St. Mary's Standouts, More Michigan Stars Taking Major Steps in Pro Baseball Climb
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
July 16, 2026
It took former Orchard Lake St. Mary's star Brock Porter three years to reach five professional baseball victories on the mound.
It's taken only four months for Porter to win five more.
Porter is one of four Eaglets from the 2019-22 MHSAA Finals champion clubs now navigating their way through professional baseball. The 2022 Mr. Baseball Award winner, now a 23-year-old right-handed pitcher, went a combined 30-0 with an ERA under a run per game for those three championship teams (with 2020 was canceled due to COVID-19) before being tabbed by the Texas Rangers in the fourth round of the 2022 MLB draft.
Injuries slowed his first three minor league seasons, and Porter didn't win any games over his first two in the Rangers chain. But a healthy Porter has taken significant steps forward this season with the High-A Hub City Spartanburgers (S.C.) with a 5-2 record, 3.56 ERA and 52 strikeouts over 43 innings and 13 games. Porter was actually 0-9 over his first two minor league seasons before going 5-1 a year ago with Hickory of the Class A Carolina League.
He said he doesn't feel rushed in moving up the Rangers minor league ladder.
"I still have time," he said. "The big goal for me is I want to move up throughout the chain. Things are going very well, I'm excited for the season. Health-wise, I feel very good. I still want to grow into the dominant pitcher I was in high school."
Porter's role within the organization has changed. While he started 28 games over first two seasons, Porter has transitioned to the bullpen, where he's pitched in a combined 54 games during last two summers.
His former Eaglets teammates also are winding their ways through the minors.
Among them, Ike Irish was one of two former Michigan high school baseball stars who played in Sunday's prestigious MLB Futures Games as part of the all-star festivities in Philadelphia. Irish, a first-round pick a year ago, has emerged as Baltimore's No. 2 prospect as ranked by MLB.com. He went 0-for-1 with a walk after starting the game as his team’s designated hitter. The other past Michigan prep star playing Sunday was Okemos’ Caleb Bonemer, a top prospect in the Chicago White Sox chain. He went 0-for-2 as the starting third baseman for the American League.
Irish, an outfielder who also can catch, has dominated High-A Frederick (Md.) with 12 homers, 15 doubles, 47 RBIs and 18 stolen bases while batting .264. Irish hit .230 in 20 games with Low-A Delarva (Md.) in 2025 after batting .350 with 39 homers over three years at Auburn University, where he was named an All-American as a junior.
Irish, who batted .427 and .450 with a combined 19 homers and 95 RBIs during his two seasons at St. Mary's, said his professional goals don't include obsessing over posting numbers.
"No, I just want to go out there and play," he said. "I don't care about numbers or hitting X number of homers. I would rather just go out and play."
In addition to Porter and Irish, former St. Mary's star Nolan Schubart has heated up at high-Class A Lake County (Ohio) of the Midwest League. A Cleveland Guardians prospect, Schubart was named last Monday as the league's Player of the Week after hitting three homers with 12 RBIs and 20 total bases. The former third-round draft pick is now batting .248 with 67 RBIs in 69 games with a 37-game on-base streak.
The fourth former St. Mary's player in the minors is infielder Alex Mooney, the 2021 Mr. Baseball Award winner. Mooney is batting .203 with 36 RBIs and 18 stolen bases in 22 attempts with Double-A Akron (Ohio). Mooney was taken by the Guardians in the seventh round of the 2023 draft out of Duke. He started his professional career as a shortstop, but has branched out to playing 27 games at second base and 17 at third this season.
Mooney said playing at the Double-A level has been an adjustment.
"It's a tough place," he said. "I'm not really a huge stats person; I just take it day-by-day. When you're playing 140 games a year in the minors you just try to get better every day. That's the mindset. You just try to get better and win the battle in the war."
A fifth member of the 2021-22 Orchard Lake St. Mary's teams will have a shot at professional baseball. Former Eaglets pitcher Nolan Higgins was taken by the Toronto Blue Jays in the fifth round of Sunday's MLB draft.
Meanwhile, Okemos’ Bonemer has been in the national spotlight twice over the first four months of this minor league season. A member of the coaches association all-state Dream Team as a high school senior in 2024, he gained a painful national notice May 5. The New York Yankees' all-star pitcher Gerrit Cole, while rehabilitating from an injury with Hudson Valley (N.Y.), surrendered a homer and single during Bonemer’s first two at bats, then drilled the Chicago White Sox prospect with a 97-mph fastball to the shoulder. The move incensed White Sox fans, who believed Cole was trying to send Bonemer a message after banging out the two hits.
Bonemer not only survived, but has thrived. He hit .238 with High-Class A Winston-Salem (N.C.) to start this season, but slammed 18 homers and 15 doubles along while totaling 43 RBIs and 10 stolen bases. That earned him a promotion to Double-A Birmingham (Ala.) where he's off to fast start with a .279 average, three homers and 11 RBIs over his first 17 games.
Four other former Michigan prep stars have had active professional seasons. Outfielder Dante Nori, who helped Northville to the 2024 MHSAA Division 1 championship, has built on his rapid start this spring when he batted .400 for Italy in March's World Baseball Classic. A member of the all-state Dream Team as a senior at Northville, Nori is batting .245 at Double-A Reading (Pa.) in the pitching-heavy Eastern League. Nori has 12 stolen bases and 11 doubles.
Former Saginaw Swan Valley infielder Mitch Jebb has played in 20 games at Double-A Altoona (Pa.) and Triple-A Indianapolis in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ system, batting .273 with eight RBIs. A 2018 all-stater at Swan Valley, this is Jebb's fourth season in the minors after batting .327 in 147 career games at Michigan State.
Howell native and the state's 2017 Mr. Baseball, Sam Weatherly, is playing his fifth year of professional baseball. Weatherly is 1-3 in 23 games at Double-A Hartford (Conn.) of the Eastern League, a Colorado Rockies affiliate. He's struck out 34 batters in 28 innings.
Jeff Criswell from Portage Central is still recovering from Tommy John surgery a year ago. A member of the 2019 NCAA runner-up Michigan club, Criswell was called up to the Rockies for two games during the second week of June. He's divided time between three levels this season, with a 2-1 record and 6.86 ERA over 19 games and 29 strikeouts in 21 innings. In 2025, he pitched in 13 games for the Rockies with a 2.75 ERA before the surgery.
PHOTOS (Top) Orchard Lake St. Mary’s grad Brock Porter delivers a pitch for the Hub City Spartanburgers this season. (Middle) Ike Irish runs the bases for the Frederick Keys. (Below) Caleb Bonemer takes the field for the Birmingham Barons. (Porter photo by Becca Torncello/Hub City Spartanburgers. Irish photo by Robert Kimble. Bonemer photo courtesy of the Birmingham Barons.)
Kingsley Standouts Big Hits on Diamond, as Friends to 4th-Hour Classmates
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
April 19, 2024
When Eli Graves or Gavyn Merchant takes a swing this spring for Kingsley, a special group of friends are not worried how they’ll connect with the ball.
That group of friends and classmates — students in Joel Guy’s fourth-hour special education class — feel like the two senior standout athletes already hit a home run at school that day. It might even feel like a grand slam from Graves or perhaps a hole-in-one for Merchant.
And the Kingsley baseball and golf coaches feel similarly – and sentiment that may extend through the entire Kingsley community.
Merchant and Graves are playing their final baseball seasons with Stags. Merchant is dual-sporting, adding golf to his incredible athletic career.
Together, they led the Stags to Division 6 football championship in the fall despite battling through extensive injuries. Graves, the star running back, and Merchant, the outstanding quarterback, then fought through long, hard rehabilitations to get back and lead the Stags on the hardcourt and wrestling mats this winter.
But before stepping up to the plate or the tee to compete for Kingsley on any given day this spring, the pair spend time in Guy’s class and share lunch with the Kingsley cognitively impaired (CI) students.
“You can’t say enough good things about these young men,” said Guy, who also is in his fourth year as the Kingsley golf coach. “I get teary-eyed talking about it – they just kind of took a hold of some of my students making contact at lunch and in the hallway.”
That contact began midway the football season. Graves and Merchant were joined by fellow golfer Ty Morgan and football teammate Skyler Workman.
A few more senior athletes have been a part of the adoption of Guy’s students intermittently as well. But Guy’s students can count on seeing Graves, Merchant, Morgan and Workman in the classroom each and every day and then at lunch. The time was made possible, Guy notes, because the athletes are ahead in their own academic pursuits or participants in the school’s Teacher Academy program.
How those seniors are contributing is rare for accomplished athletes in a high school setting, Guy is happy to point out.
“Gavin and Eli are state champions in football,” said Guy. “They are the stars of their winter sports basketball and wrestling, and you you think that being seniors with those kinds of credentials at lunch they would sit in a table with all their buddies and talk about their accomplishments.
“They sit with my special education students,” Guy continued. “They make my students feel like they’re the ‘in’ crowd, and I am so proud of them.”
Bruce Graves, father of Eli and coach of the Stags’ baseball team, recalls learning from Guy what that group of seniors was doing with their fourth hour. He wasn’t really surprised to hear from someone else what his senior leaders were doing.
“They wouldn’t tell anybody they were doing it,” the 22-year veteran coach said. “They don’t do it for a pat on the back – they just do it because they like being good guys.”
There are various reports of exactly how the athletes started getting involved with the special education students. But everyone in the school located 15 miles south of Traverse City seems happy they did.
Eli Graves, one of the Stags’ five pitchers, roams center field when he’s not on the mound. He is 1-0 as the Stags are off to a 9-0 start following a conference sweep of Kalkaska, 3-0, 15-0, on Thursday. The right-hander is slated to pitch this weekend and has hopes of the Stags finishing the year with a conference baseball title and a deep postseason run.
Graves and Merchant have raised money all year to get birthday and Christmas gifts for their classmates in Guy’s room. They’ve become particularly close to a couple of his students.
“They don’t really see us as helpers or anything like that — they see us more as friends,” said Graves, now playing his third year on the varsity baseball squad. “We go into the special ed room, and basically just help the students with whatever work they are doing.”
After recovering from football injuries, Graves averaged more than 15 points per game this basketball season and earned all-conference. Merchant also recovered from postseason surgeries and got back on the mat to place fourth at 132 pounds in Division 3 and became an all-state wrestler for the fourth time.
The pair’s in-season football injuries were not known to many. They wanted to compete for the state title and tend to the injuries later. Graves rushed for almost 2,000 yards, tying and breaking some of his brother Owen’s school records along the way. He also had 20 tackles, two interceptions and four touchdowns on defense during the 2023 campaign.
Graves sprained a shoulder joint during the Semifinal win over Reed City but a week later carried the ball 33 times and ran for 210 yards in the title game. He had four touchdowns that day in the Stags' 38-24 victory over Almont.
Merchant has had various injuries over the course of his career, undergoing wrist surgery as a sophomore for a carpal tunnel injury and having floating cartilage taken out of a knee following his junior wrestling season.
But what he endured on the way to Ford Field was the topper as he endured two torn ligaments in his knee, a fractured leg, a torn meniscus — and, later on — a pair of broken ribs sustained late in the championship game.
“When you’re in the game, it’s all about adrenaline,” said Merchant, who is facing another surgery in May but shot a 95 to lead Kingsley in its first tournament of the season Thursday at the Frostbite Open in Manton. “You don’t even think about the injury until you get off the field, and that’s when you get ice bags and fight it off.”
They have been close friends since elementary school and credit the Kingsley coaching, teaching and counseling staffs with preparing them for life after graduation.
Graves and Merchant call football their favorite sport. Graves hopes to also play football at the college level, and Merchant expects to continue on the wrestling mat.
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Eli Graves, left, and Gavyn Merchant are among standouts for Kingsley’s baseball team again this spring. (Middle) Merchant (6) hands the ball off to Graves during the Division 6 championship win at Ford Field. (Below) Merchant putts during Thursday’s golf opener. (Baseball photos by Karen Middleton.)