Rays continue to stockpile pitchers on day 3 of MLB draft

The Rays have a reputation for stockpiling pitching talent. They didn’t do anything to shed that Tuesday, selecting pitchers with nine of their 10 picks on the final day of the MLB draft.From the eighth round on day 2 through the 15th on day 3, the Rays selected eight straight pitchers. Director of baseball operations Hamilton Marx said it was just a case of taking the best player available with each pick.While the Rays mostly selected college talent on day 2, they started day 3 by zeroing in on the junior college pipeline.Lefty Drew Sommers was the Rays’ first pick of the day in the 10th round. Sommers, who committed to Arizona in November 2021, spent the past two seasons at JUCO powerhouse Central Arizona College, where he helped the Vaqueros win their second national championship in the past three seasons.Sommers pitched the last 2-2/3 innings of the National Junior College Athletic Association World Series national championship game, allowing just one hit while striking out five. He was named to the All-Tournament Team, along with teammate Tyler Woessner, who was taken in the sixth round by the Brewers.Marx said the Rays were impressed when they had the chance to watch the 6-foot-3, 250-pound Carlsbad, California, native pitch in the Cape Cod League this summer. Sommers has yet to allow an earned run in 16 innings of work for the Falmouth Commodores.Alex Cook, from Colby Community College in Kansas, went next in the 12th round. Cook, a back-to-back conference player of the year, led Kansas junior college pitchers with a 1.71 ERA and 103 strikeouts in 63 innings in 2022, despite missing time with a pulled forearm muscle in April.Colby head coach Ryan Carter said the All-American is as close to “big-league ready” as any player he’s ever had. Eleven former Colby players have been taken in the MLB draft, including Marvin Malone, a 16th-round selection of the Rays in 2018.Cook has a 92-97 mph fastball, per Carter, as well as a slider and changeup in the upper-80s and an upper-70s curveball. Carter said the 6-foot-2, 220-pound right-hander always has been extremely athletic but improved his diet and increased his effort in the weight room before last season.He said Cook’s likely the most competitive player he’s ever coached, showing up to indoor batting practice even though he was a pitcher-only. Cook recorded a loss just twice during his Colby career.“If there’s trash-talking going on, he wants in the middle of it,” Carter said. “If the game’s on the line, and he pitched 120 pitches yesterday, he wants in the middle of it.”After the Rays selected two more college pitchers in Nate Dahle out of BYU and Roel Garcia III, who spent six years at Rice, they returned to the junior college theme with Jake Christianson.Christianson played catcher his first two years at Feather River Community College in Quincy, California, hitting .342 in 2021. He was “very reluctant” to give up the bat, Eagles head coach Terry Baumgartner said, but eventually conceded that focusing on pitching was his best path to the next level.He returned to Feather River on the condition he’d be able to live again with “team mom” Amy Hendrickson. She and her 18-year-old son, who will join the team next season, were glad to have him back.“He doesn’t go party,” Hendrickson said of Christianson. “He’s responsible. He drives the speed limit. He’s just one of those kids that’s genuinely a good kid.”Christianson returned to campus bigger and stronger, she said, after spending much of the offseason working with Driveline Baseball in Washington state. He stuck out 55 batters in just 38 innings last season, and his 1.66 ERA would have been second among all California JUCOs had he not narrowly missed the innings cutoff for qualifying pitchers. Christianson’s fastball likely will climb to the 97-98 range and will only improve as he gets more time to develop his off-speed pitches.“I can see him moving through the ranks pretty quick, just because of how many strikes he throws,” Baumgartner said.The streak of pitches was briefly interrupted in the 16th round with Kamren James, an infielder from Mississippi State, before the Rays finished the draft by taking four more pitchers. Round No. Pos Player/School 1 29 1B Xavier Isaac, East Forsyth (NC) High2 65 OF Brock Jones, StanfordCB-B* 70 SS Chandler Simpson, Georgia TechCB-B* 71 OF Ryan Cermak, Illinois State3 104 RHP Trevor Martin, Oklahoma State4 134 C Dominic Keegan, Vanderbilt5 164 SS Jalen Battles, Arkansas6 194 RHP Gary Gill Hill, John F. Kennedy Catholic (N.Y.) High7 224 1B Blake Robertson, Oklahoma8 254 RHP Sean Harney, Kentucky9 284 LHP Chris Villaman, NC State10 314 RHP Cade Halemanu, Hawaii11 344 LHP Drew Sommers, Central Arizona College12 374 RHP Alex Cook, Colby CC (Kansas)13 404 RHP Nate Dahle, BYU14 434 RHP Roel Garcia III, Rice15 464 RHP Jake Christianson, Feather River College (Calif.)16 494 SS Kamren James, Mississippi State17 524 LHP Levi Huesman, Hanover (Virginia) High18 554 RHP Duncan Davitt, Iowa19 584 LHP Quinn Mathews, Stanford20 614 RHP Matt Wyatt, Virginia* competitive balance Round B• • • Sign up for the Rays Report weekly newsletter to get fresh perspectives on the Tampa Bay Rays and the rest of the majors from sports columnist John Romano.Never miss out on the latest with the Bucs, Rays, Lightning, Florida college sports and more. Follow our Tampa Bay Times sports team on Twitter and Facebook .

Rays continue to stockpile pitchers on day 3 of MLB draft

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