Four Bulls Selected In Second Day Of MLB Draft

[Brad]

Courtesy USF

USF Baseball

Four Bulls Selected In Second Day Of MLB Draft

ORLANDO, Fla. – Four University of South Florida Bulls were selected during the second day of the 2007 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft on Friday, June 8.

Senior right handed pitcher Danny Otero was the top pick for the Bulls, selected as the 644th choice overall, by the San Francisco Giants in the 21st round. Another senior right handed pitcher, Yuri Higgins, was chosen in the 38th round by the Chicago Cubs, and six rounds later, junior right handed pitcher Daniel Thomas was picked up by the St. Louis Cardinals. Junior shortstop Walter Diaz was selected in the 48th round by the Cleveland Indians.  

Otero, from Coral Gables, Fla., led the team with 82 strikeouts in 111.2 innings. The transfer from Duke won a team-high (tie) eight games in 15 starts, tossing four complete games and posting one shut out. Otero walked just 22 batters this season. A back-to-back BIG EAST Pitcher of the Week, Otero also earned College Baseball Foundation's National Honor Roll Player of the Week award once and was a second-team All-BIG EAST selection.  

Higgins, from Tampa, Fla., appeared in 24 games for the Bulls this season, making five starts and posting a 5-4 record. He struck out 81 batters and allowed only 40 earned runs in 76 innings for a 4.74 ERA. Higgins also made four saves for the Bulls in his senior season. Higgins, who is 15th on the school’s all-time strikeouts list, recording 194 in four seasons with the Bulls, posted two 10-strikeout games this season.  

Thomas, also from Tampa, Fla., posted a 1.27 ERA in five starts for the Bulls this season before suffering a season-ending injury. Thomas, who was 2-1 in 2007, struck out 25 and allowed just four earned runs in 28 and one-third inning. In 2006 Thomas was 3-6 in 15 appearances, recording a 4.76 ERA in 81 and one-third inning. He struck out 73 opponents and walked 41.

Diaz, from Miami, Fla., led the Bulls with a .348 batting average this season, collecting 77 hits, 13 of which were extra-base shots. The junior shortstop drove in 29 RBI and collected 93 total bases in his first season as a Bull. Diaz, a third-team All-BIG EAST selection, stole a team-high 14 bases, posted a .421 slugging percentage and registered a .448 on base percentage. Diaz, who was on both the **** Howser Trophy and Brooks Wallace Award watch lists, was selected to the BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll twice this season, and was on the College Baseball Foundation's National Honor Roll Player of the Week list once. On Feb. 16, Diaz set the school record for hits in a game, when he went 5-of-6 in the Bulls' 10-9 victory at Jacksonville. A month later, Diaz went on a hitting tear, posting a 24-game hit streak, the longest in USF history since the 2000 season.

The MLB Draft lasted 50 rounds over two days (June 7-8). Nearly 1,500 players from both colleges and high schools were selected by the 30 Major League clubs.

Complete USF Draft

Danny Otero (RHP) – 21st round by San Francisco Giants

Yuri Higgins (RHP) – 38th round by Chicago Cubs

Daniel Thomas (RHP) – 44th round by St. Louis Cardinals

Walter Diaz (SS) – 48th round by Cleveland Indians

USF Recruits in the Draft

Denny Almonte (Florida Christian HS) – 2nd round by Seattle Mariners

Rey Navarro (Puerto Rico Baseball Academy) – 3rd round by Arizona Diamondbacks

Efrain Nieves (Puerto Rico Baseball Academy) – 7th round by  Milwaukee Brewers

Stephen Hunt (Jesuit HS – Tampa) – 17th round by Oakland Athletics

Junior Carlin (Riverview HS) – 29th round by Boston Red Sox

Derrick Stultz (Wharton HS) – 38th round by Boston Red Sox

Yoandy Barroso (Miami Springs HS) – 46th round by Texas Rangers

[BullsDude08]

Sucks we lost Diaz. That's gonna hurt us for next year.

[Bulls 8_va]

Whats really going to Hurt us is the loss of all those recruits...

How many more did we have coming in?!?!?!

[Rabbi Bull]

are all of those recruits gonna go to the majors?  I would expect the ones picked in rounds 2, 3, and 7 would, but how bout those picked in the later rounds?

[Brad]

The recruits are not lost yet.  They have to agree to an offer.  Sometimes they use their scholarship offer as leverage, sometimes they really want to go to college, sometimes the pro offer isn't everything they expect.   Need to wait and see.

Guys like Diaz, a junior, usually find it advantageous to go now, as opposed to going after a senior year and not having the option to return to school as a negotiating angle.  A lot still depends on the offer and where a kid's head is in terms of school.

[Bulls 8_va]

Whatever happens, i'm sure CLP expected some of his recruits to get drafted.  Thats just what you do...right?

[Herman_Momart]

Bulliever, school me on this.  Why would Diaz find it advantageous to go to the minors as a junior?  Personally, I would think it would be better to finish school, for the main purpose of obtaining a degree.  Being a 48th round draft pick pretty much guarantees you will not make it to the majors, probably not even out of single A.  I have a buddy in the minors and he makes about 18K a year.  He knows he isnt going to make it and will fall back on his college degree,  being that just about any profession would pay you more than that.  

[Who'sYourData?]

It's all about the signing bonus.  A lot of times, a guy like Diaz can get the team to agree to pay for their remaining school, in addition to the signing bonus.  Guys in the minors don't get paid much, but they can get by rather inexpensively.  Usually they pool four to a room, or get cheap rooms from fans of the minor league team.  

I'm not sure how much a 48th round pick gets as a bonus these days, but let's say he can get $20k plus his remaining school paid for.  He can bank the $20k, live with his parents in the offseason, and use his salary for the rest of his expenses for a couple of years.  By that time he'll have an idea whether he has a chance to make it.  If not, he has his school paid for and a $20k bonus to start out life with.  As a senior, he doesn't have the leverage and may only get a $5k or $10k bonus.  Or no bonus at all.  I'm not sure how the $$$ work out, but that's the general idea Bulliever was referring to.

[Brad]

I'm not saying what's best for him overall, I'm only talking from the pro baseball perspective.

Teams offer less for the same talent when one is a senior and the other a junior or lower in academic status.  That difference certainly lessens as you approach the later rounds in the draft.

[Wags]

I give it about a 5% chance Walt signs... he's better off staying in school and trying again next year. The only ones we're really losing are Otero and Higgins, who were gone either way.

I would imagine the 2,3, and 7th round picks have a good shot of not coming to USF.. but that depends on the player.