It says something about the survival instincts of National Pro Fastpitch, the five-team professional softball league, that the player selected first in its nationally televised college draft Wednesday night in Nashville had only recently finished sixth grade when the now-defunct New York-New Jersey Juggernaut won the first championship.
More than a decade of continuous operation later, with opening day a little more than two months away, the draft featured plenty of big names and raised plenty of questions.
1. How big a deal is Lauren Chamberlain going No. 1 to the USSSA Pride?
Coming off a championship season, the league’s most star-laden franchise ends up with the first two picks in a draft that offers college softball’s Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
That is a nifty bit of front-office work.
USSSA Pride general manager Don DeDonatis and his traveling party were a visible presence whenever Oklahoma played in February’s Mary Nutter Classic, the mammoth college tournament near Palm Springs, California, and his maneuvering through trades over the past year allowed the team to select both Lauren Chamberlain and Sooners teammate Shelby Pendley. The rich get richer, the Pride adding a player in Chamberlain who will soon be the NCAA’s all-time home run leader and another in Pendley who will finish in the top 10 on that list and plays tremendous defense on the left side of the infield.
But drafting Chamberlain isn’t just a boon to the Pride’s lineup. It’s a game changer for the league, just as it was for the NBA with LeBron James or WNBA with Diana Taurasi.
Jessica Mendoza retired a year ago. Caitlin Lowe followed the same path over the winter. Cat Osterman will pitch one final season. Declining skills played no role in their exits, instead merely the reality of a professional league that at least for now can offer only an experience, not a career. Former Olympians Natasha Watley and Andrea Duran remain for the Pride, but it won’t be long before the team and NPF is without the Team USA stars who set out five years ago to put the league on stable footing (to mixed, though not wholly unsuccessful, results).
The league needs new stars, but it’s caught in the difficult position of still not having a large enough reach to create them. Keilani Ricketts arrived with that kind of profile. Her Pride teammate Madison Shipman might be in the ballpark. But it’s a short list.
Given the track record of rookies adjusting to NPF, especially in the immediate aftermath of what was already a long college season, Chamberlain probably won’t be the best hitter on a team with a great many proven contenders for that title. But from the moment she puts on a uniform, the No. 1 pick will be one of the league’s biggest stars and likely its most ebullient spokeswoman.
With Cheridan Hawkins, Haylie McCleney, Sierra Romero and Kelsey Stewart in its fold at the moment, Team USA could potentially drain much of the star power out of next year’s NPF draft class, but Chamberlain gives the Pride the hitter it wanted and the league the star it needed in 2015.
2. How did the Dallas Charge select one of the best players in the sixth round?
Welcome to the joys of a world in which the two primary post-college entities, NPF and USA Softball, compete rather than cooperate. By any measure, UCLA dual-threat pitcher and slugger Ally Carda is one of the best players in the country. She could help an NPF team with either at bat or in the circle, her value all the greater for being able to do both. But round after round passed in Nashville without her name being called, and it wasn’t a surprise. Along with fellow college seniors Kristie Fox (Arizona) and Janie Takeda (Oregon), Carda is part of this year’s United States national team roster, as that program builds toward next year’s ISF World Championship and a potential Olympic return in 2020. That means, assuming she doesn’t choose NPF over her place on Team USA, Carda won’t be available to the league, if she even had an inclination to play in it in the first place (she wouldn’t be the first to pass, with or without Team USA).
That didn’t stop the expansion Dallas Charge from selecting Takeda with the final pick of the fifth round and Carda with the first pick of the sixth round. By rule, the Charge hold their rights for two years, so for a team that had nearly a dozen picks in this year’s draft, it’s a low-risk gamble that the players will change their minds about the setting in which they want to play (it worked for the Pride with Ricketts). But Carda isn’t likely to take any cuts for the league’s newest team this summer. First-round picks Danielle Henderson and Kaitlyn Richardson, on the other hand, should contribute. Putting those two at third base and first base, respectively, gives shape to an infield that already includes catcher Kaylyn Castillo, shortstop Taylor Thom and second baseman Natalie Villarreal (as well as former Team USA pitcher Jolene Henderson, Danielle’s sister). That’s a nice start.
3. Whom did Joey Arrietta and the Akron Racers steal this time?
The general manager of the Akron Racers, a title that undersells how much she almost singlehandedly pieces a season together, has enjoyed a Midas touch recently. Whether it was drafting Jill Barrett (.315 BA, .763 OPS) and Ashley Thomas (.326 BA, .818 OPS) in the fourth and fifth rounds, respectively, a season ago, signing Alison Owen (3.48 ERA) as a rookie free agent or trading for Nerissa Myers and watching her enjoy a breakout season (.365 BA, 1.072 OPS), Akron’s general manager has mined as much value from her personnel moves as anyone in the league in the past 12 months.
The thing is, Arrietta will need to keep that streak going because as a result of past wheeling and dealing, the Racers didn’t make their first selection in this year’s draft until the third round. The Racers were a pleasant surprise when they finished with a .500 record a season ago and regularly played competitive softball against the Pride and Bandits, but they will need immediate contributions from new faces in order to maintain momentum (especially without the likes of veteran Charlotte Morgan around after her retirement). Veteran Sarah Pauly, acquired in one of those trades, should help in the pitching department, but what about the lineup? Third-round pick Morgan Estell looks in some respects like a clone of Barrett — a player with gap power who doesn’t knock the ball over the fence a lot but churns out hits and has the bat control to adjust to a higher standard of pitching. But keep an eye, too, on USC Upstate’s Shellie Robinson. For just a fifth-round pick, Arrietta claimed the rights to a sleeper who could be a quintessential Racer — overlooked by virtue of her surroundings in college but a quality all-around athlete with a defined skill set, in this case power.
4. Are the Pennsylvania Rebellion poised for sophomore success?
In retrospect, the Rebellion should wish for a mulligan on the trade that cost them the No. 1 pick this year. Granted, the deal netted them immediate credibility in their first season in the form of Pauly and do-everything former Olympian Lauren Lappin. But the near-expansion team (the Rebellion were formed out of the remnants of the New York-New Jersey Comets, themselves the remnants of several other failed franchises) was never going to compete for a championship in its first season, making any wins gained mostly meaningless. Lappin retired and Pauly was traded to the Racers for a return headlined by a second-round pick. All in all, it was an expensive rental.
But Friday’s draft looks like the latest indication that lessons were learned. To a roster that already included new additions Kristyn Sandberg and Alisa Goler, proven hitters in the league, and promising new arrivals Alexa Peterson and Victoria Hayward, the Rebellion added three of the first nine picks in the draft. Their first pick, the first in the second round and sixth overall, brought Western Kentucky strikeout machine Miranda Kramer. This wasn’t a draft that offered much pitching, but the Rebellion got one of the available gems. Pitching is the team’s biggest area of concern, with no NPF-proven ace, but there is a great deal of potential with Kramer and Dallas Escobedo headlining a cast of young arms and 27-year-old Dutch international Dagmar Bloeming.
The team’s two remaining second-round picks netted Oklahoma State’s Shelby Davis, who has 39 stolen bases in 31 games so far this season, and Florida State’s Maddie O’Brien, a first-round talent who simply can’t get anyone to pitch to her this season. This still may not be a roster that can win right now, but as much as it’s possible in a league with a lot of turnover from year to year, it’s a roster with the potential to compete soon.
5. Why do some new Chicago Bandits have the biggest cleats to fill?
Welcome to Chicago, Brenna Moss, Sammy Marshall, Branndi Melero and Stephany LaRosa. For your first task, can you please replace one of NPF’s best hitters?
The star of the draft class for the Bandits was Lacey Waldrop, the third overall pick, reigning USA Softball player of the year and surprise cut in the most recent Team USA tryout process. The Bandits already have admirable pitching depth, ace Monica Abbott still at the peak of her form and surrounded by arms, like Michelle Gascoigne and Sara Moulton, who have shown the ability to get outs in the league. Adding Waldrop to that is gravy, and the Bandits couldn’t pass on her if she gave them an indication she’ll play.
The challenge for the Bandits comes in replacing outfielder Megan Wiggins. One of the league’s best hitters, arguably its best hitter two seasons ago, Wiggins isn’t just gone; she’s with the rival Pride after a brief stopover, via trade, with the Rebellion. None of the rookies will be a like-for-like replacement, and only Moss and Melero are natural outfielders, but there are runs to replace. The Bandits traditionally do well with regional talent — Amber Patton, Tammy Williams and Danielle Zymkowitz all being starters who played collegiately in the state — and Western Illinois’ Marshall is an intriguing pick. She has a complete skill set at the plate, albeit one put to use against low-major competition.
The timing of LaRosa’s selection in the sixth round likely suggests teams didn’t have a good sense of whether she wanted to spend the summer in the league. She is too good a hitter, and too versatile defensively on the left side of the infield and behind the plate, to go that late strictly on the merits. If she plays, it’s a steal.