Woodman doesn’t regret giving the ol’ college try
C’s outfielder could have been playing professionally a lot sooner
Vancouver Canadians outfielder J.B. Woodman says that he doesn’t wonder “what if ?” We will gladly do it for him instead.
Woodman, 21, was a secondround pick of the Toronto Blue Jays in June’s amateur draft after a stellar NCAA season at Ole Miss. The 6-foot-2, 195-pound left-handed hitter has been a staple in the middle of the order this summer for the C’s Toronto’s short-season single-A affiliate in Vancouver.
He could have been playing pro sooner. Woodman was getting considerable attention when he was first eligible for the draft, back in 2013 when he was in Grade 12 at Edgewater High in Orlando, Fla.
Baseball America had him ranked 135th overall heading into that draft, but they tagged him as a “tough sign if he’s not drafted in the first three rounds,” reasoning that he was steadfast in his commitment already to Ole Miss.
And Woodman was quoted in the days leading up to the selection process that he was looking for a signing bonus equivalent of higher selection, telling reporters “we put kind of a big number out there so it will be interesting to see whether we get it or not.”
No team was willing to do enough to get him out of his Ole Miss deal. The New York Mets used a 40thround selection on Woodman, but that was merely a Hail Mary try.
He admits that he considered at one point beforehand telling teams he was interested in playing pro immediately after Edgewater, but then “it got the point where I realized that I wasn’t really ready to play.”
“I needed to go to school and grow up a little bit,” he continued.
According to the website baseball-reference.com, 11 players from the first round in 2013 had already played at least one game in the majors as of Monday morning. Another three from the second round had made it to the top level, along with a pair from the third round. The two from the third round — St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Mike Mayers and Oakland Athletics third baseman Ryon Healy — both came out of university programs.
The Blue Jays’ third-round pick that year was Arizona high school right-hander Patrick Murphy. He was besieged by injuries the past three years and is currently a teammate of Woodman’s with the C’s after starting the campaign one level up for Vancouver, with the single-A Lansing Lugnuts.
Another third rounder of note was Maple Ridge’s Tyler O’Neill, a high school outfielder who went to the Seattle Mariners. He’s currently tearing up the double-A Southern League, which is three levels higher than Vancouver.
The 135th pick was Cincinnati Reds fourth rounder Ben Lively, a pitcher out of the University of Central Florida. The Reds traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies two Decembers ago and, as of Monday, he’s was in the triple-A International League.
The Blue Jays’ choice that round, 20 picks before Lively, was Evan Smith, a high school lefty out of Alabama. He’s a teammate of Woodman’s after beginning the season in Lansing.
What does it all mean? There are various interpretations. Woodman maintains he would do it all the same again.
For what it’s worth, Baseball America says he received a $975,000 signing bonus from the Blue Jays this season. Lively reportedly landed $350,000 three years ago.
“It was better for me to go to school. It turned out to be a good decision for me,” he said.
Woodman hit .323, with 14 home runs and 55 runs batted in, for Ole Miss this season in 62 games. He was a .299 hitter there for his three seasons.
Going into Monday, he was batting .274, with no homers and 18 RBI, for the C’s in 40 games. He’s been used in both centre and right field.