Ray of Hope

Ray makes MLB Debut, clears spot for 2015.

Really happy to catch the MLB debut of the Tigers' Robbie Ray. It's double the excitement for me, I drafted him in the MWBL for my Traverse City Crusaders. He was my 3rd round DP in the MWBL (#74 overall).

You get to draft 12 players who are yet to make their MLB debuts, and you can only have up to 12, and they stay on your roster until they either make their MLB debut within 3 seasons, you trade that draft pick or he does not make his debut in time and you lose him altogether!

Now that he made his MLB debut that clears one of my 12 rookie spots for next season. I'll have two other spots clearing regardless of what they do  this MLB season, the other guys are good as long as they make their debuts by 2014.

My other non-carded rookies I'm waiting to make their debuts, and need to make debuts by...

• SP-Jeff Hoffman (College) - 2014 (End of 2016), Projected to be top 5 2015 MLB Draft Pick
• 2B-Devon Travis (DET) - 2014 (2016)
• SP-Nick Kingham (PIT) - 2014 (2016)
• OF-Mitch Haniger (MIL) - 2014 (2016)
• C/3B-Carson Kelly (STL) - 2014 (2016)
• RP-Jake Barrett (ARZ) - 2014 (2016)
• SP-Luke Weaver (College) - 2014 (2016)
• 3B-Ryan McMahon (COR) - 2014 (2016) - Acquired in trade for Adalberto (Raul) Mondesi, Jr. 2012 (2014) / Part of the deal with Traverse City trading C-Brian McCann away & acquiring another First Round Draft Pick.
• OF-Elier Hernandez (KC) - 2012 (2014)
• 1B-Ronald Guzman (TEX) - 2012 (2014)

I think 3 more guys may clear my board, which would give me, at least 6 spots to draft un-carded players that have yet to make MLB debuts.

Ray will be added to a young mix of starting pitchers in Tyler Skaggs & Trevor Bauer (who the Crusaders acquired from Detroit). The Crusaders are pretty happy how veteran starting pitchers Mark Buehrle (2.47 ERA) & Yovani Gallardo (2.47 ERA) are doing for their MLB teams. Skaggs currently has a 4.54 ERA, but a decent 1.25 WHIP, which is an encouraging sign of improvement. Bauer was excellent in his one MLB start (0-1, 1.50 ERA, 8 K's in 6 IP) against San Diego on April 9th; Currently is 3-0 with 1.40 ERA in Triple-A, and could be pushing Carlos Carrasco out of the Indians' rotation soon. The team's ace Travis Wood is doing well for the Cubs (2-3, 3.35 ERA).

More to come on the future of the Crusaders, meanwhile they just lost their last series 4-2, to the Bethesda Bandicoots, and momentarily moved out of last with a 13-45 record, as the Southbend Lynx lost their 8th straight and dipped to 12-46.

Danny Santana was called up by Minnesota, that knocks another roster slot out of the way for me. Santana was the player that I liked & picked in the 5th round, Jonathan Mayo during the draft gave me props for the pick, and I told him I needed infield depth, I like what I read about him, and I think he'll make it up this season -- and he agreed. It was a really cool moment for me, because I had a lot of respect for Mayo long before I knew he was in this APBA League. The Twins manager' Gardenhire had a lot of good things to say about Santana as well.

Check out all the other MWBL action by clicking on Mid-West Baseball League.