Jeff DoaneJeff Doane, SP
Hometown: Bedford, Nova Scotia
BBA debut: Apr 14, 2051
When Jeff Doane blew out his elbow at 18, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Not that there are great times to blow out your elbow, but “about a month out from your first BBA draft” has got to be near the bottom of the list. As a result, he fell way down the draft board, from being rated the fifth overall prospect in the draft pool in April, all the way down to 31st, where he was drafted by San Antonio towards the end of the first round.
And as if his lowered draft stock wasn’t enough insult added to injury, San Antonio didn’t even sign him, citing doubts about Doane’s ability to make a full recovery.
So Doane went to college, rehabbed, and made it back to the mound in the middle of his freshman year, where he continued to demonstrate why he was such a hyped prospect. He posted a 1.78 ERA that year in 14 starts, and continued to be dominant and mostly injury-free for the rest of his college career, showing no ill effects from his elbow incident.
Doane’s next appearance in the draft pool was in 2047, where he was drafted by Valencia in the 2nd round (42nd overall), but again didn’t sign. No reason was given publicly, but critics at the time believed it was because Doane’s demands were too high.
This cast an unfair light on Doane as being “greedy”, which was pretty much the opposite of true. He just wanted to play. His price tag was entirely up to his agent, Scott "Scotty" Boras IV, who is notorious for holding out for the highest bonuses for his clients. And he was representing Doane as a first/second round talent, trying to make sure he got paid accordingly.
In the end, Boise signed Doane the day he dropped into the free agent pool, with a signing bonus of $2,250,000, about on par with what he would have commanded according to his draft slot amount.
Happy to have the whole ordeal behind him and be officially employed, Doane went out and pitched a no-hitter in just his third professional start in Short Season A Hot Springs.
He also fired Boras IV for making things so complicated, and is now represented by the much more sensible Alphabet Sports Management.
Throughout Doane’s minor-league career, he has constantly shown a strong work ethic, and the selflessness to always put his teammates first. He spent hours helping Toshikuni Kubo with his splitter, to the point where Kubo outperformed him, earning his promotion to the BBA before Doane.
But Doane was just happy for his teammate. He knew his time would come.
And it did, in April, when he was inserted into Boise’s rotation. He pitched 5.1 solid innings against Phoenix in his BBA debut, earning the win. Since then, he’s been sent down a couple times, and had to weather some rocky outings, but he considers it all part of his learning process. He wants to be the best version of himself that he can be, and he won’t stop until he gets there.