MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Small jab with the right hand Jacob Watters and small outfielder Victor Scott II of the West Virginia University baseball team were selected Monday in the 2022 MLB Draft.
Watters was a fourth-round pick (124th overall) of the Oakland Athletics, while Scott II was taken in the fifth round (157th overall) by the St. Louis Cardinals. Louis Cardinals. The duo became the first pair of Mountaineers to be taken in the top five rounds of a draft since Rick Oliver (Milwaukee) and Rick Wagener (New York Mets) were selected in the first and second rounds, respectively, of the secondary draft of January 1971. .
With the selections, West Virginia has now had 104 players selected in the MLB Draft all-time, including 34 while coaching. Randy Mazeyhis tenure (2013-present). WVU has also had multiple picks in nine of the last 10 drafts.
Watters went 3-7 with a 6.22 ERA in 18 appearances in 2022, including 11 starts. After starting the season in the bullpen, the Rocky Gap, Virginia native entered the starting rotation in late March and finished with 75 strikeouts in 59.1 innings of work. On May 7, Watters struck out a career-high 15 batters in 6.1 innings against Texas.
An All-Big 12 Honorable Mention selection, Watters has fanned 139 batters in his three-year career at West Virginia, spanning 94.0 innings. Overall, he is 7-8 with a 5.27 ERA, with five saves in 42 appearances.
Watters was named to the 2021 NCBWA Midseason Watch List, and he was a preseason All-America honoree by the organization prior to the start of 2022.
Scott II hit .278 with six home runs and 47 RBIs at the plate for WVU last spring. He also scored 44 runs and stole 38 bases, good for the most in single-season program history.
A native of Powder Springs, Georgia, Scott II started all 55 games for the Mountaineers in 2022. He hit 12 doubles and two triples, posting a .454 slugging percentage.
For his career, Scott II has posted a .254 average in 121 games played, with 100 hits, 79 runs scored, 20 doubles, 11 homers, six triples, 75 RBI and 62 stolen bases from 2020-22. Additionally, he is a three-time winner of WVU’s Iron Mountaineer Award, given each season to the team’s top athlete. He is also the highest drafted WVU outfielder since Darrell Whitmore was selected in the second round by Cleveland in 1990.
The 2022 MLB Draft concludes with rounds 11-20 on Tuesday afternoon. Coverage begins at 2:00 PM ET on MLB.com.
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