And the Rangers select outfielder Jake Skole in the first round.

First off I am sorry this is a couple of days late, on Monday the day of the draft I interviewed Nelson Cruz that morning, so I figured it would be best to post on that rather than the draft on Monday.  The post on the interview with Cruz can be found on “Chat with Nelson Cruz”  Yesterday I wanted to post, but I was unable to get on my computer before I was too tired to stay up, so I took a day off. 

So here goes on the Draft… the Rangers selected Jake Skole out of Blessed Trinity High School in Roswell Georgia.  At Blessed Trinity, Skole’s primary focus was on baseball, but he was a all-state wide reciever and defensive back in football there.  In his senior season he had a ankle injury and his baseball season was cut short, so he signed a letter of intent to go to Georgia Tech to play baseball and football.

Another player which was drafted by the Ranger’s in the first round that actually came out of Georgia Tech was Mark Teixiera, which turned out to be a great draft pick, even though he is no longer with the Rangers.  In his fifth year with the Rangers, they realized that he was out of their reach financially so they traded him and Ron Mahay to the Alanta Braves.

Even though they lost him, in return they recieved Jarrod Saltlamacchia (who should be back in the big leagues soon), Shortstop Elvis Andrus, starting pitchers Beau Jones, Matt Harrison and Neftali Feliz.  Out of the five players the Rangers recieved in return, it is 3 seasons later and four out of five of them have been on the 25 man roster in 2010.  So he turned out to be a great pick out of Georgia Tech and the Rangers are still seeing returns on it.

In Skole’s shortened senior year at Blessed Trinity in 14 games he hit .452 with six home runs and 21 rbi’s.  It was was reported once the Rangers drafted him, he contacted Georgia Tech to let them know he planned on signing with the Rangers.  Two days later it was announced today that he had come to an agreement with the Rangers, so he should be ready to go soon.

The Rangers recieved a compesentory first round pick in the 2010 draft due to the team not signing their first 2009 draft pick Matt Purke, so in turn they had two first round picks drafting Skole and then a catcher out of British Columbia Canada named Kellin Deglan.  Deglan was also selected out of high school barely being 18 years old.  He signed with the Rangers for a 1 million dollar signing bonus today.  So the Rangers have done great this week by drafting and signing their first round picks.