Three area players selected in MLB draft

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The long wait ended Thursday morning for Colin Kleven, Rory Young and Kyle Dhanani.
With the Major League Baseball draft of first-year players into its third and final day, Kleven, Young and Dhanani were waiting, watching and hoping.
And the three young players, all with ties to the Kamloops area, found themselves selected within 300 picks of each other.
Kleven, an 18-year-old right-hander from Kamloops, was taken by the defending World Series-champion Philadelphia Phillies in the 33rd round, 1,007th overall.
Young, a 6-foot-1, 210-pound right-hander from Chase, went to the Houston Astros in the 39th round, 1,181st overall.
Kleven, who played two years with the midget AAA Kamloops RiverDogs, and Young, who turns 18 on Wednesday, play for the Premier League’s Langley Blaze.
Dhanani, a shortstop with the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack, was selected by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 43rd round, 1,306th overall. The Brewers, who worked him out in Milwaukee earlier this month, project the 6-foot-2, 195-pound Dhanani, a native of Blaine, Wash., as a third baseman.
A Milwaukee representative visited Dhanani in Blaine last night and signed him to a contract. Dhanani leaves Sunday for Helena, Mont., where he will suit up for the Brewers of the rookie Pioneer League.
The draft, which began with three rounds Tuesday evening, wrapped up yesterday before noon PT. The teams went through 50 rounds, selecting 1,521 players.
Kleven had just finished writing a psychology final exam at Mountain Secondary in Burnaby when his father, Barry, called him.
“Amazing” is how Colin described his reaction when his father gave him the news.
Kleven expects to stay with the Blaze and wait for contract negotiations to get started.
Kleven said the Phillies have said they will “follow me until about August and then I’ll probably sign.” Should he sign, Kleven likely would be ticketed for the Phillies’ entry in the Arizona Fall League.
Major league teams have until Aug. 15 to sign 2009 draft picks. Unsigned selections become eligible for the 2010 draft.
Should Kleven not sign, he will attend Iowa Western Community College in Cedar Rapids.
Asked if he was leaning towards signing, Kleven said: “For sure . . . I’d love to sign.”
Kleven wasn’t surprised to be selected by the Phillies who, he said, are one of the MLB teams that watched him on a number of occasions.
“I’ve met them a couple of times,” he said. “They’ve come up to Langley and I’ve worked out for them.”
He knows the Phillies have been represented at camps organized by Walt Burrows, the Canadian director of the Major League Baseball scouting bureau. Kleven also remembers the Phillies scouting him at a tournament in Kamloops.
The only negative to Kleven’s day is in his closet. His favourite team, until yesterday morning, was the Seattle Mariners. Now it’s the Phillies, which means some stuff is going to have to leave his closet.
“Yeah,” he said, with a laugh.
Dhanani, meanwhile, told TRU sports information officer Larry Read that “the last two days have been quite stressful, but it’s been worth it . . . for sure.”
Dhanani hit .352 with four home runs and 48 RBI has the WolfPack won the Canadian Colleges Baseball Conference title. After putting up a .985 OPS he was invited to a Brewers’ prospects camp at which he felt he did quite well.
“I thought maybe I’d go earlier,” he said, “but due to the lack of exposure they were able to get me in the later rounds, which is fine by them but was pretty nervewracking watching the rounds get higher and higher for me.”
Dhanani, who turns 22 on Sept. 6, said all he has ever wanted is a chance to play at the next level.
“This is a dream come true,” he said.
But before he leaves for Montana, there is a little shopping to do.
“I told my mom when I was little that I’d buy her a fancy dress if I ever made it pro,” Dhanani said, “so I’ll have to follow through on that promise.”
DRAFT NOTES: Dhanani, a two-time CCBC all-star, is the fifth player to be drafted out of TRU. The others: Pitcher Adam Arnold, Milwaukee, 2007; catcher Paul Wourms, Los Angeles Dodgers, 2005; pitcher Ryan Patterson, Milwaukee, 2004; and, catcher John Suomi, Oakland A’s, 2000. . . . Arnold is with the Kalamazoo Kings of the independent Frontier League. . . . Suomi, who suffered a major knee injury while in Oakland’s organization, signed with the Kansas City Royals during the offseason. He now is with the Double A Northwest Arkansas Naturals who play in the Texas League out of Springdale, Ark. Suomi was hitting .320 going into last night’s action.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com

There were 1,521 players selected in the Major League Baseball draft over the last three days.
The odds of any of them making it to the big leagues are . . . well, here’s what Joe Posnanski wrote at si.com earlier this week:
“Take the 1994 draft . . . 15 years ago. There were 287 players taken in the first 10 rounds, and 190 of them — two-thirds — did not get a single at-bat or throw a single pitch in the big leagues.
“And many of the 97 who DID make it only made it for a brief and beautiful moment — Stephen Larkin and Ron Wright got three at-bats, Eddie Priest pitched in two games, Jason Ryan and Todd Belitz and Tony Mounce and Alberto Castillo won once, Jamie Bluma never won a game and so on.
“Remember, that’s just the FIRST 10 rounds. After that, there were another 1,420 player selected — and only 97 of them (6.8 per cent) had a single at-bat in the big leagues. And many of those 97 players don’t even count because they didn’t sign that year — they went back into the draft later and made it with a whole different team.”
Of course, players like Colin Kleven of Kamloops, Rory Young of Chase and Kyle Dhanani of the TRU WolfPack, all of whom were drafted Thursday, know of the exceptions.
They know that catcher Russell Martin, from East York, Ont., was taken in the 17th round in 2002 and now starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
They know, too, that outfielder Jason Bay of Trail went to the Montreal Expos in the 22nd round of the 2000 draft. Bay now is an all-star left fielder with the Boston Red Sox.
Which is why they are chasing the dream.
— GREGG DRINNNAN