Aug 2, 2021 4 min read

Though the attention Major League Baseball’s annual amateur draft receives still pales in comparison to the NFL and NBA extravaganzas, it is growing in popularity. It’s no longer only of interest to college and high school players. There are draftniks, numerous websites with mock drafts and scouting reports on players, and the first round is televised.

Another group that eagerly awaits the baseball draft every year is independent league teams. They are hoping that a productive college senior falls through the cracks and goes undrafted. Those players end up being a hot commodity.

One such player this year was Wild Things second baseman Scotty Dubrule. He was the starting second baseman for Mississippi State’s national championship team and was the Bulldogs’ fourth-leading hitter with a .278 batting average.

Yet Dubrule’s name wasn’t called during the shortened 20-round draft. That made him a priority target of multiple independent teams, not just those in the Frontier League.

“He was in high demand,” Washington manager Tom Vaeth pointed out. “He was getting people calling every day from all across independent ball.”

And the 23-year-old Dubrule, fresh off a national championship, signed with Washington.

“We hit it off on the phone. I explained to him the opportunity that he would have here,” Vaeth recalled.

It helped that Dubrule, who is a native of Venice, Florida, now lives in Boone, North Carolina. Vaeth stressed to Dubrule that Boone is not too far from Washington, which would make it somewhat easy for his family to see him play.

Dubrule has made an instant impact on the Wild Things. He has hit safely in all 13 games since his arrival and has drawn 12 walks. He has a .405 batting average and a whopping .527 on-base percentage. In those 13 games, Washington has a 9-4 record.

The Wild Things begin a key four-game series this evening at Sussex County. Washington trails first-place Sussex County by 4½ games in the Northeast Division.

Dubrule knows how to hit. Before transferring to Mississippi State for the 2021 season, he played four seasons at Jacksonville in the Atlantic Sun Conference. He was second among all active players in hits entering this season.

“We knew he would be a difference-maker,” Vaeth said. “He finds a way to get on base.”

During the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Dubrule hit safely in all 18 games for Jacksonville and had a .426 batting average. During the shutdown, Dubrule decided he wanted to challenge himself at a higher-level of college baseball, and there is no better level than the Southeastern Conference.

“When COVID hit and the NCAA gave everybody an extra year of eligibility, I thought it would be an opportunity for me to experience something new. I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to play in the SEC so I entered the transfer portal and State hit me up.

“Mississippi State didn’t know me so it was a leap of faith. I didn’t know how I would fit in, but it worked out exactly how I planned. They told me they had a chance to win it all and I said I want to be part of that.”

Mississippi State lost its first game, to Texas, in the College World Series and had to rally to stay alive, beating Virginia in its second game. Two more wins over Texas put the Bulldogs in the championship series against SEC rival Vanderbilt, with its two top-10 draft pick pitchers, Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker. Mississippi State won the championship in three games with Dubrule going 4-for-12 with four RBI in the Vanderbilt series.

“It was unreal,” Dubrule says.

“There might not be a better baseball experience than playing front of 20,000 or 30,000 people in Omaha against teams of all-stars, especially that pitching staff at Vanderbilt,” Vaeth said. “I knew if he could handle playing in that kind of pressure, then he can handle any situation here.”

Two weeks later, Dubrule was bypassed in the draft. Perhaps he doesn’t have ideal size (he’s 5-10, 175 pounds) and doesn’t hit home runs (only one in his college career), but Dubrule can hit, which is too often an overlooked skill in today’s game with its emphasis on launch angles and exit velocities.

“I’m sure teams thought about me during the draft, but it was a short draft this year with a lot of talent,” Dubrule said. “I’m getting this opportunity now and I want to see what I can do with it.”