The long awaited, much anticipated draft day lived up to the hype--took a little longer than we expected, but it was a neat day. Ever since Bennett was drafted by the Braves right out of high school, but then chose to go to college, this was a date on the calendar that he worked toward. He was not draft eligible again until now and this entire year has been spent talking to scouts, filling out forms and even doing psychological evaluations for various teams. After a bit of a rough sophomore year, he really had a great junior year at Oral Roberts.
We all gathered at my mom's house in Eaton including my dad, a few of Cooper's buddies, a neighborhood friend and Bennett's girlfriend. The process is pretty simple--each team picks in the order that they are slotted and after each team is done, it moves to the next round. Bennett had been told by multiple sources that he should expect to go around the 4th-7th round, so when those rounds had come and gone, things began to get a little quiet.
Under baseball's new collective bargaining agreement (new just this draft year), teams had caps on the amount of money they could spend on players in each round. So, many teams were low on money by the 10th round and there was nothing they could do about it. A lot of them drafted college seniors in the 7th-10th rounds because they were likely to sign for low amounts (no leverage and no place to go if they didn't sign). After the 10th round, more money became available.
When the 10th round started, all of a sudden Bennett's phone started to blow up. He began getting calls, literally one after another, from the Twins, Phillies, Rangers, Angels and Tigers. It all happened so fast that I lost track of what was happening. He was getting major pressure from each team that called to given them an answer as to whether or not he would sign if they drafted him. All along, he had said he would sign if drafted in the top 10 (out of 40) rounds and if not, he would have a major decision to make. Finishing his senior year at ORU was never a bad option.
He finally told the Angels if they drafted him, he would likely sign and then next thing we knew, the Detroit Tigers drafted him in the 11th round. It happened so fast that none of us really knew what had happened. It was so stressful to watch! He handled himself like a champ and relied on input from my mom and his dad and from Brandon, who has really been amazing through this whole draft process. Brandon had spreadsheets, books, and things written down about everything that was happening. Made me a proud sister for both of my brothers. We were all hoping he would go to a west team (or at least one that holds spring training in the Phoenix area), but the Tigers are a great organization. He told them he needed a couple days to mull over their offer and make a decision.
That night, the catcher for the Tigers got injured thus promoting each farm team's catcher up a level. The scout called him the next morning and told them they wanted him on a plane on Sunday to report for a physical and then onto Connecticut to play for their low-A, short season team. Whoa! After discussing things with his college coaches and the family, he decided he was ready to give pro ball a shot. In the last few days, we've spent time with him at the pool, gone out to dinner and all said goodbye. He got on a plane yesterday bound for Florida for a physical and then will be in Connecticut by June 14th. Their first game is June 18th. Check the team out online here:
http://www.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t571
He got to Florida yesterday and already knew a couple of the other players who had been drafted by the Tigers as well. After playing in Wisconsin and then in the Cape Cod league for the last two summers, he has met a ton of talented kids from all over the nation.
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| Draft party |
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| A few hours spent in front of the screen |
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| Bennett's youngest fan |
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| Celebratory dinner |
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| Sporting new Tigers hats |
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| A little stressful as that phone started ringing! |
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| Pool day |
Can't wait to follow his new journey. We love you, B!
