Vasili Spanos was selected by the Oakland Athletics in the 11th round of the June 3 MLB draft, making him the 332nd overall pick and the third Hoosier taken in the last two years. Spanos had the kind of numbers that are hard to overlook, and it appears that Oakland now has a bona fide slugger in their farm system.
Why would Oakland, or any other team for that matter, be impressed enough with Spanos to use a first-day draft pick on him? Well, for anyone who hasn't noticed, he has been putting up impressive numbers during his Hoosier career, which climaxed in a great senior campaign -- leading the Big Ten in virtually every offensive category. Spanos was the leader in the conference in batting average (.434, which was 40 points higher than the next best average), home runs with eight, on-base percentage (.525) and slugging percentage (.778). Spanos was named to the first-team All Big Ten for the second straight year and was named recently to the American Baseball Coaches Association All-Mideast Region second team.