Draft Provides More Pitching

The Dodgers enhanced a minor league system already teeming with promising pitchers Monday on the first day of the amateur draft, taking pitchers with four of their first six selections.

The most prized pick was left-hander Scott Elbert, whom the Dodgers selected 17th overall with one of their three first-round picks.

A Baseball America preseason first-team All-American, Elbert had a 6-2 record with a 0.52 earned-run average for Seneca (Mo.) High, giving up 13 hits and 14 walks, and striking out 114 in 54 innings.

“Just because we have some good pitching in our system, I wasn’t going to pass on an arm like Scott Elbert,” said Logan White, the Dodgers’ director of amateur scouting. “We still tried to get good arms because that’s what the draft provided. It’s like anything: You’re only as good as the materials you have to work with.”

Elbert, a 6-foot-2, 195-pounder who was also a standout running back, said he chose baseball over football because he envisioned a brighter future in baseball.

“I’m from a football town, but I had to do what I had to do and I feel good about my decision,” Elbert said.

Elbert, who throws a slider, a two-seam fastball clocked at 93 mph and a circle changeup, said he anticipated making the major league roster within three years and accepted the challenge of competing with other gifted pitchers.

“I’m up for a good challenge,” Elbert said. “If they have a lot of good arms, I’m going to have to step in and try to beat them out.”

While praising Elbert as “a high-ceiling left-handed pitcher,” White predicted a swifter ascent to the majors for right-hander Justin Orenduff, whom the Dodgers selected with their third pick and the 33rd selection overall.

Orenduff, who played for Virginia Commonwealth, has competed with Team USA and possesses what White described as “a plus slider and a real good fastball.” Elbert and Orenduff are projected as starters, White said.

Blake DeWitt, who played shortstop for Sikeston (Mo.) High but is expected to be converted to a third baseman, was the first position player drafted by the Dodgers, with the 28th overall selection. DeWitt hit .544 this season with 11 home runs, 33 runs batted in and 11 stolen bases.

White said the fact that four of the Dodgers’ first six selections were high school players was not an indication that the team had scrapped the “Moneyball” philosophy of favoring college players in the draft prescribed by General Manager Paul DePodesta.

“We decided just to take the best players available,” said White, whose first-day selections comprised six high school players, 10 college players and four community college players. “We’re subject to the pool of talent that’s out there. That’s how it would have gone anyway.”