Overview:
Coach Andrew Checketts has had 61 of his players drafted since he took over as UCSB’s coach in 2012
Andrew Checketts was in the mood for a quiet Fourth of July.
“I am home, trying to minimize how much I work,” he said during the midafternoon of Independence Day.
UC Santa Barbara’s award-winning baseball coach craved some calm before the firestorm.
Checketts knows that Major League Baseball’s upcoming All-Star Game Week — “The Midsummer Classic” — includes a Midsummer Cluster Bomb for college baseball coaches:
It’s officially known as the MLB Draft.
Plenty of fallout will fill Checketts’ plate once the smoke clears from this annual fireworks show.
He’s coming off a 44-14 season that earned him his seventh trip to the NCAA Tournament in 13 seasons and the West Region Coach of the Year Award.
But he can only guess how many of his Gauchos will be swept away in the three-day draft.
“It’s become a little more of a challenge predicting that,” Checketts told Noozhawk.
The first two rounds will be chosen July 14. Rounds three to 10 will follow the next day. The draft will conclude on July 16, with rounds 11 through 20.
Only two regulars from the Gauchos’ Big West Conference championship team — all-league second baseman Nick Oakley and starting pitcher Mike Gutierrez — have used up their college eligibility.
It’s a Midsummer’s Night Dream to expect the rest of UCSB’s Regional finalist team to return.
But there is a silver lining to the conduit that several more Gauchos will take into professional baseball next week.
The 61 UCSB players selected in the last dozen MLB drafts have given Checketts an effective recruiting pitch to keep the ball rolling.
“We’re maybe among the top two schools on the West Coast for the highest number of draft picks — UCLA is the other,” he said. “At least that’s where we were before we stopped tracking it.
“We don’t have anything against our guys getting drafted and getting professional opportunities.”
He’s actually made it a talking point with his returning players.
“Some of the natural tendency is to go, ‘Oh, we’re not going to be very good losing everybody,’” Checketts said. “But in 2015 we had 10 guys drafted and the next year we went to the College World Series.
“In 2019, we had 10 guys drafted and the next year, before COVID hit, we were 13-2 and ranked in the top 25 … And then we played in a regional championship game the year after that.”
It’ll be difficult now to ever break that Gaucho record of 10 draftees. Major League Baseball reduced the number of rounds to 20 from 40 after the 2019 draft.
The Guessing Game
Checketts isn’t sure how many of UCSB’s players will be chosen next week.
“You have the obvious ones — guys like Matt Ager, Aaron Parker, Ivan Brethowr, Zander Darby,” he said.
Ager, who pitched last summer for Team USA’s collegiate team, led the Gauchos with 11 saves last season. He was ranked No. 135 on MLB.com’s most recent list of draft prospects.
Darby, a third baseman who was moved to first base after an early season injury, is ranked No. 151 despite batting just .275.
Brethowr, an outfielder who led UCSB in home runs with 15, was listed as the No. 194 draft prospect.
“Darby didn’t have the year he wanted but he did really well in the Cape (Cod League) the year before,” Checketts pointed out. “A lot of times that can carry a guy.
“Ivan had kind of a rough Cape last summer and then a really good year with us. He’s super-physical and toolsy.
“I think all four of those guys have a chance to be top-10-rounders.”
He included Parker in that foursome even though he didn’t make MLB.com’s list of top 250 draft prospects.
The junior catcher batted a team-high .379 while slugging 12 homers. He also topped all Gauchos with 51 runs batted in.
Brendan Durfee, who rotated between catcher and first base, has a season of eligibility remaining despite having transferred to UCSB as a graduate student. He batted .349 with nine homers last season.
“He’s likely to get drafted on Day Three, at some point,” Checketts said.
“I would think all those guys aspire to play professional baseball, so it’s harder to envision them coming back unless they really get low-balled in the draft.”
The most curious omission from MLB.com’s top 250 is redshirt sophomore Ryan Gallagher. He became UCSB’s No. 1 starting pitcher early last season after returning from Tommy John elbow surgery.
Gallagher was voted Big West Pitcher of the Year and made all five All-America teams after posting a win-loss record of 10-1 and earned run average of 2.22. He struck out 96 batters in 89 innings.
“Gallagher is an obvious draft, but we don’t have a real clear idea on what he’s going to get offered or what he’d sign for at this point,” Checketts said.
“I don’t think he’d sign for peanuts, but you just never know how the draft will go.”
Other possible returnees with an outside chance of getting drafted are outfielder Jessada Brown (.350), outfielder-first baseman LeTrey McCollum (.320), outfielder Jonah Sebring (.271), and third baseman Justin Trimble (.248 with 12 homers).
Summer Dreaming
Brown and Sebring have been playing outfield on summer collegiate teams in the hope of improving their stock.
“Jesse is killing it in the Northwoods League (batting .458 with 14 stolen bases for the Willmar Stingers in Minnesota), so we’ll see what that does to the draft portion of it,” Checketts said. “And Jonah is having a great summer for the Santa Barbara Foresters (batting .358 with five steals).
“The obvious ones to get drafted are those who were probably turned in by (the scouts of) all 30 teams,” Checketts said. “And then there are the pretty obvious ones who were turned in by two-thirds of the teams.
“We’ve also got some not-so-obvious ones who were turned in by just a team or two … but sometimes that’s all it takes for you to lose them.”
Four of his recruits have also received “draft looks”: catcher Ian Fernandez from Vintage High School in Napa, centerfielder Jack Haferkamp from Santa Fe Christian High in Solana Beach, right-handed pitcher Nathan Aceves from Huntington Beach High, and left-handed pitcher Van Froling from Inderkum High in Sacramento.
“We’re hoping they’ll price-tag themselves out of the draft, kind of like (Tyler) Bremner and (Frank) Camarillo did two years ago,” Checketts said. “We’re optimistic that will happen, but you never know.
“Sometimes people change their minds and panic.”
Fernandez, who batted .386 last spring for Vintage High, was listed as the No. 208 draft prospect by MLB.com.
Catching On
If Parker turns pro, Fernandez will compete for the catcher position with returning freshmen Nick Putnam and Aidan Camberg, and recruit Nate Vargas of Folsom Lake College in Folsom.
“Vargas has put up some offense, and we think the Fernandez kid is going to be really offensive, long term,” Checketts said.
Camberg has strengthened his case this summer by hitting .316 in his first 16 games with the Walnut Creek Crawdads of the California Collegiate League.
“It’s been a pretty good start this summer for most everybody,” Checketts said. “Jackson Flora was up to 98 (mph) in his last start at Corvallis (Oregon) and Cole Tryba was up to 94 at Ridgefield (Washington).
“Frank Camarillo has been the Pitcher of the Week for the Santa Barbara Foresters … Reed Moring is just getting started in the Cape Cod League.
“Those are two guys with good arms and good stuff, so we’re hoping that the summer will help them.”
Moring earned a save in his Thursday debut with the Hyannis Harbor Hawks. He retired all six of the batters he faced — three by strikeouts — in a game against the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox.
And then there’s sophomore pitcher Tyler Bremner, who won’t become eligible for the draft until next year.
He made three All-America teams last season after going 11-1 with 104 strikeouts and a 2.54 ERA.
He then joined two other Americans on the Team USA pitching staff to throw a no-hitter against Chinese Taipei in Tuesday’s game of the CNT International Friendship Series. He struck out four batters in three innings.
“We’ve got some key pieces coming back,” Checketts said.
And that’s no matter which way the draft blows next week.
