[mikev]

More Draft Picks....

"With the ninth pick in the 2023 GUBA Amateur Draft, The California Crusaders select..."

Craig Knapp, Shortstop, London England

and bam, the second of our pair of top 10 picks was made.

Knapp possesses four of the "five tool player" tools. He can hit for average. He can run the bases. He can field. He's got a cannon attached to his right shoulder. The only skill that's lacking in his game is home run power, but frankly he's got a good enough gap power rating that he could hit enough doubles to make up for it.

The 5'11" 185lb Englander is 19 and has a ways to go before he'd be considered a GUBA caliber player, but his potential is up with some of the best prospects out there. He will start his career in Rookie Ball Fremont in the hopes that his development will get underway sooner rather than later.

The Crusaders had also been rumored to covet infielder Erjan de Beeld and outfielder Felipe Reyes at some point, and there were several trade rumors floated around as the first round of the draft continued, but in the end no deals were consumated and Knapp remains in the Crusader organization.

"Yeah, we had some contact about Knapp after we selected him, he's a quality talent and I'm sure plenty of teams would love to have him." Said GM Mike Voelker. "The truth is we had a potential deal in place, not because we weren't thrilled to have Craig Knapp with our selection, but because we were in the position to accumlate a larger quantity of talent that was almost at the level of Knapp. In the end, it didn't happen and I'm perfectly okay with that. As I said, it wasn't anything at all to do with us not wanting him, because that couldn't be further from the truth. We look forward to seeing him in California."

With their second round pick, the Crusaders selected pitcher Paco Ramos, a 21 year old lefty from Columbia. With 7/4/8 ratings, he doesn't currently project to be more than a bullpen arm, but he's got a potentially above average fastball/slider combo and has a reasonable amount of ratings development.

Without another pick until the third round, I've got a feeling that those two picks are likely to be the end of the decent talent we'll acquire through this draft, but it's likely that we've got 3 guys who will be in our top 5 prospects out of it. That works.