2022 MLB Draft: 2 Arizona commits, 1 current player taken on Day 3

The 2022 MLB Draft is over after another 10 rounds were held on Tuesday. Now Arizona, like college baseball programs all over the country, wait to see which of their selection players and recruits end up signing and which ones come back (or make it) to campus.

Outfielder Tanner O’Tremba was Arizona’s only active player to get taken on Day 3, going in the 15^th round (466^th overall) to the San Francisco Giants, while two more members of the Wildcats’ 2022 signing class were also selected.

Left-handed pitcher Drew Sommers, who was part of Central Arizona’s junior college national championship team, went in the 11^th round (344^th) to the Tampa Bay Rays, while College of Southern Nevada righty Kris Bow was picked in the 14^th round (430^th) by the New York Yankees.

Overall, Arizona had five current/future players picked. Catcher Daniel Susac went to the Oakland Athletics with the 19^th overall pick on Sunday, while Nogales High School shortstop Demetrio Crisantes was a seventh-round pick of the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday.

Not drafted: outfielder Mac Bingham, third baseman Tony Bullard—who has withdrawn from the NCAA transfer portal—shortstop Nik McClaughry and righties Trevor Long and Dawson Netz. All should be back with Arizona in 2023. None of the UA’s graduating players, including lefty Garrett Irvin, were picked either, but he figures to sign an undrafted free agent deal.

Unlike players drafted in the first 10 rounds, where the picks have pre-assigned bonus “slot values,” picks in rounds 11 or later generally have a capped signing bonus of $125,000. Anything above that counts toward an MLB team’s bonus pool, which is almost entirely used to sign its highest draft picks.

Former Arizona righty Chase Silseth, an 11th-round pick of the Anaheim Angels, signed for $485,000 last July, but the UA’s other two draftees on Day 3 in 2021 (Austin Smith and Kobe Kato) signed for $125,000 and $80,000, respectively.

Still, the odds still lean heavily toward a drafted player signing with the team that picked them. Per Carlos Colazzo of Baseball America, since the bonus pool structure began in 2012 a whopping 98.61% of players drafted in the first 10 rounds ended up signing. For rounds 11-20 it’s still high, with 85.67% signing from 2021 (the first year of the current 20-round format).

Clubs have until Aug. 1 to sign their draft picks.

Ex-Wildcat update

Two more former Wildcats were selected Tuesday, bringing the tally to five. Right-hander Ian Mejia, who was on the 2019 team but did not play, went in the 11^th round to the Atlanta Braves after helping New Mexico State to the NCAA regionals, and first baseman Blake Klassen, who appeared in three games with the UA in 2020, went in the 17^th round to the Washington Nationals following a season hitting .352 at UC Santa Barbara.