Princeton Headlines Ivy Draft Choices With Szymanski, Four Other Selections

Baseball is a thinking man’s game.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Major League Baseball teams used the June Amateur draft as an occasion to scour the Ivy Leagues for talent.

Thirteen Ivy League baseball players were drafted overall on Monday and Tuesday, from as early as the second round (No. 48 overall pick B.J. Szymanski of Princeton) to as late as the 48th (No. 1,428 overall pick Brian Winings of Pennsylvania).

Princeton led the league with five players drafted—Szymanski, pitcher Ross Ohlendorf, outfielder Will Venable, infielder Steve Young and catcher Tim Lahey. All were drafted in the first 20 rounds of the 50-round event.

Szymanski, whom Baseball America magazine dubbed the “Best Power Hitter” in the draft, as well as its “Best Five-Tool Talent,” built significant buzz in the weeks preceding the affair. Expected by experts to go in the first round, his stock slipped in recent days—aided, in part, by a 2-for-14 skid in Princeton’s NCAA Regional loss against Virginia.

That ultimately didn’t deter the Cincinnati Reds, who happily used their second-round pick on the Princeton outfielder, a .362 hitter from Wichita Falls, Texas.

“He had a football-type body, he can run and he’s athletic,” Reds director of amateur scouting Terry Reynolds told mlb.com. “So we were somewhat surprised that he was still there [in Round 2].”

It remains unclear whether the Princeton players were drafted according to baseball abilities alone. Scouts were enamored with Szymanski’s status on the football team this year—he caught 44 passes for 823 yards and four touchdowns, including a 43-yard reception against Harvard on October 25—and raved about the upside of a “crude” athlete committing to baseball only recently.

In addition, Venable, son of former major leaguer Max Venable, was recruited to Princeton to play basketball. The 6’3 guard from San Rafael, Calif. led Tigers starters in field goal percentage and assists and averaged 10.3 points per game this season. But his relatively early selection by the Orioles—15th round, 439th overall—was surprising, considering the junior’s spotty plate discipline (only six walks in 96 total AB) and lack of playing time in the field.

Throw in Thomas Pauly (second-round selection by the Reds in 2003), who was recruited to Princeton as a swimmer, and Chris Young (third-round selection by the Pirates in 2000), who was recruited to play basketball, and Princeton flaunts some considerable recent success with its multi-sport baseball stars.

Harvard baseball coach Joe Walsh said Princeton’s easy transition of recruits in other sports into baseball was a sign of a “fortunate program.” But Walsh, who similarly saw off former Crimson captain—and football recruit—Barry Wahlberg ’03 after the latter’s selection by the Seattle Mariners in 2003, said he was not envious of Princeton’s success.

“It’s great for the league,” he said.

BASEBALL SMARTS

From Wall Street to the Bay Area, Harvard graduates consistently use their weighty degrees to get a leg up on the job competition.

Baseball, it seems, is no different.

After the 2004 amateur draft, many scouts, like Arizona Diamondbacks scouting director Tom Rizzo, said they were impressed with the Ivy players’ baseball sense and “coachability.”

“That is part of our MO—we like those kind of guys,” said Rizzo, who oversaw the Diamondbacks’ selection of Harvard senior Trey Hendricks and Ohlendorf, to mlb.com. “There are very few players in the draft that are ready to go right to the big leagues. They need to be coached and our development people do a great job with guys who can absorb information and put that information into practice. It’s no coincidence that we look at those kinds of schools. We’ve found those kind of guys do absorb and learn and are coachable.”

Ohlendorf is one such player. Described as “a bulldog” in his scouting report, Ohlendorf has been clocked at 97 mph and threw a two-hitter against Virginia in the only game Princeton won in the NCAAs.

The native of Austin, Texas also scored a 1580 on the SAT—and was accepted to Harvard in 2000, only to choose Princeton.

“I was surprised he didn’t get taken higher,” Walsh said of the fourth-round Diamondbacks pick.

Along with Venable and Szymanski, Lahey is another Princeton player whose numbers fail to correlate with his high draft status. A 20th-round selection by the Minnesota Twins, Lahey batted only .263 this season—25 points fewer than undrafted Crimson catcher Schuyler Mann—and struggled last season in the Cape Cod League. But he is 6’4, a height that Walsh said “you can’t teach,” and scouts tend to prefer tall catchers.

Of course, Lahey may have been drafted high for an altogether different reason. One scout told ESPN’s Peter Gammons that Lahey is “worth taking because in 15 years you’ll either have your big league manager or orthopedic surgeon.”

This should not come as a surprise. Ivy Leaguers ballplayers really are “thinking men”—and they certainly have a place in baseball.

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.