{"id":338273,"date":"2026-07-13T10:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T10:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338273\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T10:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T10:54:10","slug":"southwest-florida-talent-fills-mlb-draft-with-eight-local-players-selected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/338273\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Florida talent fills MLB Draft with eight local players selected"},"content":{"rendered":"

Southwest Florida talent fills MLB Draft with eight local players selected<\/p>\n

Southwest Florida was well represented at this year’s MLB Draft, with several players that hold ties to the area being selected to play at the next level.<\/p>\n

\"Bradley<\/a>LEE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

Southwest Florida was well represented at this year’s MLB Draft, with several players who hold ties to the area being selected to play at the next level.<\/p>\n

Five FGCU players were selected in this year’s draft–the most since seven were taken in 2023.<\/p>\n

Back-to-back Two-Way Player of the Year Evan Dempsey was selected by the Detroit Tigers with the 69th overall pick.<\/p>\n

Along with Dempsey, Venice alumnus Hunter Possehl was taken 239th overall by the Kansas City Royals, RHP Ashton Pocol was selected 487th overall by the Chicago Cubs, LHP Chris Diaz was drafted 430th overall by the Seattle Mariners, and INF Javier Gorostola was chosen 501st overall by the Athletics.<\/p>\n

There were also three players from SWFL high schools who were chosen to play at the next level, with former Bishop Verot players Aiden Knaak and Joey Lawson being taken 163rd overall by the Milwaukee Brewers and 595th overall by the Miami Marlins, respectively.<\/p>\n

St. John Neumann pitcher Cole Travers was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays with the 582nd pick after helping lead the Celtics to the Class 1A State Tournament.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to all of our local athletes for being given the opportunity to play the game they love at the next level!<\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southwest Florida talent fills MLB Draft with eight local players selected Southwest Florida was well represented at this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-338273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}