Delsea’s Dobzanski Living The Dream

Recent Delsea graduate Bryan Dobzanski always wanted to have a career as a professional baseball player. He just didn’t think it would come this soon.

A hard-throwing right-hander, Dobzanski was a 29th round draft choice of the St. Louis Cardinals in the June 7 Major League Baseball First Year Player Draft, and was considered a long-shot to sign. He had a baseball scholarship to the University of Louisville, which was expected to be more valuable than a one-time signing bonus he would earn from St. Louis.

Baseball has a slotting system, where any player drafted after the 10th round has a recommended bonus slot of $100,000.

Not to get too complicated, but any amount over $100,000 given to a player drafted above the 10th round, counts against a team’s bonus pool.

There are harsh penalties for teams that go above five percent over the pool, so teams maneuver their money any way they can to stay within that five percent figure.

Still, some teams try to accumulate extra money to sign high school players, and that is what the Cardinals did with Dobzanski. (A team may sign a higher draft choice for under the slot value to get the extra money to offer a lower drafted player).

Dobzanski said that the Cardinals offered him a bonus of $700,000, or $600,000 over slot.

(In addition, players who get drafted out of high school and sign, are also provided a separate amount that can go toward future college tuition).

So with that as a backdrop, the offer was truly too good for Dobzanski to refuse.

“This threw me off-guard,” Dobzanski said. “I was pretty much 100 percent going to Louisville before receiving this offer.”

Dobzanski officially signed on June 27th and was assigned to the Cardinals Gulf Coast League team in Jupiter, Florida.

Before leaving for Florida, Dobzanski said he would likely be used as a starting pitcher.

What has to be so intriguing is his potential, since Dobzanski wasn’t a 12-month-a-year baseball player before signing.

In fact he was more known in South Jersey for his wrestling exploits.

The 6-foot-4, 220-pound Dobzanski was a two-time NJSIAA state wrestling champion during his final two years. His four-year record at Delsea was 155-8.

He had also played football at Delsea, but didn’t participate his senior year in order to concentrate more on baseball.

Still, Dobzanski will now be concentrating on baseball every day, and many have theorized that his better days are ahead since he now will be devoting all his time to the sport.

“I buy that,” Dobzanski said. “I think my stats on the mound were up there with just about everybody who got drafted high, and they focused on baseball pretty much their entire lives.” And now he will be doing the same.

“I never spent a whole year on just baseball and I think I can really develop,” he said.

What St. Louis has to like is the fact that Dobzanski hasn’t thrown an inordinate number of innings and won’t have much wear and tear on his arm.

As a senior, he threw just 46 innings and had a 0.91 ERA. Delsea coach Fran Ciociola estimates that Dobzanski threw only about 25 innings as a junior.

Ciociola says that Dobzanski has thrown as a hard as 95 miles per hour and was consistently in the low 90s.

He is just 18-years-old, and being put on a throwing program by professionals should benefit Dobzanski greatly. Plus, the Cardinals is an organization that is known for its outstanding development of young players.

That is why the future appears so bright for Dobzanski, who is a professional a little sooner than he anticipated, but happy to get his new career started.

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Author: Marc Narducci