The Cleveland Indians have continued their tradition of taking at least one Future Stars Series alumni in the MLB Draft.
This year, it’s one of the participants in the inaugural International Week event in 2017 — the same one that Cleveland took Bo Naylor out of in the first round a year later — in Franco Aleman, who goes in the tenth round with the 306th overall selection.
This is Aleman’s second time being drafted; the Atlanta Braves took him in 2018, but he elected to go to college.
In 2017, Aleman performed well in Sugar Land, impressing scouts at the first-ever IW event.
“There’s a guy that used to pitch, and he’s bigger than (Aleman) a little bit, but he could be a Ramiro Mendoza type of guy,” said Jeremy Booth, CEO and president of the Future Stars Series. “Franco Aleman has the ability to command the zone when he wants to; he’s six-foot-four, impressive stature, can find 95 when he needs it, but probably sits more 93-94 with the fastball, which if he can get people conscious outside the strike zone, he’s going to be successful. A lot of these guys, it’s what they have to do to pitch. They’re going to go out to a level now where the fastball isn’t really going to scare anybody. So, he’s going to have to be successful protecting it, moving guys off and changing their eye levels. If he can do that, he’ll be just fine.”
