Soto, Acuna go 1-2 in 2019 TBL draft

The Transcontinental Baseball League held their online draft Saturday. Two outfielders went first and both went to the same manager, the Nationals’ Juan Soto and the Braves’ Ronald Acuna were chosen by Joe Auletta of the Brobdingnag Barbarians.

Per Steve Stein’s correction in the comments section:

Warrenton had traded the top pick (as well as their second pick plus their top 2 picks next year) of the draft to Brobdingnag in return for Mike Trout.

This gave Brobdingnag the first 2 picks in the draft. They stiffed Acuna by picking Soto first. (Brob also had the 4th pick of the draft.)

Here is how the top ten of the TBL draft went down:

1. SOTO, Juan
2. ACUNA, Ronald
3. TORRES, Gleyber
4. BUEHLER, Walker
5. OHTANI, Shohei
6. ANDUJAR, Miguel
7. FLAHERTY, Jack
8. BARRIA, Jaime
9. MUNCY, Max
10. DOMINGUEZ, Seranthony

You can see the full 10-round 2019 draft by TBL here.

I am always glad that the Transcontinental Baseball League’s draft is usually held before my league’s draft. The TBL’s eligibility rules are somewhat similar to the Illowa APBA League’s and therefore I can get a sense of what the conventional wisdom is for the value of the 2018 rookies.

In the sense of fairness, I’ll be sending this out to all of my IAL brethren.

Like the IAL, the Transcontinental Baseball League takes care of some unfinished business before the draft. I speak of course of the previous year’s postseason.

In other TBL biz, congratulations to Eric Sheffler (above right) whose Strong City Statesman defeated Anton Greenwald and his Gotham City Batmen for the TBL championship. Sheffler’s Statesmen won the TBL World Series four games to two at the draft weekend.

Nice going, Eric!

Photo credit: TBL Media