June 9, 2009
Minor Highlight Reel | VU Draft Tracker | MLB Draft Central
NASHVILLE, Tenn. –The Atlanta Braves selected Vanderbilt junior lefthander Mike Minor with the seventh overall pick in the 2009 Major League Baseball amateur draft Tuesday evening.
“Everyone is going wild,” Minor said. “It’s awesome to be with the Braves. Being so close to home, all my friends and family can come see me play when I do make it.”
Minor is the sixth Commodore to get selected in the last six years and the fifth in the last three seasons. The Chapel Hill, Tenn., native posted a 22-10 career record at Vanderbilt with a 3.90 ERA. He recorded 303 strikeouts in his career, fourth best in school history. Minor is also among the Commodores all-time leaders in innings pitched (304.0- 6th) and wins (22- 7th).
“Mikie is as good as any of the pitchers that have been in our program,” said Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin. “Like Jeremy Sowers, Casey Weathers and David Price before him, Mikie will be another Vanderbilt pitcher that has developed in our system and under pitching coach Derek Johnson and become a first rounder. He has been a phenomenal young man to coach and I will miss what he and his family brought to our program. I am excited for him and look forward to watching him play at the next level.”
He went 6-6 with a 3.90 ERA in 2009 and finished strong with three complete games in his last five starts. His best game of the year came against Southeastern Conference champion and College World Series participant LSU at the SEC tourney on May 20. He limited the Tigers to one run on six hits with five strikeouts in the Commodores 4-1 win.
Last season Minor tied for the team lead in wins with seven, finishing with a 7-3 record with two complete games. As a freshman in 2007, he went 9-1 with a 3.09 ERA en route to Freshman All-American honors.
Minor served as the ace of the USA Baseball National team squad that went 24-0 last summer and captured the FISU World University Championships in the Czech Republic in July. He went 3-0 with a 0.75 ERA during the tour with 37 strikeouts and 13 walks in a team high 36 innings and was named Baseball America’s Summer Player of the Year. His two biggest performances came against the Cuban National team in a span of a week last July. The Cuban contingent was the same team, minus one player, that captured the 2004 Olympic gold medal and was the runner-up at the 2006 World Baseball Classic. He threw 6.1 innings of four-hit shutout baseball in a 1-0 win on July 6 at the Haarlem Baseball Week In Haarlem, Netherlands. He followed that up in his next start by allowing just an unearned run on four hits over six innings in the gold medal clinching game of the tourney on July 13. Minor completed his two-year National team run with an 8-2 record and a 1.17 ERA with 74 strikeouts and just 17 walks in 69 innings of action.