Los Angeles Angels 2nd round pick has local flavor

The Los Angeles Angels second pick in the 2017 Amateur Draft was an ace pitcher from UCLA named Griffin Canning.  Canning was selected 47th overall which was in the 2nd round after OF Jordon Adell in the 1st.

On Friday the Los Angeles Angels signed Griffin Canning yesterday, one day after signing the first pick Jordon Adell.  With these top two picks now in the Angels fold, the team will focus on signing as many as their later round picks in hopes of further strengthening their farm system.

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The eventual hope is that they both will be productive major leaguers.  Canning was at the Big “A” last night and was shown on the Jumbotron being interviewed by Victor Rojas and Mark Gubicza of Fox Sports West early in the game.

Canning just finished his junior season at UCLA went 7-4 with a 2.34 ERA in 17 starts.  Canning pitched a total of 119 innings and had a PAC-12 leading 140 strikeouts in the 2017 season.  Canning is a local boy hailing from Coto de Caza in South Orange County and he attended Santa Margarita High School.

No terms were announced for either Adell’s or Canning’s signing bonus.  However, according to Maria Guardado of MLB. Com the bonus for the 47th pick is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 million dollars.

In an interview with Guardado, Canning said “I’m obviously pretty excited, I grew up coming to Angels games.,” Canning said. “My family had season tickets in 2002 when they won the World Series. I couldn’t really ask for anything better.”

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According to Angels general manager Billy Eppler, Canning will not pitch anymore this season instead he will go to Arizona to work on his conditioning for next year so he will be ready to pitch in the minors in 2018.

With the Angels need for quality young arms due to all the injuries they have had to their starting staff, they are hoping Canning progresses fairly quickly. If he does you could see Canning in the majors by late 2019 or at the very least by the Spring of 2020.  However, you never know what will happen until you put someone into the fire and test him.

Next: Meet Angels top pick Jordon Adell

Let’s hope that this is the beginning of a young star’s career and the fact that Canning is a local product makes him even more intriguing.