Angel from the cornfield: here is a team-by-team look at the first round of baseball's amateur draft, kicked off by Darin Erstad

Sporting News, The, June 12, 1995

16. Giants. Righthander Joe Fontenot had a 126-26 strikeout-walk ratio this season at Arcadia High in Lafayette, La. He has accepted a scholarship to Louisiana State, but the Giants feel they have a good chance to sign him. Looking at Fontenot's numbers, assistant G.M. Brian Sabean jokes: "It would be too good to be true if he were lefthanded."

17. Blue Jays. Roy Halladay is a big (6-6) righthander who was 9-1 with an 0.25 ERA this season for West High in Arvada, Colo. The Blue Jays clocked his fastball at 93 mph, but his trademark pitch is a knucklecurve that "just drops off the table like Burt Hooten's," according to Bus Campbell, the club's Colorado scouting supervisor. Halladay signed a letter-of-intent with Arizona but says he "did that when baseball was in turmoil. It would be kind of hard to go to college now that this has happened."

18. Mets. Ryan Jaroncyk, one of three shortstops the Mets picked in the first five rounds, batted .384 in his senior season at Orange Glen High in Escondido, Calif. He signed for $850,000 and was assigned to the rookie league Gulf Coast Mets. New York has Reynaldo Ordonez as its Triple-A shortstop, and he is widely regarded as a more than reasonable facsimile of Ozzie Smith. So why three shortstops? "We have five young pitchers who we think can be successful at the major league level," scouting director John Barr says. "Does that mean we shouldn't draft any more pitching? We concentrated on defense, speed and projectable pitching."

19. Royals. There is no baseball team at Juan LeBron's high school in Arroyo, Puerto Rico, so you won't see statistics on him. But the Royals know enough about LeBron, 18, a 6-4,190-pound outfielder with a strong arm and loud bat. "He has the complete package," says Chuck McMichael, a national cross-checker for Kansas City. "He features power - when you look at him, he appears to be like "Texas") Juan Gonzalez. He has a real nice-looking running stride, a nice, active lower half and a strong upper body, and we think that is going to translate into power."

20. Dodgers. Scouting director Terry Reynolds says of Florida State's David Yocum: "Realistically, we didn't think he would be available at the time of our pick. We had him as one of the top couple of lefthanded pitchers in the country." Yocum was 12-2 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 starts as a sophomore this season but was shelled last Sunday by Miami in the College World Series.

21. Orioles. They went for size and velocity, choosing 6-7, 230-pound righthander Alvie Shepherd, one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in the college ranks and the second player in the first round from Nebraska. "We liked his size and his fastball," scouting director Gary Nickels says. "We see him as a potential closer down the road." The club felt Shepherd's numbers (2-5, 6.57 ERA) were deceptive because he often came in to pitch from another position and seldom got time to warm up properly, but the player-development department concedes he will have to enhance his pitch repertoire to be a successful major leaguer.