Alberta’s 2022 Pro Connections

The 2022 baseball season is officially underway.

Scouring the rosters of all Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball teams, there is certainly no shortage of connections to Alberta on the field.

We’ve compiled a list of players who were born here, trained here or played here with the Western Canadian Baseball League.

Twin Will

It hasn’t been an easy road in life for Willy Diaz.

Moving to Edmonton from the Dominican Republic with his mother in search for a better life, there were no guarantees that he would find a career in baseball.

But after suiting up with Prairie Baseball Academy and garnering the attention of the right people, the young infielder has his sights set on the pros after signing with the Minnesota Twins.

North Star Smith

Dawgs Academy grad LaRon Smith is chomping at the bit to get going.

After being chosen in the 25th round of the 2018 MLB Draft by Minnesota, he has been dealing with a transition to catching as well as injuries.

He’s putting it all behind him heading into the Twins’ 2020 Spring Training.

Scouting Alberta

Just about a year into its existence, the Alberta bureau of Prep Baseball Report is making strides in building up a “robust profile” on some of the province’s young baseball talent.

Former Lethbridge Bulls pitcher Andrew Maclean sat down with us to talk about what he’s looking for, what he’s seeing and what we should be seeing out of the baseball scene in Alberta over the next few years.

MLB Draft Review

The 2018 Major League Baseball (MLB) First-Year Player Draft took place from June 4-6 and we’ve got a rundown on what it means to some of Alberta’s most talented players.

Some of the athletes selected were born and raised in the province, others have become familiar faces through our baseball academies, Some are players we’ve come to know from their time in the Western Major Baseball League (WMBL).

Here’s a look at the selections we had our eye on …

Keeping Score at Home

Box scores are full of loads of information, and while they never lie, they never tell the whole story either.

Take the recent box score from the Toronto Blue Jays spring training game against the Canadian Junior National Team (JNT), for example.

It will tell you that JNT shortstop Cesar Valero stepped to the plate in the top of the first inning against starting pitcher Marcus Stroman and struck out to end the inning.

What it won’t tell you is how smooth and clean Valero’s swing is or how nasty Stroman’s breaking ball can be. It also won’t tell you that Valero, an Okotoks Dawgs Academy product, is just 16 years old, while Stroman is a 26-year-old veteran of four MLB seasons.