Six Mainers Alumni Selected in 2024 MLB Draft
July 19, 2024 - New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL)
Sanford Mainers News Release
SANFORD, Maine - Over the three-day, 20-round event known as the 2024 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, six former Sanford Mainers heard their names called as they took another step toward their big-league dreams.
Former Mainers Grant Knipp (Campbell), Seamus Barrett (Loyola Marymount), Nick Roselli (Binghamton), John West (Boston College), Jeremiah Jenkins (Maine) and Ryan Minckler (Arizona State) were six of 51 former and current NECBL players selected in the draft.
Knipp was the first of the six former Moose to go off the board as the two-way player was selected with the 183rd overall pick during the sixth round by the Seattle Mariners.
The Kentucky native played 18 games for Sanford in 2022 hitting .224 with 3 home runs and 13 RBI. Two seasons following his stint in Maine, the Campbell Camel received First Team All-CAA, an honor that coincided with his skills expanding to the mound.
Knipp, who spent a season with Alabama in 2021 but did not see action, finished his collegiate career with a .314 batting average, .448 on-base percentage and .692 slugging percentage to go along with 35 career long balls and 117 RBI.
The 6-foot-2, 230-pound athlete had a small sample size of four appearances on that mound in which he allowed one earned run and recorded two saves over 5.2 innings of work.
Four rounds after Knipp's name was called, Barrett heard his name called by the Los Angeles Dodgers with the 310th overall pick.
Barrett appeared 16 times at Louisville before transferring to Loyola Marymount to use the final two years of his collegiate eligibility. Over the two years he spent with the Lions, Barrett held a 5.51 ERA and 79 strikeouts between 67 innings of work.
Including the postseason, Barrett, who wore the green and yellow in 2023, made 10 appearances for the Mainers. The 6-foot-7 right-handed thrower posted a 2.98 ERA and struck out 66 batters over 51.1 innings on the bump.
The Kennebunk, Maine resident fell one strikeout shy of the Mainers' single-season record in the regular season with 58. Of those 58 punchouts that put him one away from the 59-plateau that was set in 2004 by Kevin Slowey (Winthrop), who was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 2nd round of the 2005 MLB Amateur Draft, 10 came against the first team he played for in the NECBL, the Newport Gulls, in a seven-inning, 118-pitch outing at Cardines Field.
13 picks later, the success of the 2023 Mainers, who reached the second round of the postseason, continued to show as Barrett's teammate Roselli heard his name called by his childhood team, the New York Mets.
Roselli, who was drafted on Day 3, heard his name called in the same month, July, in which he hit .317 with a .456 on-base percentage and .413 slugging percentage one year prior for Sanford. His second half of the season in 2023 propelled him to a .266 batting average, 2 home runs, 11 runs batted in and a team-high 27 walks.
The Long Island native suffered an injury in his first game back with Binghamton in 2024 following his summer in Sanford but hit .388 with 8 home runs and 21 RBI in the 27 games he did play for the Bearcats.
Through his junior year, Roselli carried a .349 career average and .442 on-base percentage to go along with 26 home runs and 104 RBI. The left-handed hitter held a strikeout-to-walk ratio of nearly 1-to-1 with 74 strikeouts to 70 walks.
Although Roselli stayed on the East Coast, West headed out west with Knipp and Barrett as he was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks with a 374th pick during the 12th round.
West, who pitched for Sanford following his freshman year at Boston College, posted a 6.62 ERA over 8 appearances with the Mainers in 2021. The 6-foot-8, then 19-year-old struck out 16 batters over his 17.2 innings for Sanford.
Over his last three seasons with the Eagles, the Massachusetts native lowered his career ERA to 6.06 after posting a 7.45 ERA prior to Sanford. West, who saw playing time in all four seasons with the Eagles, finished his collegiate career with 179 strikeouts in 188.2 innings.
Two rounds later, Jenkins followed West and the rest out west as he was drafted by the San Francisco Giants with the 418th overall pick in the 14th round.
Jenkins, who became the first America East player to hit 20 or more home runs in back-to-back seasons, hit five home runs while driving in 20 runs over his 35 games with the Mainers. The former Maine Black Bear and Mainer joins Quinn McDaniel, a former Mainer and Black Bear who was drafted by San Francisco in the fourth round of the 2023 MLB First-Year Player Draft, in the Giants' minor league system.
The left-handed slugger finished his collegiate career with a .332 batting average, 50 home runs and 153 RBI. The Maryland native is one of three Black Bears in program history to be named a multi-time All-American.
After four of the first five Mainers drafted in 2024 headed to the West Coast, Minckler, who played for Sanford in 2024, joined Roselli on the East Coast and in the National League East Division as he was selected with the 560th overall pick by the Washington Nationals.
Minckler was born and raised in Thailand before moving to New Hampshire when he was 15 years old to continue his baseball career. Minckler, who attended Portsmouth High School, pitched three times for the Mainers. The right-handed pitcher posted a 3.21 ERA over 14 innings of work in which he stuck out 18 batters.
The hard-throwing right-hander committed to Arizona State in the midst of his tenure with the Mainers after two seasons with Niagara. As a Purple Eagle, Minckler posted a 5.58 ERA and struck out 98 hitters in 101.2 innings over 34 appearances on the bump.
Sanford has seen nine of their alumni climb the ranks of the Minor Leagues to make their MLB Debut. Jake Alu, who played for Sanford in 2018, was the most recent Mainers to achieve his big-league dreams when he made his debut for the Nationals in 2023.
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