Mariners make 15 selections on day two of draft
Mariners select 16 players combined in first two days of 2012 June draft
Seattle Mariners Director of Amateur Scouting Tom McNamara announced today that the club selected 15 players on the second day of Major League Baseball’s annual June draft. Rounds 2 to 15 were conducted today. The draft will conclude with rounds 16-40 tomorrow. The Mariners have drafted 16 players combined in the first two days of the draft.
In the first 15 rounds, the Seattle Mariners selected 16 players including 4 pitchers (3 RHP, 1 LHP), 1 catcher, 9 infielders (3 1B, 2 2B, 1 3B, 3 SS) and 2 outfielders. Of the 12 position players selected, 3 are left-handed hitters. Seattle selected 10 college players and 6 high school players.
The Mariners drafted shortstop Joe DeCarlo from Garnet Valley High School with their second-round pick (64th overall). DeCarlo, who is a 6-foot-1, 205-pounds, recently led Garnet Valley to a Central League championship. Ranked No. 57 on Baseball America’s Top 100 High School Prospects list, DeCarlo was a first team All Delco (Delaware County) selection and also made 1st Team All Central as a standout infielder for the Jaguars. His brother Mike played three seasons in the Arizona’s minor league system from 2005-07.
Right-handed pitcher Edwin Diaz out of Caguas Military Academy in Caguas, Puerto Rico was the Mariners third-round selection. He was rated as the 75th prospect by Baseball America heading into the draft, including the 4th ranked prospect out of Puerto Rico. His cousin, Jose Melendez, pitched in the big leagues for parts of five seasons in the 1990s for Seattle (1990), San Diego (1991-92) and Boston (1993-94).
Left-handed pitcher Tyler Pike out of Winter Haven High School in Winter Haven, FL was the Mariners third-round supplemental selection (126th overall). Pike went 8-2 with a 0.66 ERA (6 ER, 82.0 IP) while striking out 134 batters in 82 innings during his senior season for the Blue Devils. He also batted .360 (36x100) with 20 runs scored, 12 extra-base hits and 21 RBI as an outfielder.
Patrick Kivlehan, an outfielder out of Rutgers State University was the Mariners fourth-round selection. Kivlehan was named the 2012 New Jersey Collegiate Baseball Association (NJCBA) Division I Player of the Year, after batting .392, with 47 runs scored, 11 doubles, 14 home runs and 50 RBI. Kivlehan, who also won the BIG EAST Player of the Year, took home five weekly honors from the NJCBA, including Player of the Week on four occasions and Rookie of the Week once. The third baseman won the first league triple crown in BIG EAST history in his first season playing baseball after a successful four-year career as a safety for the RU football team.
Shortstop Chris Taylor from the University of Virginia was selected in the fifth round by the Mariners. A junior from Virginia Beach, VA, Taylor was named to watch list for Brooks Wallace Award for the nation’s top shortstop. He is one of two players for the Cavaliers to appear in all 59 games this season (58-SS, 1-DH), batting .284 (67x236) with 57 runs scored, 13 doubles, 5 triples, 5 home runs and 47 RBI. He has reached base safely in all but two games this season as the team’s leadoff hitter. Taylor currently ranks third on the team in hits (67), total bases (105) and extra-base hits (23).
The Mariners selected two players with ties to the Northwest through the first 15 rounds: first baseman Taylor Ard from Washington State University and right-handed pitcher Grady Wood from Western Oregon State College. Ard was the Mariners 7th-round selection out of the Washington State University. The native of Vancouver, WA, was named to the 2012 All-Pac-12 Conference Baseball Team after batting .332 (73x22) with 41 runs scored, 16 doubles, 1 triple, 12 home runs and 50 RBI in junior season. He currently leads the Pac-12 with 127 total bases, while ranking third in the conference with 12 home runs and a .577 slugging percentage, sixth in RBI (50), T8th in hits (73) and T10th in doubles (16). His .577 career slugging percentage is seventh all-time at Washington State. Ard is the first WSU player selected by the Mariners since Aaron Trolia in the 22nd round of the 2004 June draft. He also attended Mt. Hood Community College from 2009-10. Wood was named the 2011-12 Great Northwest Athletic Conference Male Athlete of the Year, becoming the first baseball player in the 11-year history of the league to win the honor. Wood was a first team selection in the NCWBA and Daktronics polls, and a second team selection by the ABCA, after going 12-0 record with a 1.69 ERA this season. He won 20 consecutive games over two seasons, just one shy of the NCAA Division II national record, while holding opponents to a record-low .199 average. Wood, a Junction City, OR native, also strung together a stretch of 26.0 scoreless innings and was part of five shutouts by the Wolves.
The Mariners only pick in the draft yesterday was catcher Mike Zunino (3rd overall). Named a first-team Louisville Slugger All-American on Thursday by Collegiate Baseball, Zunino is a semifinalist for the Johnny Bench Award, the Dick Howser Trophy and the Golden Spikes Award. He was also the 2011 SEC Player of the Year and a 2012 first-team All-SEC selection. A two-time first-team All-SEC recipient and two-time member of the league’s All-Defensive Team, he has registered a .993 fielding percentage, with three errors in 452 chances, and has thrown out almost a third of the runners who have attempted to steal on him (45 of 144). Zunino, 21, led the University of Florida in nearly every offensive category. After a 3-game sweep in the NCAA Gainesville Regional over the weekend, he is batting .316 (73x231) with 27 doubles, 18 home runs and 60 RBI in 62 games. He has started 58 of his team’s 63 games at catcher, and recorded an additional 4 starts as the designated hitter. He was named to the Gainesville Regional All-Tournament Team, and has hit seven career post-season home runs.
The 2012 June draft will conclude tomorrow with rounds 16-40, beginning at 9:00 am (PDT) via conference call from MLB headquarters in New York City. MLB.com will deliver exclusive live programming of the Draft’s final day, including a live pick-by-pick stream, draft and scouting expert commentary and DraftCaster, a live interactive application that includes a searchable database of every draft-eligible player supplemented by statistics, scouting reports and video highlights.
Here is a look at the Mariners first 16 selections in the 2012 draft:
RD PLAYER POS B-T HT WT AGE SCHOOL HOMETOWN
1 Mike Zunino C R-R 6-1 220 21 University of Florida Cape Coral, FL
2 Joe DeCarlo SS R-R 5-10 205 18 Garnet Valley High School Glen Mills, PA
3 Edwin Diaz RHP R-R 6-2 160 18 Caguas Military Academy Naguabo, Puerto Rico
3A Tyler Pike LHP L-L 6-0 180 18 Winter Haven High School Winter Haven, FL
4 Patrick Kivlehan 3B R-R 6-2 211 22 Rutgers State University West Nyack, NY
5 Chris Taylor SS R-R 6-0 170 22 University of Virginia Virginia Beach, VA
6 Timmy Lopes SS R-R 5-11 180 17 Edison High School Huntington Beach, CA
7 Taylor Ard 1B R-R 6-1 235 22 Washington State University Vancouver, WA
8 Nick Halamandaris 1B L-L 6-2 220 18 Robert Louis Stevenson HS Monterey, CA
9 Jamodrick McGruder 2B L-R 5-8 175 20 Texas Tech University Mesquite, TX
10 Grady Wood RHP R-R 6-1 195 22 Western Oregon State Junction City, OR
11 Kristian Brito 1B R-R 6-5 240 17 Ramon Quinones Medina Yabucoa, Puerto Rico
12 Michael Faulkner CF L-L 5-9 165 20 Arkansas State University Memphis, TN
13 Jonathan Hauser RHP R-R 6-2 180 21 Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Moseley, VA
14 Brock Hebert 2B R-R 5-9 170 21 Southeastern Louisiana Univ. Bourg, LA
15 Dario Pizzano OF L-R 5-9 200 21 Columbia University Saugus, MA
For more information, please contact the Seattle Mariners baseball information department at (206) 346-4000. More information on the Major League Baseball 2012 First-Year Player Draft, is also available online at www.Mariners.com.