Cal’s Paulshawn Pasqualotto Taken in 12th Round of MLB Draft

Right-handed pitcher Paulshawn Pasqualotto was the first Cal player to be selected in this year’s Major League Baseball draft, but he was not selected until the third day.

Pasqualotto was taken on Tuesday in the 12th round of the 20-round draft by the Minnesota Twins. No other Cal player was drafted.

It's the first time since 2014 that a Cal player has not been selected in the first 10 rounds of the MLB draft. (This excludes the 2020 MLB draft, which featured only five rounds and no Cal players were selected.)

Pasqualotto's journey to the pros was slowed when he underwent Tommy John surgery, which caused him to miss all of the 2022 season as a sophomore. He returned this season as a junior and was the Golden Bears’ best starting pitcher, starting 14 games and finishing with a 5-1 record and 4.03 ERA.

He was listed as the 248th-best prospect in the draft by MLB.com, and most services ranked him in the top 300. But he was not drafted until the 357th overall pick, presumably because of lingering questions about his elbow.

Here is how MLB.com assessed his major-league prospects:

A product of the Las Vegas high school ranks, Pasqualotto headed to Cal for college ball and turned in a solid, if unspectacular, freshman year in the Bears’ weekend rotation. He wasn’t able to follow up on that in 2022, as his sophomore season was wiped out by Tommy John surgery. He’s returned this year as Cal’s Saturday starter, and while his results have been understandably up and down post-elbow reconstruction, he’s shown signs of having a big league arm.

Pasqualotto’s velocity has come back on his fastball. It’s averaged over 92 mph while touching 96, though it doesn’t feature a ton of life and doesn’t miss that many bats. His changeup is his best secondary pitch right now, an upper-70s off-speed offering that has some fade and tumble and can serve as a swing-and-miss pitch. Before the injury, he featured a solid curve, but he’s switched to a slider, and while there’s feel to spin, it’s not as consistent.

Athletic on the mound, Pasqualotto has struggled to throw strikes consistently, but it’s also his first season post-TJ, and there’s reason to believe he’ll have decent command in the future. He’s reminded some of Angels righty Chase Silseth, who is now pitching out of the big league bullpen, a path Pasqualotto could follow.

Players taken in the first 10 rounds are assigned a slot value, which goes against teams' limit for the total amount they can spend. As a 12-round pick, Pasqualotto has no slot value, making him a bargain for the Twins.

Stanford had eight players drafted in the first eight rounds, which gives you a pretty good idea why Stanford was the Pac-12 regular-season champion this year and Cal finished tied for eighth.

Cover photo of Paulshawn Pasqualotto is by Rob Edwards, KLC fotos

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