Nationals Take Cal's Caleb Lomavita in First Round of MLB Draft

Catcher Caleb Lomavita became the 17th Cal player to be taken in the first round of a Major League Baseball draft when the the Washington Nationals selected Lomavita with the 39th overall pick on Sunday.

Lomavita was the very last pick of what is technically considered the first round.  He was not one of the first 30 picks, which is the limit of the first round in some minds.  But the next nine selections are sandwiched between those first 30 picks and the start of the second round and are considered first-round picks. Lomavita was one of the six players selected to what is known as the Competitive Balance Round A category, and he will be listed as a first-round draft pick.

The 5-foot-11, 200-pound Lomavita, who was a junior this past season, is the 17th Cal player to be taken in the first round of an MLB draft and first Golden Bears player to be taken in the first round since Dylan Beavers was selected with the 33rd overall pick of the 2022 draft as one of seven players drafted in the Competitive Balance Round A part of the first round.

As the 39th pick, Lomavita has a draft slot bonus value of $2,395,000, and that would approximate his signing bonus. Teams use the signing bonus money to persuade high school players to sign with them rather than attend college or to persuade juniors in college not to return to college for their senior season. Teams often offer less than the allotted signing bonus value, but sometimes offer more. In any case, the player is likely to sign for a bonus approximating the slot limit.

Most reputable mock drafts projected Lomavita to be drafted somewhere between the 20th and 35th picks, so he dropped a little further than expected. Major League teams have a certain amount of money to spend on their draft choices, and that may affect which players are drafted in a given slot, because the bonus value drops the lower a player is drafted. Click here to explain that concept.

Lomavita hit .322 with 15 home runs, 52 RBIs and a .981 OPS this past season for Cal. The Bears finished with a 36-19 record and were stuned that they did not get a berth in the NCAA tournament.  Lomavita 23rd overall pick, and that position has a slot bonus value of about $3.5 million, and that would approximate his signing bonus.

The first overall pick Sunday was Oregon State second baseman Travis Bazzana, who was born in Australia and was taken by the Cleveland Guardians.

Cal junior center fielder Rodney Green Jr. had not been selected by the time Lomavita was taken, but there was an outside chance he would be drafted in the first two rounds held Sunday. Rounds three through 10 will be carried out on Monday, and rounds 11 through 20 will be conducted Tuesday.

It should be noted that the round in which a player is drafted is not necessarily an indication of how that player will perform in the major leagues.  Former Cal standout Marcus Semien was selected in the sixth round of the 2008 Major League Baseball draft, and he is scheduled to be the American League’s starting second baseman in the All-Star Game on Tuesday. He finished third in the American League MVP voting in 2023 while helping the Rangers to their first World Series championship. On the other hand, ex-Cal star Brett Jackson was a first-round draft pick in 2009 and ended up playing just 51 major-league games with a career batting average of .169