Former Scots Rankin and Robbins Moving Up Minor League Ladder

While three Shorewood seniors, and a fourth Shorewood grad were taken in June’s Major League Baseball draft, two former students from the other side of I-5 are already making good on their major league aspirations.

Pierce Rankin and James Robbins, Shorecrest graduates from the classes of 2007 and 2009 respectively, have taken slightly different paths, but both find themselves playing A ball in baseball’s minor leagues.

 After leading Shorecrest to a second place finish in districts, and a trip to state in 2007, Rankin would be named first-team All-Wesco, and second-team all-state.. and would take his baseball talents to Montlake, playing for the University of Washington under then-head coach Ken Knutson, and current coach Lindsey Meggs. After three years at Washington, in which he picked up two All-Pac-10 honorable mention nods, and led the Huskies in home runs and RBIs as a junior, Rankin would be taken in the 38th round of the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft by the Toronto Blue Jays.

 With Rankin gone, Robbins would take on a leadership role with the Scots, and lead Shorecrest to a district title, and another trip to state in 2009. Though having committed to play at Washington State, Robbins would be drafted in the 30th round of the 2009 Draft by the Detroit Tigers, and the allure of a $235,000 signing bonus would be too much to pass up.

 After nine games in the rookie Gulf Coast League to close out 2009, Robbins would be named the 29th best prospect in the Detroit system by Baseball America, and was promoted to the low-A New York-Penn League’s Connecticut Tigers for 2010. In 69 games with the Tigers, Robbins would hit .251, with a .293 on-base percentage, three home runs, and 39 RBIs, numbers good enough to be named a NYPL All-Star. This season, Robbins would again be promoted, this time to the class-A Midwest League’s West Michigan Whitecaps. Through 73 games with the Whitecaps, Robbins was batting .265 with a team-leading 10 home runs and 39 RBIs.

 Meanwhile, Rankin, who had bounced around several positions with the Huskies, would be made a full time catcher by the Blue Jays organization. After hitting .265, with 4 homers and a team-leading 22 RBIs in 41 games for the Gulf Coast League Blue Jays to close out 2010, Rankin would find himself promoted to the short-season Northwest League’s Vancouver Canadians to start 2011. Thus far with the Canadians, Rankin is hitting .290 with two home runs in eight games, with his first homer coming in front of around 50 family members and friends last Wednesday at Everett Memorial Stadium against the Aquasox.

Fans can see Rankin in action as his Canadians return to Everett Memorial Stadium August 7-9, to take on the Aquasox. Tickets are available at www.aquasox.com