2015 MLB Draft Prospects – Connecticut
rJR RHP Devin Over (2015)
rSR RHP Carson Cross (2015)
rSR RHP Jordan Tabakman (2015)
rSO RHP Ryan Radue (2015)
rJR RHP Max Slade (2015)
rSO RHP Callahan Brown (2015)
SR 1B/OF Blake Davey (2015)
JR 1B Bobby Melley (2015)
SR OF Eric Yavarone (2015)
SR OF Jon Testani (2015)
SR C Connor David (2015)
JR OF Jack Sundberg (2015)
JR 2B/3B Vinny Siena (2015)
JR 3B Brian Daniello (2015)
JR C Max McDowell (2015)
JR 1B/OF Nico Darras (2015)
SO SS/2B Aaron Hill (2016)
SO LHP Anthony Kay (2016)
SO RHP Andrew Zapata (2016)
SO RHP Pat Ruotolo (2016)
I should really stop being surprised when I look up Connecticut’s talent. Every year I mentally subtract the players that they lost and every year I expect to see the cupboard too bare to care from a draft standpoint. Yet every darn year I find myself being in the same mental place, somehow unready to process the half-dozen or so honest to goodness prospects scattered across the team’s roster. This year’s club features a low-mileage pitcher with plus arm strength (rJR RHP Devin Over), a college ace returning from Tommy John surgery capable of throwing three average or better pitches for strikes (rSR RHP Carson Cross), and a changeup specialist with enough size and fastball (88-92ish) to get some late round consideration this June (rSR RHP Jordan Tabakman). Over in particular is a fascinating prospect due to his mid-90s fastball (97 peak) and impressive athleticism. The results have never matched his stuff (in terms of K/9), so scouts will have to really hone on him this spring to see why a guy with an arm like his has been unable to consistently miss bats. That might not be a particularly fair criticism considering his limited track record to date (30ish lifetime innings), but prospect evaluation ain’t always fair.
Offensively, two hitters stand out as particularly promising. SR 1B/OF Blake Davey and JR 1B Bobby Melley both have shown they possess the type of above-average raw power and measured approach to hitting that pro teams prioritize on draft day. Working against them, of course, is the likelihood that both players wind up as first basemen professionally. It’s a steep climb from nice college hitting prospect to legitimate potential big league first baseman. Two guys with lesser bats but greater positional value that could get drafted are JR OF Jack Sundberg and JR C Max McDowell. Sundberg is held back by a lack of any kind of meaningful pop, but he can run, throw, and defend well enough in center that a team might put up with some growing pains with the stick. He profiles better as a 2016 senior sign to me. McDowell, on the other hand, appears to be one of the nation’s most underappreciated catching prospects. He does the things you’d expect out of any real catching prospect (solid glove, interesting power upside) while also doing the extras (really nice runner for the position, more athletic than most backstops) that make him a legitimate top ten round sleeper. Houston’s Ian Rice is unabashedly one of my favorites in all of college baseball, so, naturally, taking his throne as top catching prospect in the AAC was never really going to happen for McDowell. Still, I like him so much that there really wasn’t much internal debate as to who would fill in the second spot, where McDowell sits ahead of the more famous and preferred option by many, Luke Lowery of East Carolina. JR 3B Brian Daniello might just be the top third base prospect in the conference, though that says at least as much about the dearth of talented third basemen in the AAC than anything about Daniello’s maybe/maybe not pro future. In any event, he’s a really solid college player who I’m happy to give a little recognition.
Ceilings, Floors, Tyler Jay, and Dillon Tate
I probably shouldn’t reveal something that will undoubtedly make this whole site feel like even more of an amateur operation that it already does, but the impetus for rearranging a few important names (done so before I published it) within the top dozen or so college pitching prospect ranking was a team-specific email I was very casually firing off to a friend. I started by trying to answer the simple question of which college pitcher would I most like to see still on the board if I was a fan of a team picking in the middle of the draft’s first round. I like thinking about that question at the start of the amateur season because it generates a lot more discussion than a simple “Who would you take at 1-1?” query. Right now, I’m pretty sure I’d answer Brady Aiken and Michael Matuella for the latter question, but they would not necessarily be at the top of my list for the first hypothetical. That may seem a bit counter-intuitive, so allow me to explain.
Let’s say you’re picking tenth overall this year. As exciting as it would be to still see Aiken or Matuella on the board that low in the first round, you’d have to assume that there’s a really good reason for the fall. In the case of both Aiken and Matuella, there is an undeniable injury concern that is still a long way from being answered this spring. I think the only way that either pitcher would still be available that late is if news of a significant injury (a la Jeff Hoffman last year) broke between now and June. In last year’s draft, I think a really strong argument could have been made that Hoffman was talented enough compared to his peers that taking him around tenth overall even over healthy pitchers was a gamble worth taking. The peer group surrounding Aiken and Matuella (and any other pitcher that may or may not get red-flagged for injuries this spring) is much stronger. A Phillies fan would have been justified (in my view) in wanting to see his team gamble on Hoffman over Aaron Nola last year; this year, however, taking an injured Aiken or Matuella over a healthy Nathan Kirby, Walker Buehler, or Dillon Tate would make little sense. When you go to the next tier down (Carson Fulmer, Tyler Jay, Kyle Funkhouser, Phil Bickford), then I can begin to see the argument of gambling on a full return to health for Aiken or Matuella beginning to seem more appealing.
(Hastily added post-publication transition goes here. Use your imagination that I wrote something good…)
Even though I included him in the tier with Fulmer, Funkhouser, and Bickford and ranked him in the seven spot on my “preseason” draft rankings, I still think I’ve given short shrift to Tyler Jay. It’s fairly stunning to me that so much was made before the year by many (Keith Law, most famously) about UCSB’s curious decision to leave Dillon Tate in the bullpen, but I haven’t heard one peep about Jay’s usage. We all know by now that a last minute injury opened the door for Tate to start and the script has more or less written itself since then. What I don’t understand is how quiet the internet has been concerning Jay, a wildly talented young lefthander left to pitch only in short, unpredictable outings as Illinois’ closer. I’m not particularly interested in getting into the moral debate about what is best for the player versus what will most benefit the team (fine, real quick here’s my non-morals, all-baseball take: it’s crazy not to start a pitcher like Jay if the pitcher can in fact start), but I’d really like to see a potential first round player play on a regular schedule that would more easily allow as many well-earned eyeballs on him as possible. It’s nuts that literally everybody I’ve talked to, most everything I’ve read, and my own dumb intuition/common sense hybrid approach to this kind of thing (four pitches? great athlete? repeatable delivery?) point towards Jay entering pro ball as a starting pitcher despite never getting an opportunity to take the mound in the first inning in three years of college. If he’s good enough to start professionally three months from now, then he’s damn sure good enough to start in the Big 10. (This is the part where I’ll at least mention that Illinois’ pitching staff is loaded and whatever the coaches want to do with their team is their call. Still, for both short-term [Jay is awesome, so give him more innings] and long-term [Jay getting more innings will show everybody he is awesome, he’ll go higher in the draft because of it, and you can tell recruits you had a guy go top five rather than top twenty-five] reasons, I’d think the decision to start your best pitcher would be a no-brainer. I won’t kill them because it’s quite possible that the Illini coaching staff has information about Jay’s ability to start [relative to his teammates, if nothing else] that we don’t know from the outside looking in. Either that or they are being irrational and buying into old school baseball tropes that will only make their team worse anyway. Where were we?) If Jay goes as high as his raw talent merits (he’s easily a first round pick), then we’re talking about a college reliever being drafted right into a professional rotation. Such a move feels unprecedented to me; a quick check back through the archives reveals only one other similar first round case in the six drafts I’ve covered in depth since starting the site. The only first round college reliever drafted with the idea of converting him to the rotation professionally was Chris Reed. More on that from back in November 2011…
As one of the most divisive 2011 MLB Draft prospects, Stanford LHP Chris Reed will enter his first full season of pro ball with plenty to prove. He could make me look very stupid for ranking him as low as I did before the draft (200th overall prospect) by fulfilling the promise of becoming a serious starting pitching prospect as a professional. I don’t doubt that he can start as he has the three-pitch mix, frame, and mechanics to do so; I just question whether or not he should start. Advocating for time spent in the bullpen is not something I often do, but Reed’s stuff, especially his fastball, just looks so much better in shorter stints. Of course, he might grow into a starter’s role in time. I like that he’s getting innings to straighten out his changeup and command sooner rather than later. Ultimately, however, Reed is a reliever for me; a potentially very good reliever, mind, but a reliever all the same. Relievers are valuable, but the demand for their work shouldn’t match up with the sixteenth overall pick in a loaded draft.
I swear I didn’t copy/paste that just because it’s one of my few predictions to have held up really well so far. I mean, that was a big part of it, sure, but not the only reason. I guess I just find the case of Jay continuously flying just under the radar to be more bizarre than anything. I’m almost at the point where I’m starting to question what negatives I’m missing. A smart team in the mid- to late-first round is going to get a crazy value when Jay inevitably slips due to the unknown of how he’ll hold up as a starter. Between his extreme athleticism, a repertoire bursting at the seams with above-average to plus offerings (plus FB, above-average CB that flashes plus, above-average SL that flashes plus, average or better CU with plus upside), and dominant results to date at the college level (reliever or not), there’s little doubt in my mind that Jay can do big things in a big league rotation sooner rather than later. There two questions that will need to be answered as he gets stretched out as a starter will be how effective he’ll be going through lineups multiple times (with the depth of his arsenal I’m confident he’ll be fine here) and how hot his fastball will remain (and how crisp his breaking stuff stays) when pitch counts climb. That’s a tough one to answer at the present moment, but the athleticism, balance, and tempo in Jay’s delivery give me hope.
It’s hard to mention Jay without also mentioning Tate (multiple times, apparently), the fastest rising of this year’s college group of starter/reliever question marks (Carson Fulmer being the third). Tate’s turn in the rotation this year has allowed him to begin to answer all of those questions emphatically in the positive. His fastball has dipped some late in games so far this year (95-98 early to 91-93 late), but that’s less of a problem when you’re already starting at easy plus to plus-plus velocities; we should all be so lucky to throw in the low-90s when tired. Jay has shown similar velocity to Tate so far out of the bullpen (mid- to upper-90s), so even knocking a few MPHs off his peaks in short bursts would allow his fastball to play at a more than acceptable level in the pros. Just because Tate has done it obviously doesn’t mean Jay is a lock to do it when he gets his chance, but it’s a nice parallel to draw from two fairly similarly talented prospects.
Speaking of parallels, and I really hate to make this comparison because of how lazy it’ll appear, hear me out with this one. Long-time readers of the site know I do my best to look past player characteristics that don’t matter when it comes to developing comps, so hopefully I get the benefit of the doubt on this one. In all honesty, it makes a lot of baseball sense so whatever let’s just do it: Tate’s scouting profile looks a lot like Marcus Stroman’s coming out of Duke. The differences (mechanics aren’t similar at all [man, I loved Stroman’s] and Tate has a few inches on Stroman) are real, but the ties that bind the two are far more interesting. Both Tate and Stroman were primarily relievers through two years of college (Stroman made 13 starts out of his 34 games), both are/were great athletes with repeatable deliveries (even if you don’t love Tate’s, as I don’t, he is athletic enough to keep it up), and both clearly had the stuff to start once you looked past some of the superficial “he’s a reliever!” concerns (big fastballs, plus hard sliders/cutters, and underdeveloped changeups with big upside). I think it’s pretty cool that we’ve come far enough in just a few short years to better appreciate what a slightly non-conventional pitcher can do, and Tate should have no problem blowing past Stroman’s draft ceiling (22nd overall pick) this June. It helps that Tate has a little more size — Stroman being 5’9″ took the short righthander thing to a wonderful extreme — and a few additional contemporary examples of young big leaguers (Yordano Ventura) and minor league stars (Luis Severino) that helped crack the shorty righty glass ceiling. Speaking of Severino, I don’t know if that’s a terrible comparison for Tate, either. I prefer Stroman, but Severino, who dazzled me the two different times I got to see him this summer (93-96 FB, 98 peak; cartoonish mid-80s breaking ball, and a more advanced CU than most pitchers his age), isn’t a terrible name to be associated with.
Man, this is the kind of post that I just sit and write without doing much planning. Now that I’ve re-read it, it shows. Originally I thought we were going to get into the high-ceiling/high-floor abilities of Nathan Kirby and Walker Buehler (and maybe a little Tate), but it wound up mostly being about Tyler Jay and Tate. Two thousand words later and here we are. Go figure.
2015 GB% Update
Title gives it away, right? I’ve combed through box scores to date in order to find what I believe is the only publicly available collegiate batted ball data on the internet. It’s not a wildly labor intensive process, but going through box scores and, more painfully, play-by-play data (UCSB, I’m looking at you) takes enough time each week that I’m trying to currently limit sharing info for just the top dozen or so college pitching prospects. That said, as always, I’m open to taking requests. If there’s somebody you want me to start following, don’t hesitate to ask. For now, I’m just using my list of top college arms — since it’s the best list, of course — and trying to keep up with the top ten pitchers with easily searched data. That eliminates IMG Academy FR LHP Brady Aiken, Illinois JR LHP Tyler Jay, and Vanderbilt JR RHP Tyler Ferguson, the latter two getting cut because of unpredictable usage. Here are the names I’m tracking (with my ranking)…
2. Virginia JR LHP Nathan Kirby
3. Duke JR RHP Michael Matuella
4. Vanderbilt JR RHP Walker Buehler
5. UC Santa Barbara JR RHP Dillon Tate
6. Vanderbilt JR RHP Carson Fulmer
8. Louisville JR RHP Kyle Funkhouser
9. CC Southern Nevada SO RHP Phil Bickford
10. Houston JR RHP Jacob Lemoine
11. USC JR LHP Kyle Twomey
13. Texas Christian JR LHP Alex Young
And here is each player’s GB% through March 9, 2015…
Kirby – 73%
Matuella – 39%
Buehler – 75%
Tate – 62%
Fulmer – 59%
Funkhouser – 63%
Bickford – 48%
Lemoine – 57%
Twomey – 65%
Young – 69%
A few very quick observations so far along with an important disclaimer: all of these figures come via digging through a ridiculously small sample. Like, a sample so small that it’s fair to wonder if it borders on meaningless. If you’re more statistically inclined and think there’s too much noise here to even worry about this stuff yet, that’s cool. I think taking it in and combining it with scouting reports and past data makes it a worthwhile tool. For example, Kirby’s impressive start (73% GB outs from a lefthander! Come on!) had me curious enough to go through his game logs from last year. In a much larger sample (six times as big as what we’re currently working with and over 200 total balls in play), he still managed a highly impressive 66%. In only one recorded game (his 3/22/14 game against Miami has no batted ball data that I can find) last season did Kirby get more outs in the air than via the grounder. That’s a little insane. As if we needed another reason to love the guy…
Matuella and Buehler both have so few innings this year that I’d advise just throwing out their numbers for now. In fact, I really should have not included Buehler’s numbers at all since they are potentially misleading if you don’t make your way down to the comments here. Just in case: WALKER BUEHLER HAS ONLY GOTTEN FOUR OUTS ALL SEASON VIA A BATTED BALL SO PLEASE DON’T TAKE HIS AWESOME 75% GROUND BALL RATE TO HEART. I feel better now.
Another potentially misleading number belongs to Phil Bickford, but for a very different reason. As a junior college player, Bickford has actually pitched more than anybody this year so far. His batted ball data, however, ranks ahead of only Matuella and Buehler. More plainly, hitters have had a heck of a difficult time putting the ball in play against Bickford at all this year. He’s actually allowed the same number of batted ball outs as Carson Fulmer while pitching almost three times as many innings. This happens when you are literally getting two out of every third out via the K. I know that any draft fan worth anything isn’t sleeping on Bickford, but I’m not sure many have paid too close attention to the way he’s dominated junior college ball (18.1 K/9 in 60.1 IP) so far this winter.
I mentioned earlier that I have already gone through Nathan Kirby’s box scores from last season. I’d like to do that with a few other arms in the coming days. The Duke website is a disaster, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to do Matuella properly. Buehler stands out as a must-do, but I’m open to any other suggestions if you’ve got any.
MAAC 2015 MLB Draft All-Prospect Team
Fairfield SR C Sebastian Salvo
Canisius SR 1B Connor Panas
Canisius JR 2B Anthony Massicci
Quinnipiac SR SS Scott Donaghue
Canisius SR 3B Jesse Puscheck
St. Peter’s JR OF Rob Moore
Fairfield JR OF Jake Salpietro
Quinnipiac JR OF Rob Pescitelli
Canisius SR RHP Devon Stewart
Iona JR RHP Mariano Rivera
Siena SR RHP Ed Lewicki
Fairfield SR RHP EJ Ashworth
Iona JR RHP John Daddino
I’m not sure I’ve had less information for any conference so far than the limited info I scrounged up on the MAAC. That’s not to say that there aren’t hidden gems to be found here; it’s just that the gems are so deeply hidden that they are well past the point of digging that I was able to do. The few players that I do have notes on are actually pretty darn interesting relative to the prospects found at other similarly sized conferences across the conference.
One such interesting prospect is Canisius SR 1B/3B Connor Panas. Panas is a multi-dimensional offensive threat capable of beating you with a single the other way, a deep ball to his pull side, or speed on the base paths (22/26 SB the past two seasons). I don’t know nearly as much as I’d like about his defensive ability, but if he can play a reasonable third base then he’s an even better prospect than I currently give him credit for. I’ve heard from those in the know that even if he can’t play third regularly, he should be athletic and instinctual enough to work as a four-corners utility player in the pros. He’s joined in the Canisius infield with fellow prospects JR 2B/SS Anthony Massicci (steady glove, plenty of arm, nice power/speed/patience offensive blend) and JR 3B Jesse Puscheck (game built on raw strength and physicality).
It’s possible that I’m overrating the Canisius position players seeing as only five hitters from the school have been drafted before, but I don’t think it’s that nuts to imagine a scenario where the three players listed above plus JR 1B/OF Brett Siddall and SR OF Mike Krische warrant serious draft consideration this spring. Add SR RHP Devon Stewart to the mix and you’re looking at a half-dozen total prospects with a shot to sign pro contracts. Even if just the biggest names of the bunch (Siddall, Stewart) and one other Golden Griffin gets picked in June, it will tie the 2011 group of Sean Jamieson, Chris Cox, and Shane Davis as the largest to enter pro ball together.
The alliterative pair of Fairfield SR C Sebastian Salvo and Manhattan SR C Mikey Miranda impressed in limited at bats last year. Interesting power bats like Siena JR 1B/OF Fred Smart, Quinnipiac SR 1B Vincent Guglietti, and St. Peter’s JR OF Rob Moore all could wind up drafted with productive springs.
The aforementioned Stewart’s considerable stuff has never matched his less than stellar results. I think that’s in part because he’s currently asked to shoulder a much larger role as a starter than he’ll be asked to in the bullpen as a professional. In short bursts, his fastball moves from 87ish-92ish up to a far more dangerous mid-90s (95/96) peak. His time as a starter has helped him round out his repertoire, so it’s not uncommon to see him throw an average or better slider or changeup in any given outing. If he can get either pitch to move up half a grade or so in a relief role, then he’ll have more than enough stuff to move quick once the pros get their hands on him.
Bloodlines can be overrated, but I’m buying the potential benefits that Iona JR RHP Mariano Rivera has and will continue to reap as the son of baseball’s all-time best closer. Senior was known for many things such as piling up 652 saves, finishing his career with an inconceivable 205 ERA+, and throwing arguably the greatest singular pitch known to man; while awesome, none of those things (well, maybe some of that cutter magic could rub off…) will translate to helping Junior achieve success on the diamond. It is fair to believe that the insane work ethic and preternatural ability to make adjustments on the mound could be traits passed down from father to son. For now, Rivera is a nice looking relief prospect with enough fastball (88-92, 94 peak) and an above-average slider to compensate for his lack of size and middling track record to date. To a man, every person I spoke to remarked that they believed Rivera would be a better professional than college player.
Siena SR RHP Ed Lewicki is a an all-caps FAVORITE thanks to his plus low-80s changeup, a mid-70s curve that can be an out pitch at times, and a plenty of projection left in his 6-4, 185 pound frame. Iona JR RHP John Daddino’s name doesn’t come up much in my notes, but pitchers who strike out 15.88 batters per nine in a season get special priority here. He’s high on my list of players I want to know more about this spring. I’m not sure if he’ll be drafted or not, but Rider SR RHP Kurt Sowa deserves credit for pitching well over the years while also making such fine films as Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and Drunken Angel. That’s talent.
2015 MLB Draft Talent – Hitting
- Canisius SR 1B/3B Connor Panas
- Canisius JR 2B/SS Anthony Massicci
- Canisius JR 1B/OF Brett Siddall
- Canisius SR 3B Jesse Puscheck
- Siena JR 1B/OF Fred Smart
- Quinnipiac SR 1B Vincent Guglietti
- Fairfield SR C Sebastian Salvo
- Rider SR 3B Nick Richter
- Niagara JR 2B Michael Fuhrman
- Rider SR 1B/OF Justin Thomas
- St. Peter’s JR OF Rob Moore
- Fairfield JR OF/SS Jake Salpietro
- Manhattan SR C Mikey Miranda
- Quinnipiac JR OF Rob Pescitelli
- Manhattan JR 1B/OF Christian Santisteban
- Quinnipiac SR SS Scott Donaghue
- Marist SR 1B/OF Steve Laurino
- Canisius SR OF Mike Krische
- Fairfield JR 1B Brendan Tracy
- Iona SR OF Jimmy Guiliano
2015 MLB Draft Talent – Pitching
- Canisius SR RHP Devon Stewart
- Iona JR RHP Mariano Rivera
- Siena SR RHP Ed Lewicki
- Fairfield SR RHP EJ Ashworth
- Iona JR RHP John Daddino
- Marist SR LHP Rich Vrana
- Monmouth JR LHP Anthony Ciavarella
- Rider JR RHP Vincenzo Aiello
- Siena JR RHP Bryan Goossens
- Siena JR RHP Rick Morales
- Monmouth SR RHP Adam Yunginger
- Rider SR RHP Kurt Sowa
- Marist SR RHP Chris Napolitano
- Monmouth SR RHP Chris McKenna
- Quinnipiac JR LHP Justin Thomas
Big East 2015 MLB Draft All-Prospect Team
Xavier JR C Dan Rizzie
Creighton rJR 1B Reagan Fowler
Butler rSO 2B Chris Maranto
St. John’s SR SS Jarred Mederos
Seton Hall SR 3B Kyle Grimm
Seton Hall JR OF Zack Weigel
St. John’s SR OF Zach Lauricella
Seton Hall JR OF Derek Jenkins
Xavier rJR RHP Jacob Bodner
St. John’s JR RHP Ryan McCormick
Creighton rSR RHP Max Ising
Georgetown SR LHP Matt Hollenbeck
Xavier rJR RHP Adam Hall
Xavier JR C Dan Rizzie is a pro-level defensive player with enough bat speed, patience, and pop to work himself into a really good backup catcher/workable starting catcher profile. Georgetown JR C Nick Collins is right there with him, though it takes a little more projecting with his glove. On the bright side, his bat is generally regarded as the better of the two. I happen to think the bats are closer to a coin flip at this point, so that’s why the man with the more advanced glove (Rizzie) gets the nod as the top catcher here. While it’s no stunner that we’ve yet to have a Dan Rizzie – or any Rizzie, for that matter – play professional baseball, it took me by surprise (to the point I almost don’t believe my own exhaustive ninety seconds of research on the subject) that there doesn’t appear to have ever been a “Nick Collins” or any variation thereof to ever play affiliated ball. As if I needed another reason to want to see Nick Collins have a big year…
Creighton rJR 1B Regan Fowler is an impressive young hitter who can more than hold his own at first base with the leather. I say it so often that I imagine the dozen or so regular readers of the site skim right over it by now, but the dearth of power bats in this year’s college class will push up players who can actually hit higher than most currently project. Fowler’s track record with the stick and positive scouting reviews as a hitter could make him a sneaky top ten round pick player. That might be a little rich based on recent history – as a draft prospect he reminds me some of Houston’s Casey Grayson, a 21st round pick last year – but his shot at pro ball is coming.
Fowler isn’t the only Big East big bat worth tracking this spring. Villanova JR 1B Max Beermann has the big power befitting a 6-7, 225 pound man. I’ve seen a lot of him already, but look forward to seeing him man first base for the Wildcats in what could be his final college season this year. Without typecasting him too much, his issues at the plate are fairly typical of most long-levered young power hitters. I’ve heard a lot of firsthand buzz about him working hard to clean up his approach (both physical and mental) as a hitter, so I’m higher on him as a draft prospect than perhaps his results to date alone would merit. The only knock on Beermann at the moment says more about me than him. Since seeing him play for the first time a few years back in beautiful Plymouth Meeting, PA, I’ve had intermittent nightmares about a cold, bleak future where Chris Berman is, against all logical odds, still calling the HR Derby. We all die a little inside the first time he unleashes his “Hey” nickname as the poor, unsuspecting slugger goes yard. I’m sorry, Max Beermann; you deserved better.
Seton Hall SR 1B Sal Annunziata gets points for his above-average raw power, underrated athleticism, and potential defensive versatility as a solid glove at first who can moonlight behind the plate and in the outfield. I feel bad riffing on back-to-back player names, but I can’t resist: if you can guess where Sal Annunziata was born and raised, you’ll get free copies of my nonexistent draft book for life. Hint: he’s not from Montgomery, Alabama.
I’m not quite as excited about the rest of the infielders in the conference, but there are still some nice potential late-round prospects here, many of whom have more support from those I’ve talked to than me personally. That’s typically a good sign for a player’s future. St. John’s SR SS Jarred Mederos stands out as a steady glove with some upside as a hitter. Seton Hall SR SS DJ Ruhlman has a lot of fans listed among those who have seen him most often. Xavier rSO SS Andre Jernigan is in the same boat. On the right side of the infield you have Butler rSO 2B Chris Maranto (average or better hit tool, might be able to play some SS professionally) and Georgetown SR 2B Ryan Busch (similar hit tool, average arm/speed).
Seton Hall JR OF Derek Jenkins has the type of carrying tool (plus speed) to get drafted higher than I currently believe. He’s also a more than capable center field defender who has shown flashes at the plate. His teammate JR OF Zack Weigel is another interesting glove in center, but with enough of a power edge over Jenkins that I think he’s currently the better bet (by a razor thin margin) as a pro. I understand the appeal of Jenkins, however, and acknowledge his looming breakout potential.
On the mound, the Big East offers an array of potential bullpen pieces of varying quality. I’ve stuck with Xavier rJR RHP Jacob Bodner through the good (flashes of dominance in 2013) and the bad (consistently inconsistent control, 2014 season wiped out due to injury), so might as well stick it out to the end. At his best he has the look of a really good big league reliever, flashing a mid-90s fastball and an above-average slider. His stature (5-11, 180 pounds) will turn some teams off, but he more than makes up for his lack of physicality with some of the best athleticism of any pitcher in his class. He’s an arm strength/athleticism gamble at this point, but one I feel comfortable with considering the lack of relative upside among his Big East pitching brethren. His teammate at Xavier, rJR RHP Adam Hall, could make a claim as having comparable upside due to his 6-6, 200 pound frame and fastball that has hit as high as 94. St. John’s JR RHP Ryan McCormick and Georgetown SR LHP Matt Hollenbeck are more in the reliability over flashiness subgroup, but both have the requisite history of missed bats and good enough stuff to make a mark on pro ball. McCormick in particular appeals to me as a sturdily built three pitch potential fifth starter/middle reliever type.
I couldn’t write about the Big East without mentioning one of my favorite stories in college baseball. Creighton rSR RHP Max Ising has taken the long path from junior college reliever to potential MLB draft pick, missing bats and defying the odds at every step along the way. Guys his size (5-9, 190 pounds) don’t often possess big league quality heat (94 peak). In addition to his fastball, Ising throws a pair of useful offspeed pitches (slider/changeup) that can both lead to strikeouts on any given outing. We already know college relievers get pushed down on draft day and we know that righthanders under 6’0” face an uphill battle in convincing pro teams to give them a shot, but if Ising continues to strike batters out at the rate he’s shown as a college player…well, you never know.
2015 MLB Draft Talent – Hitting
- Xavier JR C Dan Rizzie
- Creighton rJR 1B Reagan Fowler
- Georgetown JR C Nick Collins
- St. John’s SR SS Jarred Mederos
- Butler rSO 2B/SS Chris Maranto
- Seton Hall SR SS DJ Ruhlman
- Xavier rSO SS/3B Andre Jernigan
- Xavier SR C/1B Derek Hasenbeck
- Seton Hall JR OF Zack Weigel
- Villanova JR 1B/RHP Max Beermann
- Seton Hall SR 1B/OF Sal Annunziata
- Seton Hall JR OF Derek Jenkins
- St. John’s SR OF Zach Lauricella
- St. John’s SR SS/2B Bret Dennis
- Seton Hall SR 3B Kyle Grimm
- Georgetown SR 2B Ryan Busch
- St. John’s SR 2B/3B Robert Wayman
- St. John’s JR OF Alex Caruso
- Xavier rSR OF Patrick Jones
- St. John’s SR 1B Matt Harris
- Xavier rSR 1B/OF Brian Bruening
2015 MLB Draft Talent – Pitching
- Xavier rJR RHP Jacob Bodner
- St. John’s JR RHP Ryan McCormick
- Creighton rSR RHP Max Ising
- Georgetown SR LHP Matt Hollenbeck
- Xavier rJR RHP Adam Hall
- St. John’s JR LHP Alex Katz
- Creighton JR RHP Taylor Elman
- Creighton rSR RHP Jack Rogalla
- St. John’s rJR RHP Joey Christopher
- Villanova rSR RHP Maximo Almonte
- Creighton rJR RHP Tommy Strunc
- St. John’s JR RHP Michael Sheppard
- St. John’s JR LHP Matt Clancy
- St. John’s JR RHP Thomas Hackimer
- Villanova rSR RHP Chris Haggarty
- Villanova SR RHP Kagan Richardson
- Seton Hall JR RHP Luke Cahill
American Athletic Conference 2015 MLB Draft All-Prospect Team
Houston JR C Ian Rice
Central Florida SR 1B James Vasquez
Cincinnati JR 2B Ian Happ
Central Florida SR SS Tommy Williams
Connecticut JR 3B Brian Daniello
Houston JR OF Kyle Survance
Houston rJR OF Ashford Fulmer
Memphis JR OF Jake Little
Houston JR RHP Jacob Lemoine
Houston JR RHP Patrick Weigel
South Florida JR RHP Jimmy Herget
Connecticut rJR RHP Devin Over
Tulane JR RHP Ian Gibaut
I can’t speak for everybody in the college game, but I for one am very pleasantly surprised about the continued strength of the AAC. The conference is like a mutated version of a few different conferences, and the end results were better than anybody – well, at least I – could have hoped. Happ and Lemoine give the AAC two potential first round picks, Rice and Max McDowell stack up against any conference’s 1-2 catching punch, solid senior signs like Vasquez, Williams, Dylan Moore, Kyle Teaf, and Carson Cross lend surprising depth to an increasingly deep talent pool, and talented high upside wild cards like Ashford Fulmer, Weigel, and Over keep things interesting.
That’s the short version for the AAC this year. The much, much longer version (once you add everything up) can be found just a few clicks away. I wrote team profiles for all of the linked schools below. The two missing schools get their belated time in the sun below. Connecticut was one of the very last teams to post rosters online. Tulane had their roster up with time to spare, but I missed it in my first pass through the conference because I’m dumb. I might turn their team profiles into separate posts at some point, but until then I just copy/pasted what I had for you to read at your leisure.
Central Florida
Cincinnati
Connecticut
East Carolina
Houston
Memphis
South Florida
Tulane
*****
Connecticut
I should really stop being surprised when I look up Connecticut’s talent. Every year I mentally subtract the players that they lost and every year I expect to see the cupboard too bare to care from a draft standpoint. Yet every darn year I find myself being in the same mental place, somehow unready to process the half-dozen or so honest to goodness prospects scattered across the team’s roster. This year’s club features a low-mileage pitcher with plus arm strength (rJR RHP Devin Over), a college ace returning from Tommy John surgery capable of throwing three average or better pitches for strikes (rSR RHP Carson Cross), and a changeup specialist with enough size and fastball (88-92ish) to get some late round consideration this June (rSR RHP Jordan Tabakman). Over in particular is a fascinating prospect due to his mid-90s fastball (97 peak) and impressive athleticism. The results have never matched his stuff (in terms of K/9), so scouts will have to really hone on him this spring to see why a guy with an arm like his has been unable to consistently miss bats. That might not be a particularly fair criticism considering his limited track record to date (30ish lifetime innings), but prospect evaluation ain’t always fair.
Offensively, two hitters stand out as particularly promising. SR 1B/OF Blake Davey and JR 1B Bobby Melley both have shown they possess the type of above-average raw power and measured approach to hitting that pro teams prioritize on draft day. Working against them, of course, is the likelihood that both players wind up as first basemen professionally. It’s a steep climb from nice college hitting prospect to legitimate potential big league first baseman. Two guys with lesser bats but greater positional value that could get drafted are JR OF Jack Sundberg and JR C Max McDowell. Sundberg is held back by a lack of any kind of meaningful pop, but he can run, throw, and defend well enough in center that a team might put up with some growing pains with the stick. He profiles better as a 2016 senior sign to me. McDowell, on the other hand, appears to be one of the nation’s most underappreciated catching prospects. He does the things you’d expect out of any real catching prospect (solid glove, interesting power upside) while also doing the extras (really nice runner for the position, more athletic than most backstops) that make him a legitimate top ten round sleeper. Houston’s Ian Rice is unabashedly one of my favorites in all of college baseball, so, naturally, taking his throne as top catching prospect in the AAC was never really going to happen for McDowell. Still, I like him so much that there really wasn’t much internal debate as to who would fill in the second spot, where McDowell sits ahead of the more famous and preferred option by many, Luke Lowery of East Carolina. JR 3B Brian Daniello might just be the top third base prospect in the conference, though that says at least as much about the dearth of talented third basemen in the AAC than anything about Daniello’s maybe/maybe not pro future. In any event, he’s a really solid college player who I’m happy to give a little recognition.
*****
Tulane
The practical logistics of moving a pitcher from the college bullpen (or an expected pro bullpen role) to a professional rotation is a hot topic every year at draft time. Everybody has a different opinion about what makes a starter a starter and a reliever a reliever. Some focus on one specific aspect of a pitcher’s game and use that as the determining factor when deciding on a future role. Too often this is a simple question of size — Is he 6’0″ or less? Stick him in the pen then! — which is obviously an unfortunate bout of reducing a complex (by baseball standards) decision into a binary yes/no that lacks the necessary nuance and ratiocination required. Thankfully there are others, more sensibly in my view, who take a holistic approach as they debate the merits of a pitcher’s depth of repertoire, ease of mechanical repeatability, physical stature (size is a factor, but not the factor) and conditioning, and ability to maintain high-quality stuff deep into outings as the pitch count climbs and fatigue sets in. Creating a dichotomy using short and tall as determining factors is bad process that occasionally will lead to positive results
Forgive me if I copy/paste that paragraph whenever Dillon Tate, Carson Fulmer, and Tyler Jay are brought up this spring. For now, the logic presented above applies to JR RHP Ian Gibaut, who has excelled as a college reliever since first stepping foot on campus at Tulane in 2013. There’s no reason to believe that Gibaut’s success as an amateur reliever would slow down in any way as he transitions to pro ball this summer. Still, I’d be tempted to stretch him out and see how his stuff holds up as a starter. My desire to see him work in a starter’s role isn’t so great that I’d kill a team for thinking he’ll be best in the bullpen as a professional; if anything, it’s more of a selfish curiosity to see what a college reliever with the build, arm action (in my amateur view), and diverse enough set of pitches (above-average 75-78 CB, upper-70s CU that flashes plus [others like it less and I’ll at least acknowledge it’s an inconsistent pitch at present], and hard mid-80s SL) could do in a more taxing role. I’ve heard but not seen firsthand that Gibaut’s velocity is the type that plays up in short bursts, so keeping him in the bullpen would seem to be a perfectly reasonable course of action. If that winds up being how it plays out, then don’t be surprised when Gibaut winds up as one of this year’s draft fastest moving college relief prospects.
I’ve always preferred JR RHP/OF Tim Yandel as a hitter to a pitcher, but the evidence is now stacked up too high against my original position to ignore. The light has never really gone on for Yandel as a hitter, but he’s emerged as a solid college arm with a chance to find work as a middle reliever type in the pros thanks to his plus 78-83 slider. rJR RHP Alex Massey has shown he can miss bats in his swingman role over his two plus years at Tulane. Given time in the bullpen exclusively should help his already solid fastball (88-92, 94-95 peak) play up a tick, all the better to complement his existing above-average slider. If you’re scoring at home, that’s three potential relievers that could come out of this year’s Tulane staff.
There’s less to love offensively, but it isn’t as though Tulane has no hitters worth keeping an eye on. SR 2B Garret Deschamp has flashed some power to the gaps and can field his position. I’ve heard nothing but positive things about SR 1B/3B Tyler Wilson’s bat, so hopefully we’ll get a chance to see what he can do with more than the 26 AB he received last season. JR OF Richard Carthon can run, but it remains to be seen if he’ll hit.
Tulane’s sophomore class is where it’s at. SO SS Stephen Alemais is a legit defensive shortstop with a big arm and serious wheels. He didn’t light the world on fire as a freshman, but he held his own. Same could be said for SO RHP JP France (but with standout peripherals), an undersized athletic fireballing righthander in the mold of Lance McCullers. C Jake Rogers, 3B Hunter Hope, OF Grant Brown, and RHP Corey Merrill are all also sophomores talented enough to finish as high picks.
2015 MLB Draft Talent – Hitting
- Cincinnati JR 2B/OF Ian Happ
- Houston JR C Ian Rice
- Central Florida SR 1B/OF James Vasquez
- Central Florida SR 2B/SS Dylan Moore
- Houston JR OF Kyle Survance
- South Florida SR 2B/SS Kyle Teaf
- Houston rJR OF Ashford Fulmer
- Central Florida SR SS/3B Tommy Williams
- Connecticut JR 1B Bobby Melley
- Connecticut SR 1B/OF Blake Davey
- Houston JR 2B Josh Vidales
- Houston JR 1B Chris Iriart
- Memphis SR 1B/3B Tucker Tubbs
- South Florida SR OF Austin Lueck
- Memphis JR OF/1B Jake Little
- Connecticut JR C Max McDowell
- Memphis SR C/1B Carter White
- East Carolina JR C/1B Luke Lowery
- Memphis rJR SS Jake Overbey
- Central Florida SR OF Erik Barber
- South Florida rJR OF Buddy Putnam
- Tulane JR OF Richard Carthon
- Tulane SR 1B/3B Tyler Wilson
- Tulane SR 2B Garret Deschamp
2015 MLB Draft Talent – Pitching
- Houston JR RHP Jacob Lemoine
- Houston JR RHP Patrick Weigel
- South Florida JR RHP Jimmy Herget
- Connecticut rJR RHP Devin Over
- Tulane JR RHP Ian Gibaut
- Central Florida rJR RHP Mitchell Tripp
- Connecticut rSR RHP Carson Cross
- Tulane JR RHP/OF Tim Yandel
- Tulane rJR RHP Alex Massey
- Central Florida SR RHP Zach Rodgers
- South Florida rSR RHP/OF Casey Mulholland
- Central Florida rSR RHP Spencer Davis
- Connecticut rSR RHP Jordan Tabakman
- Cincinnati JR RHP Mitch Patishall
- East Carolina rJR RHP David Lucroy
- Houston SR RHP Jared Robinson
- Memphis rJR RHP Craig Caufield
- Houston SR RHP Aaron Garza
- East Carolina SR LHP/OF Reid Love
- Central Florida rJR RHP Ryan Meyer
- Houston JR RHP Bubba Maxwell
- Memphis SR RHP Dylan Toscano
- Central Florida SR RHP Tanner Olson
- Memphis JR LHP Colin Lee
- Memphis SR LHP Caleb Wallingford
Travis Maezes, Max Schrock, and Ian Rice
It would take exceptionally disappointing seasons for any of Ian Happ, Dansby Swanson, and Alex Bregman to slip past this year’s draft’s first twenty-six picks and into the compensatory round. DJ Stewart’s margin for error isn’t as great, but it would still be a surprise to me to see him fall past the thirty-sixth and final pick of the draft’s first day. Beyond those four names, all bets are off. More bluntly, the fifth spot on this particular ranking of college bats is where things get weird.
Weird doesn’t have to be bad, so I have no problem being the high man on Michigan JR 3B Travis Maezes for now. His hit tool is legit, his power should play average or better, and he has the athleticism, arm strength, and instincts to be a really strong third baseman in the pros. Real life work commitments and frustration at the death of College Splits put me way behind on writing about last year’s draft. If I had written all that I wanted to, I assure you that many glowing pieces on Cal State Fullerton 3B Matt Chapman would have been written. I absolutely loved Chapman as a draft prospect and think he’ll be an above-average pro player for a long time. I don’t bring him up just to relive the past, of course; from a skills standpoint, Maezes reminds me a lot of Chapman. I swear that’s a comparison that I came by honestly through watching them both, hearing from smarter people than myself, and reading whatever has been written about them from the comfort of my couch. Then I looked at the numbers (top Maezes, bottom Chapman) and…
.307/.403/.444 with 54 BB/64 K in 530 PA
.295/.391/.443 with 73 BB/84 K in 702 PA
…whoa. That’s pretty good. Another player comparison that I’ve heard for Maezes that takes me back to my earliest days as a baseball fan is former Phillies 3B Dave Hollins, he of the 162 game average of .260/.358/.420 with 18 HR, 27 2B, 76 BB, and 113 K*.
South Carolina JR 2B Max Schrock could be added to the mix above and not be out of place in the least. His career line to date isn’t too far off from Chapman especially at .281/.381/.422 with 58 BB/45 K in 446 PA. A friend in the game recently compared him to another former Fullerton star, Tim Wallach. I’m not sure I see that since the body types, handedness, and home run power all seem off to me, but it’s something to think about. I’ve run into similar issues (minus the more manageable HR totals) with a David Freese (as a hitter) comparison for Schrock. One mainstream comp (I think, can’t remember where I first saw it) for Schrock is Kyle Seager. I like that comparison not only because it’s a decent enough lens to view Schrock as a prospect (again, however, I don’t think the power expectations fit – that’s something of a trend here), but also because it’s yet another excuse to talk about my appreciation for Kyle Seager. I’ve said a lot of inane stuff at this site over the years, but one of the few strokes of competency came back in March of 2009…
Seager’s well-rounded game (great plate discipline, slightly above-average power, good baserunner, high contact rate) make him a personal favorite of mine and as good a bet as any college hitter to settle in to a long career as a league average (at least) big leaguer.
My only regret is not going in harder back then when I knew Seager was going to be really good. I saw him play up close literally dozens of times during his time at North Carolina and a little nagging voice was always in my head telling me he was a better player than his far more famous teammate Dustin Ackley. I think if I had the guts (and, to a point, knowledge) that I now have back then, I would have at least given a few moments of honest consideration for putting Seager over Ackley on one of my all-important lists. Consideration would not have led to actually acting on it because Ackley was Ackley. That brings us full circle and gets me back to a far more comfortable place where I can talk about my misses rather than my hits: I absolutely LOVED Ackley, so, you know, win some lose some, right?
I’ve used Kyle Seager as a comp a few times in the past, for what it’s worth. The first was Brad Miller (“Seager with more defensive upside”), then it was Matt Reynolds (“a player in-between Seager and Chase Headley is a realistic ceiling”), and finally, one I completely forgot I wrote about even though it was published less than three months ago, came Clemson JR SS Tyler Krieger (“some scouting similarities between the two”). Neither the Miller nor the Reynolds examples make me cringe in hindsight, so I don’t feel too badly about going to the Kyle Seager comp well as often as I do. It’s been pretty good to me so far.
All that said, I’m not sure I’m completely on board with the Schrock/Seager comparison. I liken him more to a Mark Ellis type of hitter capable of giving you more or less league average production at the plate while making up the difference as needed with smart base running and steady defense. That’s an everyday player in the big leagues. Interesting to note that Miller (taken with pick 62), Reynolds (71), and Seager (82) were all off the board around the same range on draft day. That could very well be the window that Schrock (and perhaps Krieger) find themselves taken in this June. Getting a potential regular at second base with a late-second/early-third round pick would make any team really happy.
From the second-to-last day of 2014…
I’m sky high on Houston JR C Ian Rice, a transfer by way of Chipola who can really, really hit. If he shows enough behind the plate to convince teams he’s a catcher long-term (as I believe), there’s no telling how high he could rise by June. It’s just a hair too early to start stacking up prospects by position, but I’m very sure Rice will wind up higher on my board at that spot than anywhere else on the internet.
Nothing has changed since then to move me off my strong positive feelings towards Rice. If anything, I like him even more after hearing some positive things about his glove through the early stage of the college season. Now it’s time to kick back and wait until the rest of the draft internet catches up to how good Rice really is. While we wait for the world to recognize my brilliance, let’s kill some time with a quick tangent. The nice thing about liking a guy more than the consensus goes back to the buzz word you hear during every draft in every sport: value.
Value is a damn near impossible concept to pin down as it relates to an event as large and as filled with unknowns as the MLB Draft. I’ve always tried to avoid being overly critical of a team “overdrafting” a player because of the huge amount of uncertainty that exists when you’re working at an information deficit inherent with being privy to only one board (your own) yet simultaneously working around twenty-nine often non-rational actors on draft day. Even if you think you have some faint idea how other teams may have their boards lined up in the early going of a draft, that advantage only lasts so long. From the outside looking in we know even less. That’s one of the frustrating yet freeing things about being an outsider to the draft process.
If all the expert sites (BA, D1, PG, BP, ESPN, Fangraphs, etc.) have a player ranked in the fifties but he goes in the teens, the first instinct is to point, laugh, and declare the drafting team – not to appeal to authority or anything, but isn’t it crazy that the one collective group here with far more information than any of those outlets and way more on the line if they mess up such a big decision is the one we assume is wrong? — guilty of overdrafting the prospect. All of those major outlets (BA, PG, and likely the new-ish D1) have a ton of resources and arguably as much (if not more) of a league-wide feel for what draft boards could look like, so when they stack their final boards pre-draft it does serve a purpose. Nothing, of course, is written in stone.
My example from last year was Cole Tucker (who I’d like to preemptively note is an outstanding baseball player and very worthy early round draft prospect) going 24th to Pittsburgh. If I was misguidedly put in charge of a team’s draft, I would not have had a first round grade on Tucker. Baseball America, to use just one readily available source, had him at 84th overall heading into the draft. Their ranking was no more or less right or wrong than Pittsburgh’s. Player valuation is all over the place when it comes to amateur talent, as it should be. More to the value point, however, is the fact that Pittsburgh didn’t pick again until 39. If you really valued Tucker and believed the odds markedly decreased on him being available with that later pick, it’s worth it to “overdraft” your guy because the risk of losing him entirely is far more painful than getting your second choices at 24 and 39.
I’m as guilty as anybody (at times) of getting hung up on certain players that I hope my favorite team drafts (or avoids) in all the sports that matter to me. For example, I know far less about hockey than any other major sport, but if my hometown team passes up the guy I wanted them to draft in favor of some nobody, I’m going to react negatively. The fact that my research on both the guy I wanted them to draft and the nobody adds up to a grand total of fifteen combined minutes of reading whatever pre-draft coverage pops up first on Google (hopefully not from a site full of made-up scout quotes that the author didn’t even bother try to disguise in an original voice…not saying this happens in baseball, except that it does, it stinks, and I guess that’s how you get ahead [well, that and sucking up to writers on Twitter] at certain unnamed companies) and/or the hundreds (!) of seconds I’ll spend YouTube scouting (even though I know nothing beyond the very basics of the sport) is beside the point. Everybody wants to be an expert on draft day. So many opinions get thrown around on such highly speculative topics that just hitting on one correct scouting assessment has the positive impact of negating the dozens of misinformed, wrong-headed nonsense spewed all day. I support having the conviction to ride or die with your own personal draft rankings, but being snarky and chiding a team for overdrafting a player based solely on what you think was best for them without considering an alternate viewpoint feels unnecessarily parochial and naïve.
So, I hope Ian Rice receives his proper due as a draft prospect between now and June. If not, then I hope that the team I grew up with or a team that I’m assisting in draft coverage is able to take him later than I feel his skills deserve. That’s value, baby. In terms of draft stock he reminds me a little bit of an inverse version former Ole Miss and LSU-Eunice catcher Stuart Turner, who was known more for his glove than his bat. Turner hit enough to go in the third round (pick 78) to Minnesota in 2013. I see no reason why Rice can’t do the same. Another comparable prospect and player (minus handedness as a batter) is fellow 2013 draft pick (53rd overall) Andrew Knapp out of Cal. It would take Rice exceeding even my own sky high expectations to wind up in that draft range, but that’s why they play the games, right?
* I don’t include batting lines for scouting comps to create any unnecessary expectations for these players – it’s hard enough to compare any individual human being to another, let alone one ballplayer in the midst of a historic, “special vitamin” fueled era of offense to another in a far more muted offensive environment – but to give a reference point that highlights one possible viable outcome.
The Baseball Draft Report 