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Wednesday, June 08, 2005 |
| No Florida State players were drafted yesterday. Also, none of our high school recruits were drafted. In past years the draft has depleted our recruiting class. In 1997, for example, Michael Cuddyer had committed to the Seminoles and waited until the last minute to decide to play baseball instead of going to college. In 2001, Joe Mauer made a similar decision. (He was also a highly rated quarterback. At the time the joke was that he was going to be the next Chris Weinke). It is fairly hard to research other instances of this. But it is not hard to research our players being drafted (or not). Thanks to The Baseball Cube, we can look back on past years to see the last time the first Seminole picked was drafted so late:
A few notes to this: - While they are rare, players picked as late as Craig Patterson can have an impact. Pick 765 in 1979 belonged to the Houston Astros who drafted Glenn Davis, who would go on to be a two-time All-Star. - In the recent years (at least) that we didn't have a player drafted early, we did have prospects who went on to play for us get drafted. In 2000, Tony Richie was drafted in the 8th round, but went to school instead and was the first Seminole picked in 2003. - The difference between 1979 and 1980 is simple: Mike Martin became coach in 1980. With the exception of winning a national championship, he has meant as much to Florida State baseball as Bobby Bowden has meant to FSU football. The Tallahassee Deomcrat has an article on our relative lack of star power: Unified front helps FSU
Florida State enters the Gainesville Super Regional without the power, and even star power, that it had a year ago. Yet coaches and players insist this FSU team possesses the necessary ingredients to go even further in the NCAA postseason. Speed, doing the little things right and patience at the plate have countered offensive deficiencies to push FSU over the 50-win plateau - something it didn't reach a year ago. The ace - Bryan Henry - and bullpen are solid. And there is something else - togetherness. "I've never had a tighter-knit group of guys - never," FSU coach
Mike Martin said. "Senior leadership. ... Four seniors and, boy, did
they really get across to the other guys what is expected off the field
and on the field."... To understand how remarkable Florida State's sucess is with a lack
of star seniors, consider the other fifteen teams that are still in
contention for the national championship. Here are some tidbits
on their draft: - Eleven of those teams had at least one player drafted in the first round (Miami and Tennessee both had two). - Three of the teams that did not have a player drafted in the first had at least one drafted in the second. - Florida was the last team (besides FSU, of course,) to have a
player drafted. Their first player drafted was pick #200 in the
sixth round. - As of this moment (19th round) ever round has had least one player taken from a team in the Super Regionals. - Also, atm, there have been 61 players taken from the other fifteen schools. - Of those schools, Baylor leads the way with seven players
drafted; Tennessee, Miami, Cal State-Fullerton, and Mississippi have
five apiece. I'll update this post when a Seminole does finally get drafted. LATER: So, 26 picks later than the previous 'latest first FSU' pick.
It appears that this is the latest ever for such a pick. In the
years before 1979 there were players taken in the 10th, 1st, 4th, and
8th rounds. In 1974 there were no FSU players taken and there
were only 687 picks that year. By my count there are only eleven teams left from the field of 64
that started the College World Series playoffs that do not have a
player drafted (Even Army/United States Military Academy had a player
(Schuyler Williamson) taken before Lynch (#780).
Florida State comment []12:33:24 PM  trackback []
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Last update: 7/5/2005; 5:25:38 AM .
