Tim Hopkins has been through this before. Son T.J. Hopkins was drafted in the ninth round in 2019 and made his Major League Baseball debut this year.
One never gets used to the feeling, that of nervousness, anxiety and excitement battling for control. Not that he’d want to.
He stands to have two sons in professional baseball by midweek, making all of the waiting with held breath and twisted fingers worth it.
“Right now, he’s projected at No. 107,” Hopkins said of his son Brody Hopkins, who finished his junior season at Winthrop this year as a first-team all-conference performer. “My gut’s telling me he’ll go somewhere from the late third round to the middle of the fourth.”
The MLB First-Year Player Draft begins at 7 p.m. on Sunday and covers the first two rounds (including compensatory picks), then continues into Monday with rounds 3-10. The final 10 rounds will be filled on Tuesday.
Brody, who transferred to Winthrop after two years at College of Charleston, is a 6-foot-4 two-way player, leading the Eagles with nine home runs this season and placing second with 39 RBIs. He also started 12 games on the mound, striking out 66 in 54 innings and holding opponents to a .207 average.
Scouts took notice of the potential and set up a showcase in Arizona for him, where he worked out for several teams. San Diego and Detroit have each had two looks at him, and the Tigers are slotted for that No. 107 pick, which is right in the middle of the fourth round.
“He’s also thrown for the Dodgers, the Blue Jays, the Pirates and a couple of other teams,” Tim said. “The sessions in Arizona were really a good fit.”
Gamecocks prepared to lose bulk of pitching
South Carolina knew it had great pitching this year, and rode it to a Super Regional season. It also knew that once the final out was gloved, the draft was going to land a massive punch.
But USC is prepared to handle the blow, and to retaliate.
Will Sanders, Jack Mahoney, Noah Hall and James Hicks — 41 of the Gamecocks’ 62 starts this year — are expected to be taken in the draft and accept their positions. If there’s any wiggle room, it’s that Sanders and Mahoney have set decent financial demands for themselves and they’re not likely to sign for much less, if anything less, than what they’ve set.
Neither would have any leverage if they returned for 2024, and would have to count on having a superlative season to top whatever draft selection they get in 2023. The protocol has usually been to stay in school for three seasons, get drafted, and go because odds are that’s the best offer a player will get, but one never knows what will happen.
With those two likely to go and Hicks and Hall almost definitely going, head coach Mark Kingston got busy in the transfer portal. Four of his 10 transfers thus far are pitchers, including Matt Duffy of Canisius, the reigning Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference pitcher of the year, who pledged on Saturday.
Duffy is also draft-eligible, but the Gamecocks are optimistic about getting him to campus. Another transfer hurler, College of Charleston’s Ty Good, is in the same situation — he may want to go ahead and start his professional career after a senior season that saw him win Colonial Athletic Association pitcher of the year honors, but he has to be drafted high enough to make a the money worth accepting.
In the Gamecocks’ bullpen, middle relief specialist Cade Austin and closer Chris Veach are each on the bubble when it comes to being drafted/leaving school. Those answers will be determined over the next three days, which turns the focus to the Gamecocks’ class of true freshmen.
USC has 15 signees, six of whom are pitchers. Of the 15, only two are set to be drafted — third baseman George Wolkow of Illinois and shortstop Lee Ellis of Maryland. Wolkow could go within the first four rounds and Ellis within the first eight.
They could both be fairly tough to sign to pro contracts due to their personal demands. But considering a selection at the bottom of the fourth round could get close to half a million dollars as a signing bonus, and a pick near the end of the eighth could get close to $200,000, it may be enough. It’s all part of the give-and-take of the draft.
Of USC’s other draft-eligible players, shortstop Braylen Wimmer is the name to watch this week. First baseman Gavin Casas is draft-eligible but announced on Saturday that he is removing his name from the draft and will return to USC next year.
All draftees have until Aug. 1 to decide if they’re going pro or returning to school.
