ASU goes into MLB draft with lower profile than 2020
From a collegiate perspective, Arizona State was the star of the 2020 major league baseball draft.
Spencer Torkelson was the first player selected in a draft shortened from 40 rounds to five because of the pandemic. ASU had five draftees, the most from any Division I school and record for the most Sun Devils taken in the first four rounds of the primary June draft. This year will be different.
Not that ASU won’t have a presence in a 20-round draft, held in July for the first time, Sunday-Tuesday, to coincide with the MLB All-Star Game. But it will naturally be a much lower profile than Torkelson going to Detroit No. 1 bookended by Alika Williams No. 37 to Tampa Bay to close out the 2020 first round off a consensus top 10 nationally ranked team whose season was cut short by the pandemic.
The highest rated draft prospect with ASU ties this year likely won’t make it to campus to play for new coach Willie Bloomquist.
ASU signee Wes Kath, a left-handed hitting corner infielder from Desert Mountain High School, is projected to be taken in the first or second round, which almost always equates to signing professionally.
Off ASU’s 2021 team, pitcher Justin Fall and shortstop Drew Swift are projected as top 10 round picks.
Due to injuries, Fall became ASU’s No. 1 starting pitcher, going 7-3 with a 4.09 ERA.
Swift again was ASU’s starting shortstop, hitting
.314 with 38 RBIs and committing just five errors in 171 attempts while playing mostly plus defense.
Pitcher Tyler Thornton also is likely to be drafted as could be pitchers Will Levine, Erik Tolman and Boyd Vander
Kooi although the latter two are coming off Tommy John surgery.
There are a few other Sun Devils who could make it into rounds 10-20 but for sure would have been drafted in the 40round format.
Because of its 2020 draft losses, ASU went with a number of young position players this season who will be return in 2022.
Those include Ethan Long, Sean
McLain, Hunter Haas, Joe Lampe, Kai Murphy and Kade Higgins.
Haas played third base as a freshman but could replace Swift at shortstop.
Jack Moss, who played often at first base, has transferred to Texas A&M.
Bloomquist still is searching for a pitching coach/recruiting coordinator to round out his first ASU staff.