College football players with famous baseball dads taken in MLB Draft
A pair of college football players with famous MLB fathers were taken in the latter rounds of the 2016 MLB Draft.
Day 3 of the MLB Draft continued on Saturday as teams are hoping to strike gold with late-round picks and hope they can crack the big league roster in a few years. But more often than not, the players picked in the latter portion of the draft are viewed as organizational prospects who will basically round out the minor league rosters and don’t have high hopes attached to them.
But the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Seattle Mariners decided they wanted to invest in a nice warm and fuzzy family feeling instead of trying to cash in on a lottery ticket when they made their picks in the 22nd and 23rd round, respectively.
The Angels used their pick on Notre Dame wide receiver Torii Hunter, Jr. and his father, Torii Hunter who played for the Angels as part of his nearly 20-year MLB career announced the pick.
One round later, the Mariners selected Arizona wide receiver Trey Griffey, the son of future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey, Jr. who also announced the pick.
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So that’s pretty cool for both those families and they’ll have a priceless memory.
But in reality, it’s a sham.
The two aren’t baseball players. They were drafted as a token of appreciation to their dads and essentially were a waste of a draft pick.
It happens annually in the MLB Draft, however, so it’s not an uncommon practice. Heck, the San Diego Padres drafted former Heisman winner Johnny Manziel in the latter rounds a few years ago despite him not having played since he was in high school.
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MLB teams will draft players as favors or for publicity or a combination of the two. So it’s a far cry from the NFL Draft where general managers would be eviscerated for drafting a college baseball player just because his dad played for the football team years ago.