Milwaukee Brewers' director of amateur scouting Bruce Seid met with the media on Wednesday afternoon at the conclusion of the Major League Baseball First Year Player Draft, and expressed optimism about bringing all 42 picks into the fold.
"I can just say we're real close with a lot of the top guys," Seid said.
While much attention will be put on when first round picks Clint Coulter, Victor Roache and Mitch Haniger sign, the Brewers have wasted no time with their later picks, including 12th round pick Eric Semmelhack out of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The junior right-hander signed this evening and will report to the Helena Brewers of the Rookie League on Monday.
"It made it a little more real for me," Semmelhack said of the signing. "This is a job now and this is something I need to try and strive at, which I always planned on."
Semmelhack, an Oak Creek native, finished the 2012 campaign with a 3.77 earned run average and five victories while leading the Horizon League in strikeouts.
In three full years at UWM Semmelhack won eight games with a 3.94 ERA and 153 strikeouts in 194.0 innings.
Read more about Semmelhack tomorrow at OnMilwaukee.com.
Jim Owczarski is an award-winning sports journalist and comes to Milwaukee by way of the Chicago Sun-Times Media Network.
A three-year Wisconsin resident who has considered Milwaukee a second home for the better part of seven years, he brings to the market experience covering nearly all major and college sports.
To this point in his career, he has been awarded six national Associated Press Sports Editors awards for investigative reporting, feature writing, breaking news and projects. He is also a four-time nominee for the prestigious Peter J. Lisagor Awards for Exemplary Journalism, presented by the Chicago Headline Club, and is a two-time winner for Best Sports Story. He has also won numerous other Illinois Press Association, Illinois Associated Press and Northern Illinois Newspaper Association awards.
Jim's career started in earnest as a North Central College (Naperville, Ill.) senior in 2002 when he received a Richter Fellowship to cover the Chicago White Sox in spring training. He was hired by the Naperville Sun in 2003 and moved on to the Aurora Beacon News in 2007 before joining OnMilwaukee.com.
In that time, he has covered the events, news and personalities that make up the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, NCAA football, baseball and men's and women's basketball as well as boxing, mixed martial arts and various U.S. Olympic teams.
Golf aficionados who venture into Illinois have also read Jim in GOLF Chicago Magazine as well as the Chicago District Golfer and Illinois Golfer magazines.
