Brewers select Trent Clark with 15th pick in baseball’s amateur draft.
The Milwaukee Brewers hadn’t used their top overall pick in baseball’s amateur draft on a college player since 2011. They kept it that way again last night, selecting 18-year-old high school outfielder Trent Clark from North Richland, Texas with the 15th overall selection in the first round.
The left-handed hitter hit .552 with three home runs and 24 runs batted in and 11 stolen bases as a senior and is considered one of the better bats in the draft.
The last time the Brewers selected a college player in the first round was 2011 when they selected Taylor Jungmann and Jed Bradley with the 12th and 15th overall picks. Jungmann is scheduled to make his major league debut with the Brewers in Pittsburgh tonight.
The Brewers did select a pair of 21-year-old college juniors with their final two picks of the night. They selected left-handed pitcher Nathan Kirby out of the University of Virginia with the 40th pick and right-handed pitcher Cory Ponce out of Cal Poly-Pomona with the 55th pick.
AUDIO: Doug Melvin loves Clark’s hitting potential :13
AUDIO: Trent Clark on being called a professional hitter :11
Clark has a scholarship to play at Texas Tech, but Brewers GM Doug Melvin said signability doesn’t appear to be an issue.
“We draft them and then we worry about that later,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”
Kirby went 5-2 with a 2.28 ERA in 10 starts at Virginia this season, but has been out since mid-April because of a strained a muscle. He’s expected to be ready to pitch out of the bullpen in the College World Series.
Ponce went 5-3 with a 1.44 ERA in 13 games, recording 67 strikeouts in 62 1/3 innings.