Nine Knights Alumni Selected in 2024 MLB Draft

Wednesday, July 17, Corvallis, Ore. – Eight more Corvallis Knights alumni were selected in the final 17 rounds of the 2024 Major League Baseball draft, held at the Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth. Those draftees joined 2021 alum Travis Bazzana, the No. 1 overall selection, to give the Knights a total of nine selectees in the draft, which concluded on July 16.

Four former Knights were taken on July 15 in rounds 3-10. They were left-handed pitcher Jakob Wright (2023) of Cal Poly; right-handed pitcher Sam Stuhr (2021, 2023) of Portland; catcher Ryan Stafford (2022) of Cal Poly, and right-handed pitcher Matt Ager (2022) of UC Santa Barbara.

Infielder Zander Darby (2022) of UC Santa Barbara was the first of four Knights selected on Day 3 of the draft on July 16. He was joined by Portland right-handed pitcher Joey Gartrell (2022), New Mexico State outfielder Titus Dumitru (2022) and Utah right-handed pitcher Merit Jones (2023).

Wright went to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the fourth round as the 128^th overall pick. He started four times in his five 2023 appearances for the Knights, and went 2-1 with a 3.43 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 18.2 innings. The Paso Robles, Calif., native was a Big West Conference all-star in 2024 and went 9-3, 2.97 ERA in 15 starts, with 101 strikeouts in 88 innings. He was also named to the ABCA West Region second-team.

A Portland native, Stuhr was 3-2, 4.61 in 16 starts for the Pilots in 2024, with 100 strikeouts in 80 innings. He went 3-0 with a 2.61 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 20.2 innings for the Knights in 2023. He was taken by the Oakland Athletics in the fifth round as the 137^th overall pick.

Stafford was the Big West Conference Defensive Player of the Year, a Buster Posey Award finalist and a second-team Big West Conference all-star in 2024, when he hit .368 in 57 games, with six homers and 46 RBIs. The Folsom, Calif., native joined the Knights midway through the 2022 season and hit a blistering .354 in 15 games, with 10 RBIs. He then hit .368 in five playoff games, with three RBIs, helping the Knights capture the WCL championship. Stafford was taken in the fifth round by the Baltimore Orioles, who made him the 160^th overall draftee.

A Pleasanton, Calif., native, Ager was a three-time Big West Conference first- or second-team all-star. He was 3-4 with a 4.02 ERA in 24 games in 2024, with 11 saves and 59 strikeouts in 62.2 innings. He was 0-1 with a 2.55 ERA in eight games for the 2022 Knights, with 20 strikeouts in 24.2 innings. Ager was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the sixth round as the 174^th overall selection.

Darby is a Palo Alto, Calif., native taken by the San Francisco Giants in the 12^th round as the 358^th overall selection. He earned honorable mention Big West Conference honors in 2024 after hitting .275, with six homers and 33 RBIs. He was also an honorable-mention all-WCL choice in 2022 after hitting .284 with five homers and 19 RBIs for the Knights.

A right-hander from Mulino, Ore., Gartrell was taken by Boston in the 15^th round as the 447^th overall selection. He went 2-2, 5.23 in an injury-shortened 2024, with 23 strikeouts in 20.2 innings over four appearances for the Portland Pilots. He was honorable-mention all-WCL in 2022 after going 2-0 with a 1.11 ERA and 22 strikeouts in 32.1 innings.

Dumitru went to Atlanta in the 16^th round as the 491^st overall selection. He earned Conference USA second-team honors by hitting .337 for the Aggies this past spring, with 12 homers and 40 RBIs. The Gresham native also played for Linn-Benton CC in 2022-23 before transferring to NMSU for the 2024 season. He hit .269, with no homers and 19 RBIs, in his summer with the Knights.

Jones, from Idaho Falls, Id., was selected by Minnesota in the 20^th round as the 608^th overall pick after going 3-5, 5.66 for the Utes in 2024, with 68 strikeouts in 68.1 inning pitched. He went 2-1, 1.15 with a save for Corvallis in 2023, and pitched 5.2 shutout innings with nine strikeouts in the title game against Victoria. He had 47 strikeouts in 42.2 innings.