In the end, the Oregon State Beavers fell juuuuust short of tying their MLB draft record.
Mason Guerra and Micah McDowell were selected Tuesday during the third and final day of the 2024 MLB draft, giving the Beavers seven picks in the 20-round event.
Oregon State fell one selection shy of matching the program-record for picks in the 20-round era — eight Beavers were chosen in the 2022 draft.
Guerra was the first OSU player off the board on Tuesday, going in the 14th round (431st overall) to Atlanta. McDowell went three rounds later, in the 17th, to the Miami Marlins with the 514th overall selection.
McDowell, a 6-foot-1 outfielder from Canada, will join OSU teammate Aiden May — drafted by the Marlins with the No. 70 overall pick — in the Miami organization.
Oregon State was featured prominently from the beginning of three-day draft, when All-American second baseman Travis Bazzana became the second Beavers player to be selected with the No. 1 overall pick. The Cleveland Guardians, who kept their selection a mystery until Bazzana’s name was announced at the Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas, made him the first Australia-born player to go at the top of a draft.
May went one round later to the Marlins and Major League organizations continued to snatch Oregon State players over the course of the final 18 rounds.
Right-hander Jacob Kmatz was selected by the Tampa Bay Rays in the fifth round (157th overall), closer Bridger Holmes went to the Los Angeles Angels in the seventh round (202nd overall) and shortstop Elijah Hainline landed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the seventh round (220th overall).
Guerra, who was invited to the MLB Draft Combine last month, was widely viewed as a middle-to-late round selection heading into the draft.
After teasing his potential as a freshman, hitting .333 with seven doubles in 45 at-bats, the junior first baseman established himself as an integral piece of the Beavers’ lineup during his sophomore season, starting 52 games, hitting .326, belting 12 homers and 18 doubles, and leading the team in RBIs (56) and multi-RBI games (17). Guerra was cruising to an even better junior season when he ran into the unthinkable: an 0-for-41 slump that lasted 11 games and 29 days.
It sent his batting average tumbling, from .297 to .235. But the 6-3 slugger fought through the funk and rebounded down the stretch, producing multiple memorable late-season hits, including a two-run homer in the Pac-12 baseball tournament and a solo homer in the Corvallis Regional, where he hit .400 with four RBIs and three runs scored.
Guerra finished 2024 with a .243 batting average, 11 home runs, 13 doubles, and 55 RBIs, and one can’t help but wonder how beastly his season would have been if not for the monthlong slump. Even so, he ended his college career hitting .289 with 23 home runs, 38 doubles, 118 RBIs and 102 runs scored in 133 games.
McDowell also emerged as an important part of the Oregon State lineup over the final two years of his college career, starting at center field for teams that reached the regionals and super regionals. He was limited to 39 games in 2024 because of minor quad and oblique injuries, but was a force when he was in the lineup, hitting .382 with six homers, 12 doubles, 42 runs scored and 33 RBIs in the two hole.
McDowell, who played in 147 games over parts of five seasons in Corvallis, finished his career with a .307 batting average, 13 home runs, 31 doubles, 23 stolen bases, 123 runs scored and 86 RBIs.
A handful of McDowell’s teammates — including senior outfielder Brady Kasper and senior right-hander Joey Mundt — were considered as possible selections heading into the draft, but were not picked, leaving the Beavers just short of a program record.
— Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman | Subscribe to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories
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