Top overall pick Swanson makes pro debut

For many Draft picks, the wait to get into action between the end of a school's season and a professional debut can feel long. For Dansby Swanson, it must have felt eternal.

This year's No. 1 overall pick, who suffered a concussion on July 23, finally played his first pro game Wednesday. He went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts, a walk and a run scored in Class A Short Season Hillsboro's 3-2 win over visiting Vancouver.

"It's cool, I mean at the end of the day, it's just another game, but I'm excited. I'm glad to be here," said the Vanderbilt product, who was replaced on defense in the top of the seventh inning, but stayed on to sign autographs for fans nearly an hour after the game ended.

"It's been seven weeks since I last played. Just trying to get back into the routine would be nice," he added. "Hopefully I'll put the ball in play tomorrow."

Swanson's injury was the result of being hit on the right side of his mouth by a Yoan Lopez pitch in a simulated game at the D-backs' Salt River Field during his first day on the field in the Arizona organization.

"He's ready. He hasn't competed in quite some time," D-backs director of player development Mike Bell said. "This game's tough. I hope people will understand. They might think he's a higher Draft [pick], this is going to be a piece of cake. It's not. It's hard. This is a very, very difficult game.

"The best players in the world struggle at times. So it's going to take him a while to get his feet under him. So we'll manage it. He might play seven innings. He might have a couple days off. We're going to try to ease him into it so his legs are in great shape, his arm. We've got to be smart about this. We've got some teams in the playoffs, so we can get him some extra ABs. Get him on his way."

Considered Arizona's top prospect and No. 12 in the game, Swanson was the first No. 1 overall pick to make his pro debut in the Northwest League since Ken Griffey Jr. took the field for the Bellingham Bells in 1987.

"A lot of the college players a lot of the time, we'll push to the Northwest League. We really don't send them out to full-season A teams," Bell said. "Dansby could be kind of an exception, but with the layoff that he had, it makes sense to start him off here. So we're going to take every player as an individual and put them in a place that's best going to benefit them. In this case, it's Hillsboro."

The 21-year-old shortstop's best tools are his hitting and his speed, which both rate as a 60 on the 20-80 scouting scale. He also profiles to stick at his position and hit for Major League-average power, and he signed with a $6.5-million bonus, which was the highest in the 2015 Draft class, but below the assigned slot value of over $8.6 million. 

Hops general manager K.L. Wombacher was excited his franchise has been entrusted with the development of such a prospect. 

"For [the D-backs] to have confidence in us to give a great first experience to their top picks, it means a lot to us," he said. "We've got a long relationship with them, and each year, it just gets better and better. For us, we really just appreciate the confidence in us."

Batting second for Hillsboro, Swanson went down on strikes against Canadians starter Tayler Saucedo in the first and the third. In the sixth, he worked a base on balls and scored to knot the game, 1-1.

He also made two plays in the field, grabbing a first-inning popup off the bat of Ryan Hissey and fielding a second-inning grounder by Carl Wise.

Swanson said he was much more excited than nervous about his debut, especially considering the long wait on the sidelines.

"It's always refreshing to be back on the field, for sure. I mean, I feel like there's always some nerves associated with baseball, but they [go away] real quick," he said. "But [it's] still three outs every half inning, it's still baseball."

Tyler Bolton held Vancouver to two runs on three hits and a walk while striking out nine over eight innings. The 22-year-old righty improved to 1-2 with a 3.66 ERA for Hillsboro.

Alex Young, the D-backs' second-round pick this year, struck out the side in the ninth to record his first professional save.