The first 20 picks crawled by for Max Anderson. Then things got interesting.
Nebraska’s hard-hitting second baseman started getting texts from his advisor late Sunday night — MLB teams are paying attention. Then his best friend and former roommate, shortstop Brice Matthews, capped the first round of the draft by going at No. 28 to Houston.
“That threw a big hiatus into me worrying about myself,” Anderson said Monday morning. “I was cheering for my teammate.”
His own time arrived soon after. With only a short advance warning, he watched his name flash across the draft screen at No. 45 to the Detroit Tigers. Other than his former double-play partner 70 minutes earlier, it’s the highest selection for a Husker since pitcher Joba Chamberlain in 2006.
The Millard West graduate said his draft spot was “definitely on the better side of things.” A variety of projections had him going as high as 37th and as low as 113th. He settled at a place with a slot value of $1.91 million.
Anderson said his likely next step is to head to Detroit’s spring-training base in Florida and hammer out contract details before returning to action. Exactly where he’ll begin defensively is unclear — general scouting evaluations have been dubious about his athletic ceiling in the field, though he committed just two errors at second base in the spring while making all 57 starts for the Huskers.
“They love that I can hit the ball,” Anderson said of Detroit. “They love that everywhere I’ve been, I’ve hit. That’s where they wanted me — they told me I can hit and they’ll figure it out from there.”
A Zoom call late Sunday among Tigers decision-makers echoed the sentiment. The team’s president of baseball operations, Scott Harris, said the franchise targeted batters who displayed an ability to adapt and adjust their approach throughout the season. Mark Conner, director of amateur scouting, said Detroit’s own evaluation was backed by the numbers the 6-foot, 215-pound Anderson posted as a Nebraska junior batting .412 — top 10 in college baseball — with 21 home runs and opposite-field power.
“He has a very high-intensity swing that’s looking to do damage, his barrel stays through the zone extremely long, he’s able to drive the ball to all fields and had a tremendous performance this year,” Conner said. “He’s a guy that our staff truly feels is on the come-up and has a lot of better days ahead of him.”
Anderson and Brice shared a Zoom call late Sunday — lots of smiles and yelling, Anderson said — as they capped off one of the best 1-2 punches in Nebraska baseball draft history. Only Darin Erstad (No. 1 overall) and Alvie Shepherd (No. 21) in 1995 went higher in the same draft as Husker teammates. Only once before had Nebraska had two position players taken in the first five rounds of the same draft (outfielders Adam Stern and John Cole in 2001).
Five total NU position players had gone in the first five rounds this century before Sunday: Cole, Stern, Alex Gordon (2005), Cody Asche (2011) and Ryan Boldt (2016).
Anderson said there’s a takeaway — Nebraska develops baseball talent.
“It shows they’re doing something right,” Anderson said. “If you want to have a shot at getting drafted in the first or second round, you know where to go. It’s not a place where you’re going to go and not have a chance to get drafted. You’re going to have a chance to showcase yourself and play at the next level if you do everything right. They’re going to do everything they can to help you and be prepared for life and be a better man, too.”
Photos: Nebraska baseball falls to Maryland in the Big Ten tournament