Wright State draft history grows as second baseman goes 33rd overall

• Eleven players picked in the first five rounds.

• Two top-40 picks.

The latest Wright State player drafted, second baseman Tyler Black, is the second-highest drafted player in school history and the highest-drafted position player. The Milwaukee Brewers chose Black with the No. 33 pick on Sunday night, using the Competitive Balance Round A to pick the Toronto, Ont., native.

“Proud to have been selected by the Brewers in the MLB Draft,” Black wrote on Twitter and Instagram. “Thank you to (Wright State) for taking a chance on a kid from Canada. Excited to get started.”

Black committed to Wright State in November of 2017, about four months after Alex Sogard became head coach. Sogard said Black was an under-the-radar walk-on who Wright State first planned to redshirt as a freshman. That plan changed when he arrived on campus and they saw his potential.

Black hit .353 with 41 RBI and 23 extra-base hits and started 44 games in his first season in the spring of 2019.

“When we saw him in the fall (of 2018), we knew he was going to have an impact,” Sogard said. “He wasn’t an everyday guy as a freshmen, and then we put him at second base and he won that role and ended up being a freshman All-American. So it was pretty cool to see his development. It’s a testament to the type of worker he is. He’s a guy that wants to hit BP on Sunday after a weekend series after he had just played three games.”

As a junior this past season, the 6-foot-2, 190-pound Black hit .383 with 14 doubles, one triple, and 13 home runs. Black was one of two players the Brewers drafted Sunday. They picked Boston College outfielder Sal Frelick with the 15th pick of the first round.

“We’re looking for athletic players players that can play around the field and also guys who can hit,” said Tod Johnson, the Brewers vice president of domestic scouting. “We think we got two guys today that both can hit. That’s always a big piece of it. Tyler Black’s interesting. Wright State is somewhat of a smaller school, but he really performed, and they always play a tough schedule non-conference and then they always play a NCAA tournament game, so we’ve seen him compete against top-end college competition as well.”

Only one Wright State player has been drafted higher than Black. Brian Anderson was the third overall selection in 1993 by the Angels and pitched in the big leagues for 13 seasons. Prior to Black, the highest-drafted Wright State position player was Keith Gordon, who the Reds drafted in the second round with the 47th overall pick in 1990.

In recent years, Wright State players have heard their name called often in the draft. There were four players drafted in 2019, the last year there was a complete draft, including Peyton Burdick (third round, Miami Marlins) and Seth Gray (fourth round, Minnesota Twins).

There were three players drafted in 2018, including Ryan Weiss (fourth round, Arizona Diamondbacks), who’s now pitching in Triple-A for the Reno Aces. In 2016, five Raiders were drafted. That group included Sean Murphy, a third-round pick who’s in his third season with the Oakland A’s.

“It’s awesome,” said Sogard, who is coaching with the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team this month. “Obviously, it’s great for the program, and (Black has) got an opportunity to play at the next level. I think every college player has a dream to play professionally. That’s something we talked about a lot. To see it come to fruition is really cool.”

The draft and big-league success is something the Wright State coaches use in recruiting.

“We have a lot of success on the field with the development side,” Sogard said. “With Tyler, he was able to develop so much because when he came here, he was able to play right away. So much development is done on the playing field, and he got that opportunity. It’s really cool to see. We’ll definitely use that with recruits. When you look at the last four or five years, we’ve had a lot of success, probably as much as anyone in the Midwest, from a professional baseball standpoint.”