As the calendar rapidly approaches August, last week we could sort of put a bow on the athletic year, when Major League Baseball conducted its draft. WVU had five players taken for the second straight year. The first one chosen was catcher Logan Sauve (seventh round, Oakland A’s). The remaining four were all picked in the 13th-15th rounds: Kyle West (thirteenth, New York Yankees), Robby Porco (thirteenth, LA Dodgers), Griffin Kirn (fourteenth, Oakland A’s), and Skylar King (fifteenth, Boston Red Sox). Two additional players, Jack Kartsonas (Tampa Bay) and Sam White (Toronto) have signed free agent contracts. In addition, one incoming player, Owen Puk, was taken in the 18th round by the Washington Nationals. Puk was a transfer, and likely would have been a weekend starter for WVU. It is likely that all will end up signing with the pros – apparently the MLB teams will talk with the players’ agents beforehand, and have a good idea that they would sign with the team when they are drafted.
An interesting pro draft note: WVU was one of 25 teams who had players drafted in both the NFL draft and the NBA draft. If you add in the WNBA draft, WVU is one of only seven schools in all three: UConn, Kentucky, Maryland, South Carolina, FSU, and Michigan are the others. All of those schools did have at least one player taken in the MLB draft, so that number did not get any smaller.
Loading the full story…
