Sonoma State, talent hotbed

At least for this season, Sonoma State might be the most heavily scouted 4-year school in Northern California, along with Cal. Why is a D2 tucked away in the sleepy suburb of Rohnert Park going to be so popular with the scouts? Simple, they have more talented draft eligible players than any other 4-year program in the area, again, aside from Cal. For whatever reason, SSU has become "Bounce Back University" for a number of our local players that either fell out of favor at a D1, left on their own accord, or left for academic or off-field issues.

Everyone is deserving of a second chance and certainly players should play where they are comfortable and where they are happy. This is not to judge any of the players that have left other programs, it is just acknowledging that they in fact have left and are now at SSU. The Seawolves have also done well recruiting the JC ranks and have a couple of former JC players that will get a shot at pro ball. Now, the overall ability of the top players at SSU may not be on par with the top talent at Cal or Stanford or Santa Clara or some of the other D1s, but what they have is depth of talent and even more importantly, not only is their talent is nearly as good as the D1 guys but they will come at discounted prices.

If LHP Scott Alexander has a good year to match his talent, he could go in the top five rounds, but that is not as likely as if he had stayed at Pepperdine and had a good year to match his talent because then he no doubt would be a top five round pick. Other players that will be of interest to the scouts this spring... INF Randy Wells (started at St. Mary's college), RHP Tyler Hess (started at Pepperdine), RHP Mark Lincoln (started at Long Beach State), OF Austin Hogans (started at UC Santa Barbara), OF Tillman Pugh (started at Arizona State, not sure if he is eligible or not).

There are some others that will draw late round interest, but in addition to Scott Alexander, that group will have scouts coming steadily to SSU games all spring. Others to put in your notes... OF Kyle Jones, RHP Kendall Davis, RHP Brian Flint, 1B/OF Joey Parigi, 1B Ryan Stevens