{"id":3501,"date":"2013-07-30T19:48:09","date_gmt":"2013-07-30T19:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/sixth-round-pick-stephen-woods-jr-chooses-ualbany-2\/"},"modified":"2013-07-30T19:48:09","modified_gmt":"2013-07-30T19:48:09","slug":"sixth-round-pick-stephen-woods-jr-chooses-ualbany-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/sixth-round-pick-stephen-woods-jr-chooses-ualbany-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixth Round Pick Stephen Woods Jr. Chooses UAlbany"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sixth Round Pick Stephen Woods Jr. Chooses UAlbany<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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ALBANY, N.Y. \u2013<\/strong> In December of 2012, Stephen Woods Jr., a 6-foot-2, 205 pound hard-throwing righty, signed a National Letter of Intent to play baseball for head coach Jon Mueller and the University at Albany Great Danes. However, the plans looked as though they could change significantly on June 7th, when the Long Island native was selected as the Tampa Bay Rays\u2019 sixth-round pick (No. 188 overall) in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been my dream to play professionally,\u201d Woods told the Long Island Newsday<\/em> back in June. \u201cI told my coach that if the draft passed the sixth round, I would go to Albany.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Teetering on that cutoff line, Woods and his family weighed the options before deciding. After over a month of negotiations, the July 12th deadline came and went, and the 18-year-old has chosen not to sign a professional contract. Instead, Woods will step foot on UAlbany\u2019s campus this fall for his freshman year and will don a purple and gold Great Dane uniform.<\/span><\/p>\n

Swayed by the opportunity to earn a college degree at a top-notch State university, Woods will have another crack at pursuing his professional dream in the 2016 draft after three years of college play under his belt.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very excited that Stephen has decided to join his classmates at UAlbany,\u201d said Coach Mueller. \u201cStephen will have an immediate impact in the America East Conference.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Woods attended Half Hollows Hills East High School and became the first player ever drafted out of the school. While a prospect all spring long, Woods drew even more attention from scouts after painting back-to-back no hitters in April that led to a campaign of striking out 90 and yielding only 12 hits in 44 innings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Woods is known for his loose arm mechanics, producing low-90\u2019s velocity, as well as a complementary curveball, changeup, and a mid-80\u2019s cutter that frustrated his high school adversaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe think this kid is a good high school starting pitching prospect,\u201d said Rays scouting director R.J. Harrison. \u201cThe fastball, now at average and up to 93 mph on the top end, and an above-average curveball. The arm action and delivery says starting pitcher.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rays had 33 of their 41 draftees sign in 2013, with Woods being their highest pick not to ink a deal. Woods also marks UAlbany\u2019s highest draft pick in program history.<\/span><\/p>\n

UALBANY BASEBALL IN THE MLB DRAFT<\/span><\/strong>
1974 \u2013 Terry Kenny, San Francisco, 9th round<\/span>
2001 \u2013 Steve Checksfield, Houston, 26th round \u2013 No. 776 overall<\/span>
2002 \u2013 Mike Grasso, Atlanta, 11th round- No. 335 overall<\/span>
2004 \u2013 Adam Kroft, San Diego, 30th round- No. 882 overall<\/span>
2007 \u2013 Tom Hill, Kansas City, 34th round- No. 1,023 overall<\/span>
2008 \u2013 Mike Konstanty, Cincinnati, 39th round- No. 1,169 overall<\/span>
2011 \u2013 Dave Kubiak, Tampa Bay, 36th round- No. 1,110 overall<\/span>
2012 \u2013 Sean Lucas, Cincinnati, 25th round- No. 772 overall<\/span>
2013 \u2013 Stephen Woods, Tampa Bay, 6th round \u2013 No. 188 overall (HS \u2013 did not sign)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


ALBANY
Headline News<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\nThe Albany Student Press<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sixth Round Pick Stephen Woods Jr. Chooses UAlbany ALBANY, N.Y. \u2013 In December of 2012, Stephen Woods Jr., a 6-foot-2, 205 pound hard-throwing righty, signed a National Letter of Intent to play baseball for head coach Jon Mueller and the University at Albany Great Danes. However, the plans looked as though they could change significantly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[983],"tags":[1310,1308,1307,1306,258,984,1309],"class_list":["post-3501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-albany-student-press","tag-chooses","tag-pick","tag-round","tag-sixth","tag-stephen","tag-ualbany","tag-woods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}