As the Valencia faithful have come to the realization that the rebuild is in full swing and that 2063 and most likely 2064 will be a couple of lean years, there are only two things that the fans are looking forward to now that the meat has pretty much been trimmed down to the bone. One of those two things is the 2063 Rookie draft.
Much to the shagrin of some fans, although the remnants of the Valencia team sucked it up quite a bit in 2062 and somewhat in 2060/2061, the team did still manage to find three other franchises who found themselves in more peril which means that the team acquired the 4th draft position.
Overall, with the 20 picks that were at the Stars' disposal, the front office ended up going after nine relievers, one bona-fide starting pitcher, four outfielders and 5 infielders.
With its top pick, the Valencia front office decided to go with pitcher Juan Evans. The 19 year-old can throw smoke to close out games and could be a great 1-2 combo with rookie Dave Furman in 2065. But one has to wonder if the front office will consider a conversion to the starting rotation.
The next pick was starting pitcher Lawrence Ross. While he does not have the ratings as Evans has, he still could work his way into the back half of the rotation at some point.
Then in rounds 3 through 5 followed by rounds 8 through 11 it was all relievers picked when Valencia's pick was called in. Jesus Arroyo is the only pitcher out of those 7 that is not clocked at 99 mph or higher.
On the offensive side, there is only one offensive player with a potential rating of 40 or higher which is leftfielder Vern Tinnin. Although Vern has a potential 7/5/5 Contact/Power/Eye set of ratings, one wonders if he or any of the others will ever make it past AAA.
While it seems a bit of a shotgun approach, the Stars' GM did point out in an interview that there are only 4 slots open in the entire farm system and there are also 6 players coming out of the international complex to vie for those positions. Greathouse also added the the farm system is heavy on the batting side of the farm so he was hoping to bring in a lot of fresh arms. We will see how many of them pan out.
Below is the overall list of players drafted and their expected starting points if they stay within the Valencia farm system: