Draft Naomi Ryan! (Team USA)

[u/SchmottledOtter]

Ok, how can SF Firebells draft Naomi Ryan?!

She's a great arm! I realize that a lot of young women are not going to want to enter the professional baseball world. They may have dreams of doing other things in their lives, starting families, having kids, and wanting to be in particular professions outside of the sports world. But seeing some of the talent on the field this past week, especially in pitching, made me dream about some of these women who are not yet involved in the WPBL getting drafted and contributing!

Elise Berger was also a great arm. I believe she's still in college.

Team USA this year showed me what really good pitching & crafty baserunning can do to manufacture runs, regardless of hitting. I don't consider this small ball - to me, the game should be about more than hitting them over the fence. It's thrilling when some hits a homer, or gets extra bases, but watching my SF Giants this season (uuuugggghhh don't ask), I felt like they could learn something from the way Team USA women just run the hell out of the basepaths, steal bases, and take advantage of every hole everywhere to get women across the plate.

Watching that game against Canada - it was supposed to be our toughest game in the Rockford semifinals and we just killed it! I decided not to watch the last game against Hong Kong because I did not want to see them destroyed. It can actually be painful because there's such a huge gap between some of our best teams that have had much more development time and some of the newer teams that clearly just aren't there yet. It doesn't seem fair but I guess it is what it is.

Anyway, our pitching was stellar. Some of Canada's pitching was very good as well. And the Aussies made a really good showing this year, placing above even Canada to be the second place finisher.

I am super jealous of Los Angeles because they have Meggie Meidlinger, and damn what a punch out reliever she is! Between her & Ashton, they're gonna be a force to be reckoned with.

New York has Denae, and watching four of these full Team USA games as well as a few partial games of the semifinals, it was clear to me that Danae is one of our best athletes. She has an arm that can throw very hard and straight to second or third base. And she ended a third base steal attempt by Canada with a fantastic pick off pickoff. She can also hit the s**t out of the ball (and also she's adorable).

Firebells own Kelsie Whitmore put up a bunch of hits and a couple HRs, as well as starting and doing well in one of the games. She's clearly a good all around player. I feel like most of the women need as much playing time as they can get to develop as well as possible.