The Draft

After doing a cursory study of the Israel Baseball League draft results I am a bit perplexed. Admittedly, I do not have complete data to review. I don’t have Dan Duquette’s scouting report. But even so, how do guys like Abel Moreno and Efrain Ramos not get drafted in the first ten rounds and how does a guy like Raul Franco get drafted behind 33 other players?

I noticed that I have a Pioneer teammate named Abel Moreno who had no IBL profile. So I googled his name along with the keyword baseball and this is what I found. A pitcher with three years of pro experience in the Angels organization compiling the following stats:



Like I said I don’t have the full story. It might be a different Dominican pitcher named Abel Moreno. His last year with the Angels was 2004, maybe he blew out his arm and never recovered completely. On the other hand, there were over 160 players trying out in the Dominican Republic and most if not all had pro experience and Dan signed him, so he must have some pretty good stuff. So why were there so many college ball players picked before him?

I did not venture much further into this issue but my brief scan led me to check out two more players. One is Efrain Ramos. Efrain played pro ball in the Dominican Summer League (an MLB affiliated minor league) for the Mets last year and had the following stats:



Again, it might be a different Efrain Ramos. If it is the same Efrain, I realize I don’t have the full story which might include information that detracts from his stats in the Dominican League.

With the information I have, I find it curious that certain players were not drafted in the early rounds. My guess is that further research would reveal additional players with professional experience that were not drafted and I don’t understand why.

As a Pioneer I am glad we have the benefit of an overlooked player named Moreno who appears on paper to be quite Abel.