Seattle won’t be too choosy with 28th pick in today’s draft

By Kirby Arnold

Herald Writer

What the Seattle Mariners would love to select today in baseball’s amateur draft isn’t so much a pipe dream as it is a fantasy the size of a culvert.

“In a perfect world, we would pick a left-handed-hitting third baseman, a good corner kid who can hit, a kid who’s athletic,” said Roger Jongewaard, the Mariners’ vice president of scouting and player development.

And if the Mariners get that player, maybe the world still wouldn’t be perfect, but it definitely will have turned in their favor.

The Mariners will pick 28th among the 30 teams when the three-day draft begins today. With such a low pick – the down side to winning 116 games last year – a team can’t be choosy.

So strike that left-handed-hitting, base-stealing, bazooka-armed third baseman. At 28th, the Mariners are going for the best player available.

“Last year and the year before we went for shortstops and middle infielders,” Jongewaard said. “But we’re not going to reach down for one of those guys if he’s not ‘the guy.’ We’ll stick with going for the best player available. There are so many combinations and so many surprises, I have no idea who’ll we’re going to get.”

He has a pretty good idea who the Mariners won’t get.

Two highly regarded left-handed pitchers from British Columbia – Adam Loewen of Surrey and Jeff Francis of Vancouver – probably will be gone when the Mariners pick.

“If they’re still there, we’ll take them,” Jongewaard said. “We like them a lot and we know them well. We’ve been to banquets with them and we’ve watched them play a number of times. Unfortunately, they’re in the top 25 players in this draft, maybe the top 15.”

Jongewaard also likes two other high school players from Western Washington, left-handed pitcher Jonathan Lester of Bellarmine Prep and first baseman Travis Ishikawa of Federal Way.

Without a high pick in a draft that isn’t considered as deep in talent as others, the Mariners will stick with a philosophy that strays from the norm. They will look for what Jongewaard calls “high risk, high return” players.

“We kind of have our own ideas and, right or wrong, we take guys that other clubs wouldn’t take,” he said. “We’ll take a very athletic guy who may not play (in the majors), but if he does he’ll be a better-than-average player. The tools he has are exciting and if he puts it together, he should be a pretty good player.

“You could find a second baseman in college who may be a safe bet, but he also may be just a second-base type player. He would be low risk, low return; you’re pretty sure he’ll be in the big leagues, but he won’t be an All-Star-type player. We go more for the All-Star-type player and roll the dice more on projections.”

The Reds made such a gamble four years ago and won big when they drafted outfielder Adam Dunn, who was one of the nation’s best high school quarterbacks and had accepted a scholarship to play football at the University of Texas. After playing one year of minor league ball and one season with the Longhorns, Dunn opted for baseball and is starring for the Reds this season with 11 homers, 36 RBI and a .307 batting average.

“It would have been real easy for the Reds to say he’s going to be a quarterback and not draft him,” Jongewaard said.

The Mariners hope their first pick last year, infielder Michael Garciaparra, becomes a similar success.

Garciaparra has an enticing baseball lineage as the younger brother of Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, but was a star high school soccer player and football place-kicker who had a scholarship offer from the University of Tennessee. On top of that, he was recovering from a severe knee injury suffered in football.

Team after team passed on Garciaparra until the Mariners went with their projections and not their fears, selecting him with the 36th overall pick. Garciaparra is healthy now and, after a year in the Arizona Instructional League, is expected to play this summer for the Class A Everett AquaSox.

“We think we can help him be a better ballplayer,” Jongewaard said.

After the next two days, Jongewaard hopes he can say that about several more youngsters.