He's also out of baseball.
Career Line: None
Round 8: Marc Holby, P
Let's go 4 for 4 here in the failure department. Out of baseball by 2056. McMonigal called this his sleeper pick. Perhaps he meant he fell asleep and accidentally hit something to draft him?
Career Line: None
Round 9: Jeremiah Rivers, IF
We now reach the second player in this draft to reach the majors. Rivers was never known for his bat. It would take an amazing glove to have a major league career. His ability to play all around the infield helped get him to AAA and a few stints with the Nine. The bat was as bad as expected, but surprisingly, under the bright lights, he couldn't field, either. Rivers finished his BBA "career" with negative ZR at third and short, with only a modest positive at second.
Still, he'll get a BBA pension for life, and that's more than most can say who get drafted.
Career Line: 58 games, .165 BA, 29 WRC+, -.28 WAR
Round 10: Steve Frakes, P
Frakes did not have what it takes. His 5.87 ERA in his second year at AA Santa Cruz was enough for McMonigal and the rest of the BBA and GBC to know he wasn't cut out for the big leagues.
Career Line: None.
Round 11: Bill Beals, P
So if you had Bill Beals as your pick for the best Nine draftee in 2053, please stop lying. No one thought he'd make it, but here we are. Beals kept doing well, level by level, putting up numbers that would get him promoted and eventually traded away by McMonigal to Charm City for Ulvi Basgil and Alberto Borman, the latter of whom would be released shortly thereafter and go back to Charm City's minors. Basgil did okay for the Nine in his one year, 1.5 WAR, but he wasn't retained.
Meanwhile, Beals would be a Rule 5 pick by Portland, where he's gone on to have 4.6 WAR as a swingman type player, including a 14-9 2059 that contributed to the Lumberjacks' World Title. He's never had amazing numbers, but is the kind of cheap player you need so you can spend elsewhere, the 1 to 2 WAR type of dude. Beals hasn't recreated his rookie year magic but he also could have been useful for the Nine if they' retained him.
Still, at the time of the trade in 2058, Beals was only 1 year removed from having an ERA of 5.07 and looking like another late-round also-ran. Meanwhile Basgil was one year removed from 3.7 WAR. I don't fault the idea of the trade but the result just didn't work out.
Career Line: 37-17, 3 saves, 391K, 4.6 WAR (so far)
The final nine rounds saw no players of note. None of them managed to make it to the BBA and almost all are out of baseball at this point. I won't force you to think about Terry Helton or Ange Muller or David Contreras, who didn't even make it past Alamogordo. That's not unusual, but given the Nine played with two 20th rd draft picks on its roster as the primary catching tandem in 2062, sometimes lower players can have an impact.
Not in 2053, however.
This wasn't a draft night. It was more of a draft nightmare.
Total BBA WAR for the draft: 5.48. (Again, for reference: Carter Cramer 8.4 in one year. One. Year.)
We'll do this again next year. Spoiler Alert: It only gets worse, believe it or not.