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The Frontier League Draft Class for 2017 is made up of 26 players – 13 pitchers and 13 position players. The draft results are listed below along with all information that could be found about where each player was last season (or the last season that they played). Some players were very hard to find even through an extensive search, so some of this information may not be the most up-to-date on every player (it’s hard to find solid statistics on the Empire League or all winter leagues). The following information and statistics were found using a combination of Baseball Reference, The Baseball Cube, Pointstreak, or the players respective college websites.

Pick 1: Schaumburg Boomers, Austin Goss (RHP)
Goss pitched the last two years at Tennessee Wesleyan University. Over the course of those two seasons, he had a 4-1 record with a 3.19 ERA over 53.2 IP.
Pick 2: Windy City Thunderbolts, Cody Mincey (RHP)
Mincey last pitched in 2015 for the University of South Carolina. He made 18 relief appearances, went 2-3 with a save and a 6.75 ERA in 28.0 innings during his senior year. In his previous season, he went 5-0 with a 1.04 ERA in 29 relief appearances.
Pick 3: Traverse City Beach Bums, James Simpson (C)
In High School, for Naaman Forest HS in Garland, TX, he was a 2014 Under Armour Preseason All-American and 2012 Under Armour National All-Star.
Pick 4: Gateway Grizzles, TBA
Pick 5: Normal CornBelters, Bob Wheatley (LHP)
Wheatley was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in 2014. Spent last year in the Cardinals organization – short season and single A. With the short season State College Spikes, he went 3-0 with a 0.50 ERA in 9 games. During his stint with the single A Peoria Chiefs, he posted a 3.09 ERA with a 1-1 record in 7 games.
Pick 6: Lake Erie Crushers, Nick Bozman (LHP)
Bozman spent last season with the White Sands Pupfish in the Pecos League. He took the field as both a pitcher and an outfielder. As a pitcher, he went 3-4 with a 5.54 ERA, and as an outfielder, he batted .320 in 25 AB.
Pick 7: Washington Wild Things, Aaron Burns (RHP)
Burns last pitched in 2016 for his senior season with the University of Texas – San Antonio. He started in 14 games (appearing in 1 additional game), pitching 80 innings with a 3-8 record and a 5.40 ERA.
Pick 8: Schaumburg Boomers, Cosimo Cannella (1B)
Cannella played his senior season in 2016 for Missouri Western State University. During that season, he had a .360 avg with 9 HR and 61 RBI.
Pick 9: River City Rascals, Stephen Swagerty (RHP)
Swagerty played for the Great Bend Boom in the Pecos League last season. In 12 starts (76.1 IP), he had a 3-4 record with a 3.42 ERA.
Pick 10: Joliet Slammers, Steven Pollakov (C)
Pollakov spent last season in rookie ball for the Chicago White Sox. He had a .278 avg in 36 AB for the Great Falls Voyagers.
Pick 11: Evansville Otters, Andrew Bynum (C)
Bynum’s senior season in 2014 was spent with at Valparaiso University. In 34 games and 112 AB, he had a .241 avg with 15 RBI. The previous season, he batted .313 in just 67 AB.
Pick 12: Southern Illinois Miners, Ryan O’Malley (3B)
O’Malley was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 2016. He spent the season in rookie ball for the Danville Braves. In 138 AB, he batted .188 with 5 HR and 19 RBI.
Pick 13: Schaumburg Boomers, Pass
Pick 14: Windy City Thunderbolts, Danny Britt (C)
Britt played college ball at Trinity Christian College. His senior season was 2014. He also worked with the Black Sox to train before the draft.
Pick 15: Traverse City Beach Bums, Brook Clark (UTL)
Clark was a senior at Walsh University during the 2016 season. In 52 games, he batted .258 with 13 RBI.
Pick 16: Gateway Grizzlies, Chris Dula (RHP)
Dula was drafted by the Texas Rangers in 2013. He has spent his entire pro career in their organization. He played at 3 different levels in 2016 (A-, A, A+) with a combined ERA of 6.89 in 15.2 innings with a 1-1 record.
Pick 17: Normal CornBelters, Kyle Carter (LHP)
Carter is listed as a LHP on the draft results, but was signed as a utility player. There was a Kyle Carter who played OF for the Florence Freedom in 2015. Carter batted .224 in 98 AB. (There is no confirmation that this is the same – especially with differing in positions between the FL draft information and transactions page.)
Pick 18: Florence Freedom, Mark Fowler (OF)
Fowler last played in the Frontier League in 2015 where he was a member of the Lake Erie Crushers. He batted .250 in just 27 games. During the 2015 season, he was also a member of the Roswell Invaders in the Pecos League, batting .275 in 15 games. Fowler also worked out and played with the Black Sox travel team before being drafted.
Pick 19: Washington Wild Things, Matt Sabel (LHP)
Sabel completed his senior year in 2016 with the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh. In 40 career games, he had a 6.27 ERA in 112 IP. His career record was 3-4 with 4 saves.
Pick 20: Lake Erie Crushers, Roman Gomez (RHP)
Gomez pitched with the Vallejo Admirals in the Pacific Association in 2016. He finished the season with a 4-4 record and a 4.52 ERA in 93.2 IP (15 starts in 17 appearances.)
Pick 21: River City Rascals, Trevor Jaunich (RHP)
Jaunich played 4 years of college ball at North Dakota State. During his senior year in 2015, he had a 4-2 record with a 5.16 ERA in 29.2 IP (17 games). His twitter bio states that he was a part of the New Hampshire Wild in the North Country/Empire League.
Pick 22: Joliet Slammers, Brian McKenna (C)
McKenna played his last two seasons of college ball at Post University. During his senior season in 2015, he hit .182 with six doubles and a triple, helping to lead the Eagles to a berth in the CACC Tournament. He signed with the Beach Bums last year, but was released in spring training. Before the draft, McKenna was a member of the Black Sox travel team.
Pick 23: Evansville Otters, Ryan Cheek (RHP)
Cheek played his last two seasons of college ball at Indiana State. While there, he appeared in only 11 total games with a 2-0 record. In his junior year, he had an ERA of 8.10 in 10 IP. During his senior year, he had a 0.00 ERA but only had 3.1 IP. He did spend his freshman and sophormore years at Vincennes, where he appeared in 32 games (16 as a starter) with a 10-5 record between the two years.
Pick 24: Southern Illinois Miners, Chris Amato (SS)
Amato spent four years at Kean University. During his senior year in 2016, he had a .345 avg in 139 AB and had 16 SB.
Picks 25-27: Schaumburg Boomers, Windy City Thunderbolts, Traverse City Beach Bums, Pass
Pick 28: Gateway Grizzlies, Colin Kelly (RHP)
Kelly played three years with the Catholic University Cardinals after sitting out his junior season due to injury. During his senior season in 2016, he made a comeback and pitched in 11 games (9 starts) with a 5.47 ERA and 38 K. Prior to his injury, he had ERAs of 3.72 and 2.89 during his freshman and sophomore years.
Pick 29: Normal CornBelters, Pass
Pick 30: Florence Freedom, Lucas Owens (C)
Owens spent all four years of his college career with the UNC Asheville Bulldogs. In his senior season in 2016, he batted .281 with 17 RBI and 29 BB. His OBP was also .415 during his senior year.
Picks 31-32: Washington Wild Things, Lake Erie Crushers, Pass
Pick 33: River City Rascals, Dillon Clift, (C)
Clift played his freshman year at East Tennessee State University in 2016. He had .190 avg in 21 AB.
Picks 34-36: Joliet Slammers, Evansville Others, and Southern Illinois Miners, Pass
Pick 37: River City Rascals, Matthew Haskins (OF)
Haskins spent last season with the Sante Fe Fuego in the Pecos League. He had a .321 avg with 65 RBI, 22 HR, and 16 SB.

When the official season begins, Indy Ball Island will have the first update on all of these players… which ones will make an opening day roster? Subscribe and stay tuned to find out!

Usually on this site, I provide information on various leagues and write stories about players – detailing where they’ve played and what their stats look like.

This story is going to be just a little bit different, but it’s educational all the same.

As some of my readers and followers know, I am actually a teacher when I’m not doing this baseball writing stuff!

This past week, I was substitute teaching my favorite 8th grade class. I have gotten to know these students from my student teaching experience at the end of last year and have also filled in as a substitute for them whenever possible. My students know how much I love baseball, and some even know about this site and what I do when I’m not in front of their classroom.

Yesterday, I got the opportunity to go with them as their teacher to the Education Day game between the Washington WildThings and the Black Sox.

I’ve known the Black Sox coach, Andrew Rosario, for a couple years, and I have also gotten to know some of the players who happened to be with the team yesterday.

For those of you who don’t know, the Black Sox have a few teams throughout the country with players who are either looking for jobs or looking to get in reps and stay in game-shape until their professional season starts. They travel across the country, paying their own way, just to play baseball.

Their hard work and dedication to the game is inspiring… which is why I got so excited that they were the visiting team for the Education Day game. I knew it would be a perfect learning experience disguised as a field trip for some of my students.

Before the game, I went down to talk to a few of the players as well as coach Rosario and let them know that I’d love to bring some of my students over to meet them and talk baseball. They were more than happy to agree.

During the game, I rounded up a group of boys who play little league, love the game, and definitely look up to the players who get to play the game for a living. As their teacher, I can only hope that they have good baseball role models to follow. I knew these guys were pretty good examples of that.

I took them down to the bullpen and later to the dugout, and the players did exactly what I hoped they would do… they asked them their names, their positions, what teams and players they liked, and then… they just talked baseball. They told the boys where they played, what they were doing, and how they got to be on a team playing in Washington, PA. They talked about the grueling schedule and how they put in the hard work to do something they love. And my students were listening to everything. It may have been only 5 or 10 minute conversations, but those boys talked about it for hours after. The guys even signed countless autographs yesterday for many of my other students as well.

It didn’t matter what the score was. It didn’t matter what the players’ stats were. All that mattered was that they took the time to talk to some kids who were truly interested in what they were doing.

Some of the Black Sox players have been around professional baseball for years, but some are rookies out of college. For those rookies, this was one of the first times they’ve ever had kids interested in hearing their stories and getting their autographs. It honestly was a great educational experience for both the players and the students.

Getting to see how excited both sides were when they interacted with each other was an amazing thing that I doubt I’ll forget any time soon. It makes teaching and what I do with baseball so worth it.

To the Black Sox players and the Wild Things players as well who were down by their dugout signing, thank you for making Educational Day and an end of the year field trip so special for so many kids.

Special shout out to the WildThings’ mascot for coming up and interacting with my students as well!! You are one of a kind! (Future story on this is also in the works!)

If you are interested in playing with the Black Sox, you can check out more information on their official website – Black Sox: Pro Baseball Road Warriors.

Indy Ball Island

2017 Frontier League Draft Class – Who Are They?

Education Day with the Black Sox

Writing and sharing stories about Independent Baseball.