Royals draft Winnetonka grad Marquise Doherty, but he’s leaning toward playing at Mizzou

Marquise Doherty spent the past two days clinging to his cell phone, waiting for some sort of notification that he had been selected in the Major League Baseball draft.

Doherty, a recent Winnetonka High School graduate, says he was prepared to bypass a two-sport college career at Missouri, but during the completion of the first 10 rounds Monday and Tuesday, the call never came.

The Royals finally took him off the board Wednesday, selecting Doherty in the 15th round with the 459th overall pick.

Too little, too late, he says.

Doherty, an right-handed-hitting outfielder with power, told The Star on Wednesday that there is a “90 percent chance” he will skip the pro baseball career for now and instead attend Missouri, where he has signed to play both baseball and football.

“If the financial needs would’ve been met, I would’ve gone the baseball route,” Doherty said. “It doesn’t look like they will be.”

Royals director of scouting Lonnie Goldberg said the club would continue to pursue Doherty.

“We’ll see where we are at,” Goldberg said following the conclusion of the draft Wednesday. “We understand his situation, and we’ll see how it plays out this summer. We wanted to make sure to select him and have an opportunity to build a relationship and see if something can be worked out.”

Doherty said five teams called him Tuesday — Seattle, Kansas City, Toronto, Texas and the Chicago Cubs — but he was unable to come to a financial agreement with any of them. Per draft rules, each team has a limit it can spend on signing bonuses over the first 10 rounds.

After failing to reach a pact Tuesday, Doherty, a four-star football recruit, left for Columbia on Wednesday morning and met with a group of the school’s football coaches, he said. He planned to move into a dorm Wednesday afternoon.

If he indeed opts for the Division I college route, Doherty will be required to wait three years before being eligible again for the baseball draft.

“I knew it was going to be a far chance to be drafted (Tuesday) because our numbers didn’t match up when the teams called me. They didn’t want to give me as much as I wanted,” Doherty said. “We simply didn’t see eye-to-eye.”

Doherty is listed as a four-star running back, and he scored 17 touchdowns for Winnetonka last fall. But he also starred as a defensive back, where he had six pass-breakups, two interceptions and two defensive touchdowns.

Doherty, 6 feet and 190 pounds, had more than a dozen Division I football offers, with Oregon finishing as runner-up for his football commitment. If he elects to attend Missouri, Doherty plans to focus on running the football, unless playing on the defensive side of the football would allow him to get on the field faster.

This story was originally published June 10, 2015 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Royals draft Winnetonka grad Marquise Doherty, but he’s leaning toward playing at Mizzou."