Female Catcher Picked In Atlantic League Draft

The Atlantic League held its yearly player draft on Wednesday with 19 players being selected out of a tryout camp.

With two new teams (Kentucky and Staten Island), the draft had a little more significance than normal, as the two expansion teams had 12 of the 19 picks. But it will likely be remembered for another reason.

With the eighth pick in the draft, the Kentucky Wild Health Genomes selected Alexis “Scrappy” Hopkins. Hopkins is expected to be offered the job of being the team’s bullpen catcher. She becomes one of the few women ever selected in a baseball draft.

The first was lefthander Carey Schueler, a 43rd-round pick of the White Sox in 1993.

“I’m really excited with this. About two or three years ago in one of my college classes, they said to write down a dream of yours,” Hopkins said in a video released by the league. “I was going to put down professional baseball player, but I actually didn’t because I thought, that’s never going to happen. But here we are today making a dream come alive.”

If Hopkins does get into a game, it will add to what has been a long line of female players in independent/partner leagues. Ila Borders pitched in the Northern League for several years in the 1990s. Eri Yoshida pitched in the Golden Baseball League in 2010. Multiple women (Kelsie Whitmore, Stacy Pigano and Anna Kimbrell) played in the Pacific Association in 2016.

“Scrappy handled the pitchers better than most of the guys here,” said Southern Maryland Blue Crabs manager Stan Cliburn, a former major league catcher. “There were guys throwing 93 to 95 (mph) and she handled it just fine. And she was really good at blocking and picking the ball as well.” 

Pick	Team	Player	Pos.
1	Staten Island	Hector Guance	RHP
2	Kentucky	Traded to Long Island
2	Long Island	Cody Beckman	LHP
3	Staten Island	Jordan Simpson	RHP
4	Kentucky	Robbie Kellerman	C
5	Staten Island	Anthony Rodriguez	LHP
6	Kentucky	Will Decker	UTIL
7	Staten Island	trade to York
7	York	Matt Meyer	LHP
8	Kentucky	Alexis “Scrappy” Hopkins	C
9	Staten Island	trade to So. Maryland
9	So Maryland	Junior Navas	RHP
10	Kentucky	Bradley Hines	RHP
11	Staten Island	Yohn Zapata	RHP
12	Kentucky	Alex Wemple	1B
13	Gastonia	Kevin Lambert	SS
14	York	Adrian Alarcon	LHP
15	Lancaster	Josh Smith	LHP
16	Charleston	Kyle Robinson	OF
17	Lexington	Darrien Ragins	LHP
18	So Maryland	Dario Polanco	LHP
19	High Point	Thomas Derer	RHP
20	Long Island	pass