Pick 17.11 - 382nd Overall

Jason Bere - CLE SP
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bereja01.shtml

As mentioned before, the Stouts are in need of rotation arms.  Having waited until the 9th round to address any pitching whatsoever, we're pretty much left with the scraps at the bottom of the barrel at this point.  In my estimation, the best available guy left was Jason Bere.  While his best years are way behind him, he does provide serviceable starts for the next couple years.  That's what we need at this point.

Bere burst onto the scene in 1993, finishing 2nd in the Rookie-of-the-Year voting that season (Tim Salmon won).  He went 12-5 with a 3.47 ERA that year.  He followed up his outstanding rookie campaign with an All-Star season in 1994, going 12-2 with a 3.81 ERA.  Then the wheels fell off.  Bere lost 15 games in 1995 with a whopping 7.19 ERA in 27 starts.  He came back to start only five games in 1996, compiling a 10.26 ERA.  Not good.  He continued to struggle for the remainder of the decade.

In 2000, Bere started 31 games, the most games up to that point in his career.  While his 5.47 ERA was nothing to write home about, the fact that he was able to take the ball for each turn was something of a victory considering he had just spent the past four season battling injury.  In 2001, he was shipped to the Cubs and had a solid season, starting 32 games with a 4.31 ERA, striking out 175 in 188 innings.  Unfortunately, just as he was seemingly getting his career back on track, injuries hit him again in 2002 and he was out of baseball by 2004.

For our purposes here, Bere fills out the five-man rotation.  I'll try to add a couple more pieces for spot starts in the next few rounds.  All five guys in the rotation come back in 2001 with better seasons, so all we'll be looking to do next year is look for upgrades if possible.