4 Cal Poly players selected in 2024 Major League Baseball Draft
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. - Southpaw Jakob Wright and catcher Ryan Stafford, both in their third year with the Cal Poly baseball team, were selected on the second day of the 2024 Major League Draft on Monday.
Wright, a redshirt sophomore from Paso Robles High School, was chosen by the Los Angeles Dodgers as the 128th overall pick in the fourth round.
A graduate of Folsom High School, Stafford was chosen in the fifth round, the 160th overall selection, by the Baltimore Orioles.
First two rounds of the annual draft were held Sunday, followed by the third through 10th rounds Monday, in Fort Worth, Texas.
On Tuesday, the final 10 rounds were filled out, with Mustang pitcher Steven Brooks selected by the Boston Red Sox in the 11th round and outfielder Jake Steels drawing a nod from the Atlanta Braves in the 18th round.
The four Mustang selections give 22-year head coach Larry Lee 39 draftees in the first 10 rounds, including three in each of the first two rounds and seven more in the third round. A total of 85 players coached by Lee at Cal Poly have been drafted, 79 signing contracts in the last 18 years.
Wright is the 11th Mustang chosen in the fourth round while Stafford is the third fifth-round pick. In terms of overall selections, Wright is 20th on the list of Mustang draftees while Stafford is the 31st overall pick.
Wright earned first-team All-Big West honors while Stafford, a first-team selection as a freshman, landed on the second unit for the second straight spring. Stafford also was named the conference’s defensive player of the year in 2024.
Other postseason honors include second-team ABCA All-West Region for Wright and a pair of Big West Field Player of the Week honors for Stafford. Stafford also was a finalist for the Buster Posey Award as the nation’s top catcher in Division I, Cal Poly’s first such honoree.
As Cal Poly’s Friday night starter this spring, Wright compiled a 9-3 record and 2.97 ERA. His nine wins were second in the Big West, his ERA was fifth among starters in the conference and Wright also led Cal Poly in strikeouts with 101 and innings pitched with 88.
Wright limited opposing batters to a .229 average at the plate, No. 8 in the Big West, and he is the ninth Mustang pitcher in 30 Division I campaigns to strike out 100 or more batters in a season.
Wright made eight quality starts, striking out 11 over seven innings in a 9-3 win over UC Riverside and 10 more in an 8-3 triumph against UC Santa Barbara. His longest outing was eight innings, giving up one run and three hits with nine strikeouts in a 7-2 win over Utah Tech, and Wright also struck out nine against Cal State Bakersfield and UC Irvine, both victories.
Wright did not pitch during his first season at Cal Poly in 2022 due to internal brace surgery on his left elbow. He made his Mustang debut in early April of his second year (2023) with a scoreless inning against UC Riverside and worked his way up to back-to-back victories against UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Fullerton in late May.
Wright tossed a five-inning stint against the Gauchos for his first Mustang win, notching 11 strikeouts and allowing one run and two hits, then pitched 2 1/3 innings in relief with five strikeouts six days later versus the Titans for his second victory. He finished 2-1 with a 6.27 ERA.
According to a scouting report published by MLB Pipeline, Wright “is a smallish (6-0, 170) but athletic southpaw who stands out because of his ability to spin the baseball more than anything else. His slider is at least plus now, and some scouts think it could be a 70-grade out pitch in the future.
“It’s a hard and tight low-80s sweeper, often with more than 20 inches of sweep across the plate. He gets swings and misses in the zone and can throw it to get chases just as effectively. The rest of his arsenal doesn’t jump off the page in the same way, with a fastball that sits at 92 mph with a little arm side tail, a mid-80s cutter and a newer 85-mph changeup with some arm side life.
“The left-hander’s ability to throw strikes improved this year, and his premium athleticism -- he’s run a 6.5 60-yard dash -- should help him repeat his delivery and lower three-quarters slot. (Despite his small frame along with a lack of premium non-slider stuff, he should be given the chance to pitch long-term by any team that takes him in the top five rounds, with the knowledge that his slider is already a big league caliber pitch that could work out of the pen.”
Stafford broke Cal Poly’s career doubles record, which now stands at 60. His 86 hits in 2024 are No. 10 in the Mustangs’ record book while his 23 two-baggers are fifth on the single-season list. Stafford also is No. 6 in career at-bats (706), No. 5 in career runs scored (145) and No. 4 in career hits (238).
Stafford hit .368 in his third season at Cal Poly with six home runs and a team-leading 46 RBIs. Twice he hit two home runs in a game — against Fresno State and Cal State Bakersfield — and he tied for the team lead with 10 stolen bases in 13 attempts.
Defensively, Stafford led the Big West by throwing out 23 runners trying to steal. His 45 career theft-stopping throws is No. 3 in the record book and Stafford was third in the Big West in both fielding chances (495) and putouts (438).
Over his last 36 games of the season, Stafford was 63-for-161 (.391), adding 56 points to his batting average to .368. He produced a 25-game hitting streak (one shy of the school record), going 52-for-117 (.444) during the streak), and hit safely in 33 of his last 37 games while driving in 44 runs in his last 47 contests.
Said MLB Pipeline of Stafford:
“Stafford has been a starter behind the plate for Cal Poly from the day he set foot on campus. A freshman All-American that year, Stafford was a second-team All-Big West choice as a sophomore and continued to hit well in the Cape Cod League last summer, taking a break to play for Team USA as well.
“Stafford's main pluses are his ability to make consistent contact from the right side of the plate and his overall athleticism that shows up on both sides of the ball. He's put up very good numbers in school and he's had more extra-base hits as a junior, showing the ability to drive the ball to all fields.
“At 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, he's never going to have a ton of power, and there is some concern about his ability to handle premium velocity at the next level because of a perceived lack of strength. There is some twitchy athleticism to Stafford's game, however, and he runs well, especially for a catcher. He has good range and a solid overall defensive package behind the plate with an above-average arm.
“Concerns about his size do carry over to whether he can handle a workload as a full-time professional catcher, and he has played some outfield in the past, though that obviously puts more pressure on the bat.”
Brooks was the 12th player chosen on the final day of the draft and the 327th overall.
The junior right-hander posted a 5-7 win-loss record and 5.14 ERA as Cal Poly’s Saturday starter. Brooks struck out 72 batters over 82 1/3 innings, issued just 23 walks and held opposing batters to a .248 average.
He notched seven quality starts in 2024 and opened his junior campaign with a career-high 12 strikeouts against Missouri. Brooks earned victories versus Ohio State, CSUN, UC Riverside, Hawai’i and UC Davis.
A 2021 graduate of Cosumnes High School in Elk Grove, Calif., Brooks made 10 appearances on the mound as a freshman in 2022 and 18 more as a sophomore in 2023, finishing with career marks of a 9-11 record, 5.34 ERA and 154 strikeouts over 178 2/3 innings.
Brooks closed out the 2023 season with his fourth quality start, allowing two runs and five hits over 6 2/3 innings in a no-decision against Cal State Fullerton.
Brooks hit 37 batters in his three-year Mustang career, No. 3 in Cal Poly’s Division I record book. He set a Division I mark by hitting five Cal State Bakersfield batters in a single game and tied a single-season Division I mark in 2024, plunking 19 batters (Gary Daley hit 19 batters in 2006).
A transfer from Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria two years ago, Steels was the 551st player selected over the three-day draft.
Steels led the Mustangs with a .381 average as a senior in 2024. Included in his 82 hits were 12 doubles, one triple and a team-leading eight home runs. He drove in 34 runs from the leadoff spot in the batting order and stole eight of 10 bases.
Steels reached base safely in Cal Poly’s first 45 games before the streak was snapped at Santa Clara on May 7. He finished the season reaching base safely in 52 of the 54 games in which he played, missing three contests due to a hand injury, and hit safely in 41 contests.
The Righetti High School product produced multiple hits in a game 29 times, including 17 of Cal Poly’s last 30 contests. He did not commit an error in 124 fielding chances in center field, earning first-team All-Big West accolades after collecting honorable mention praise a year earlier.
Steels’ numbers as a junior in 2023, his first with the Mustangs, featured a .318 average with five doubles, a triple, two home runs and 27 RBIs in 49 games, all but two as a starter. He stole 13 of 20 bases.
Cal Poly also had four players drafted in 2022, including Brooks Lee and Drew Thorpe, both currently in the Major Leagues. Last year’s two draftees were pitchers Derek True (18th round, Houston) and Bryce Warrecker (20th round, New York Yankees).
(Article courtesy of Cal Poly Athletics)
