Lucas Ramirez has gone from being a ’Cat on the prowl to an Angel in the outfield.
The Victoria HarbourCats outfielder and son of World Series-champion and former Major League Baseball star Manny Ramirez was selected in the 17th round Tuesday of the 2024 MLB draft by the Los Angeles Angels.
The Ramirez clan, which includes Manny Jr. of the HarbourCats, has encamped in Victoria for the summer collegiate West Coast League season. The willowy, six-foot-three Lucas Ramirez, who was committed to NCAA powerhouse University of Tennessee Volunteers, has left Victoria for the Los Angeles pro system after recording a .290 batting average with nine hits in 31 at-bats, four runs scored, three RBIs and a double in 11 games with the HarbourCats.
“It’s fantastic. Lucas is barely 18 years old and looks like he is going to sign [with the Angels],” said Jim Swanson, managing partner of the group that owns the HarbourCats and Nanaimo NightOwls of the WCL.
It was a halcyon Tuesday for the HarbourCats with Lucas Ramirez and three former players from the Victoria club selected in the draft and current player and B.C. product, Connor Dykstra, signing a free-agent contract with the Seattle Mariners.
“The WCL continues to produce top players and colleges and universities send them to some [select] programs for the summer,” said Swanson. “We have a tremendous track record.”
Imposing lefty Ryan Magdic from Beamsville, Ont., who cut a commanding figure on the HarbourCats mound last season at six-foot-five and 240 pounds in the run to the 2023 WCL final, was selected in the 14th round Tuesday by the Oakland A’s. Another HarbourCats pitcher from last season, right-hander Sean Heppner from the UBC Thunderbirds, went in the 12th round to Cleveland and will join fellow-former HarbourCats pitcher Cade Smith in the Guardians organization. Smith started for the HarbourCats on opening day in the 2019 WCL season.
Yet another former HarbourCats hurler, Hunter Omlid who helped Victoria get to the 2019 WCL championship game, was selected Tuesday in the 20th and final round by the Colorado Rockies.
Dykstra, a catcher from Chilliwack out of NCAA Div. 1 George Mason University, was batting .175 for the HarbourCats with six runs scored, three RBIs and a double and home run in 10 games with the HarbourCats.
“These are tremendous young men and each has their own story and it’s one of excellence and high achievement,” said Swanson.
“We hope they all make the steps to reach the MLB level and join the six HarbourCats players we have already produced [to play in MLB].”
Meanwhile, catcher Connor Caskenette of Duncan, who played in the WCL for the Nanaimo NightOwls in 2022, was selected in the 12th round by the Florida Marlins out of the NCAA Big Ten Purdue Boilermakers to become the second ’Owls player drafted in the three years of franchise history.
A total of 54 former or current WCL players, 22 in the first 10 rounds, were taken in the 2024 MLB draft, which ran Sunday to Tuesday. That includes top overall selection and 2021 WCL MVP Travis Bazzana, from the Corvallis Knights and NCAA Oregon State Beavers, to the Guardians. The other WCL alumnus first-round selections this year was former Bellingham Bells and Stanford catcher Malcolm Moore, 30th overall to the Texas Rangers.
That follows Corvallis Knights-alumnus Adley Rutschman selected first overall in the 2019 MLB draft by the Baltimore Orioles. Former WCL players have been taken in the first round in seven of the last eight years, including former HarbourCats star first-baseman Andrew Vaughan third overall in 2019 to the Chicago White Sox.
FOUL TIPS: The 2024 WCL all-star game, to be broadcast on the MLB Network, takes place tonight at 6:30 p.m. in Bellingham. The HarbourCats selected for the all-star game are infielder Tate Shimao out of the NCAA Division 1 University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, hitting .360, and pitcher Carson Cormier from the NCAA Div. 1 TCU Horned Frogs, who has a 2.25 ERA. The NightOwls selected for the all-star game are outfielders Riley Paulino and Wylie Waters, shortstop Nevin Noonan and pitcher Adison Mattix.
