HOPING FOR A BIG CATCH!
Yankees pick power-hitting catcher Wells in first round of draft
In a strange year and an uncertain draft, where front offices were largely flying blind with high school and college baseball shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, the Yankees
went for the familiar. With their first-round pick in Wednesday night’s MLB amateur draft, the Bombers took Austin Wells, a 20-year-old catcher out of the University of Arizona.
The lefty hitter was someone the Yankees were very familiar with, having scouted him extensively when they drafted in the 35th round of the 2018 draft out of Bishop Gorman High School in Las
Vegas.
For the Yankees it was a sure pick in a draft that seemed like anything but familiar. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred opened the coronavirus-shortened, fiveround draft by addressing the current state of the game, a nation dealing with the health and economic impact of the pandemic and on-going protests to end police brutality and systemic racism.
Several of the GMs stood with signs that said “Black Lives Matter, United for Change” in the offices where they were socially distancing and making their picks. The draft also paused to remember George Floyd, the unarmed black man killed at the hands of the Minneapolis police who sparked protest movements across the nation, at 8:46 p.m. — the amount of time that former officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck.
Before the draft, Manfred also addressed the concern about the game restarting. He said there would “100%” be baseball this year amid reports that the league was preparing a counteroffer to the union’s proposal — 89 games with expanded playoffs. Many, however, believe the owners will simply run out the clock on the negotiations until all that can be salvaged of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season is the 50 games that Manfred has threatened to implement under the agreement with the players made in March.
After that, however, the league tried to turn to its future, which is also uncertain for minor leaguers. Usually a 40-round prospect-palooza, this draft, which continues tonight, will have just 160 players total selected, compared to the 1,217 drafted last season.
While there are gems in those later-round picks, Yankees
vice president of amateur and domestic scouting Damon Oppenheimer has said he does at times use the lower-round picks to build relationships in order to help sign players later on.
So, while the Yankees were projected to go with college pitching, this pick makes sense.
While Wells, the 28th-overall pick, was not linked with the Yankees in the mock drafts by most publications, Oppenheimer said that, with so little information from this year, they would be looking back further in history for their draft board.
“I think that we’re just trying to put our board together with the same kind of way we have forever. Just use the information that we have,” Oppenheimer told the News last week. “The information we had from last summer, guys with high ceilings that we can go into with some type of certainty.”
And Wells fits. He had both a great 2019 summer and has a high ceiling.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pounder was picked for his bat, which he showed off last summer in the Cape Cod League. He slashed .308/.389/.526 there last summer, which teams use as a good indicator because the league uses wood bats.
Wells played just 15 games with the Wildcats this season before the coronavirus shut down baseball across the nation. He continued to crush in that limited time, hitting .375/ .527/.589. Wells’ bat was considered first-round material by most talent evaluators.
“His patience at the plate is his strong suit…. hasn’t hit for power so you need to try and unlock that,” one scout who profiled him said. “He has hit for average and there’s latent power in there. My biggest question was there has some been swing and miss against better velocity.”
The Yankees, whose Major League lineup is incredibly right-handed heavy, also like that Wells is a lefty hitter.
The concern with Wells is his defense. His arm is also a concern.
“He had a strong arm but sounds like he might have had some issues with that lately,” the scout said.
Wells has played first base and in the outfield as well. He is the second catcher the Yankees have taken with their first-round pick in the last three years.
The Yankees have just two more picks in this unusual MLB draft, having given up their second- and fifth-round picks when they signed Gerrit Cole, who rejected a qualified offer from the Astros.