CLEVELAND -- The Indians have watched some of their homegrown talent take the mound this season including Shane Bieber and Zach Plesac. As the organization has watched the success of these two 24-year-olds during their time in the big leagues, they hope it is a foundation of what these players and the organizations will be able to continue to do for years to come.

The 2019 MLB Draft is officially in the rearview mirror and Scott Barnsby, with his second Draft as the Indians amateur scouting director now under his belt, walked away with 25 hurlers out of the team’s 40 total picks, all who could someday join the ranks of Cleveland’s homegrown arms.

• Draft Tracker

“When you actually get to the point where you walk out of the room and you can kind of take a step back and really appreciate everything that went into it, we’re excited about everybody we got,” Barnsby said. “Today was a really productive day. We ended up with 30 picks today and 22 of those are pitchers. Our plan is to sign the majority of them. We still have a lot of work to do to get these guys signed.”

While the Indians have traditionally targeted position players in the first round, the club took a different approach this season, selecting 18-year-old right-handed pitcher Daniel Espino from Georgia Premier Academy. Prior to 2019, seven of Cleveland’s last eight top picks were position players, but the team had been connected to Espino and were hoping that the 23 teams choosing before them would overlook his talent.

“You never know who’s going to be there at [pick No.] 24,” Barnsby said. “We hopefully did our homework on so many guys that were going to be there. Daniel actually came up to Cleveland. We spent a little extra time with him just to get to know him as a person. When he was there, not only did we feel good about the stuff and what we thought he could be, we were taking the best available player at that point.”

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Here’s a look at the position breakdown of the 40 players the Indians selected from Monday through Wednesday:

Catcher: 4
1B/3B: 1
2B/SS: 7
Outfield: 3
Pitchers: 25

“We always look for versatility,” Barnsby said of the selection of seven middle infielders. “Some of those guys, it’s going to come down to signability. We were really aggressive on Day 1, so I’m not sure how many opportunities we’re going to have to sign some of those younger guys on Day 3. So, we’ll see. Some of those guys can certainly play shortstop. But even as we were walking through it today, even some of the better guys that play shortstop, we’re looking for versatility. We’re hoping they can play some second base, some third base. Move them around. I think it’s good for anybody to go through that.”

While the Indians strayed from their comfort zone of selecting a position player with their top pick, they stayed true to their trend of focusing on high school talent with their early selections. Since 2011, when Lindor was Cleveland’s first choice out of Montverde (Fla.) Academy, the Indians have taken a high school player with five of their top eight picks. This year was no different. Espino is a prep star and the next two picks followed suit. Both their Round 2 pick (No. 82 overall) SS Yordys Valdes and Round 3 pick (No. 141 overall) 1B Joe Naranjo were prep stars.

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“Yordys ended up coming and spending some time with us as well,” Barnsby said. “He can just really pick it at shortstop. Really smooth both sides. There’s a little projection with the bat for both sides. So, those guys [Valdes and Espino], it wasn’t really high school or college. It was best guy on the board at that point.”

In their last nine Drafts combined, the Indians have now selected 19 high schoolers in their 27 top three picks. But that trend quickly disappeared as the rounds went on, as Cleveland ended up with 30 college players and 10 high schoolers in total, with the team’s final 10 selections all collegiate pitchers.

Cleveland’s scouting department doesn’t take much of a break after the Draft comes to a close, as they head to Arizona on Tuesday for the Perfect Game National Showcase to start evaluating talent for next year. But the Indians will have their newly drafted prospects meet them there to work out for a few days before hosting a big signing ceremony next Friday.

“I feel really good,” Barnsby said. “And I’m pretty happy for the staff that they can finally take a step back and relax for a couple of days before we start on 2020.”