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Strasburg’s Latest – March 27th, 2009
Strasburg’s latest start against TCU went pretty well:
- 8 IP 3 H 2 ER 1 BB 14 K (5 GO/5 AO)
- Carpenter, Curry, and Vern went a combined 0-8 (BB, 4 K) against him
Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but I think it’s fair to say the predictions from yesterday held up pretty well, no?
- Strasburg’s final line prediction: 7 IP 4 H 1 ER 1 BB 14 K
- Carpenter, Curry, and Vern: 2-8, 2B, BB, 5 K
Off the grid for the weekend ahead, but expect an in-depth look at the nation’s finest catching prospects starting Monday…
Strasburg Day
Stephen Strasburg takes the hill tonight against nationally ranked TCU. Here’s what he’s up against:
- Matt Curry (’09) – relatively slow start shouldn’t obscure the fact that the junior college transfer has a big lefty bat that will play; compared to current Phillie Matt Stairs (aka Jon Broxton kryptonite)
- Matt Carpenter (’09) – better college player than prospect, but can’t argue with his production so far (.371/.525/.600 with a 23/11 walk to strikeout ratio); if he can stick at third in the long-term, could get a look as a mid-round senior sign
- Matt Vern (’09) – another player who profiles better as a very good college bat rather than a legit pro prospect, but still capable of hitting the ball a long way when he gets a piece (team leading 6 HRs); Vern’s defensive limitations could keep him from being drafted altogether, but he’s no less of a threat to take Strasburg deep because of it
TCU has a senior-heavy lineup, but no singular hitter that can realistically be expected to do much damage against San Diego State’s ace. My totally baseless prediction for Strasburg’s final line:
7 IP 4 H 1 ER 1 BB 14 K
In addition, I’ll predict a cumulative 2-8 night (including a double, a walk, and five strikeouts) for the three players named Matt listed above.
I’m most curious to see how Curry does against Strasburg. One game is too small a sample to base anything important on, but, as a lefty bat with a powerful, all-or-nothing style swing, he actually matches up pretty well. Curry’s future as a pro could be as a pinch-hitter capable of hitting the ball out every time up, so his at bats against Strasburg correlate pretty well with the kinds of matchups he may see coming off the bench to face fireballing relief aces.
Anyway, any other guesses about how Strasburg will perform on Friday night?
College Baseball Weekend Five – Pitching Retrospective Continued
So much pitching to recap, so little time…
- Relievers, relievers, and more relievers
Jake Morgan, redshirt sophomore from the University of Mississippi, gets a special mention for his complete wipeout of Alabama: (2 IP 1 H 0 ER 0 BB 6 K)
Long, lanky Matt Miller (6-6, 215) of Michigan’s great outing (3 IP 1 H 0 ER 1 BB 5 K) pushed his K/IP total to 16/12.2 on the season. It’ll interesting to see if he is in the mix for a starting spot for the Wolverines next spring.
Preston Claiborne has been a consistent strikeout per inning got out of the bullpen at Tulane since arriving on campus. His latest outing is a continuation of his success: 2.2 IP 1 H 0 ER 0 BB 4 K
Steve Kalush is a less well known name than Claiborne, but has had similar success as a collegiate pitcher. The Santa Clara is another strikeout per inning guy. His weekend outing: 2 IP 1 H 0 ER 0 BB 4 K
I love the adjective “hulking” when it describes a pitcher. Luke Demko is 6-6 and pushing three bills, but as nondescript college relievers go, he’s a good one. Demko could be a nice late round senior sign flier of a pick. His weekend: 2 IP 0 H 0 ER 1 BB 3 K (7th save)
Taylor Hill, a Vanderbilt sophomore talented enough to start for a lot of teams but forced to relieve for the pitching-rich Commodores, put up the following line: 4 IP 4 H 1 ER 1 BB 6 K. I’m thinking Vandy would be a good candidate for the next college profile piece…they are completely stacked with prospects, both hitting and pitching.
- Non-prospect performance of the week
Alex Rivers, teammate of Kalush’s at Santa Clara, put up this beauty of a line against Dartmouth: 7 IP 2 H 0 ER 0 BB 11 K. Yeah, it was against Dartmouth, and, yeah, Rivers is a short righty without much of a pro future, but this strong outing is worthy of praise. Here’s to you, Alex Rivers!
- Starting pitching prospects, now and in the future
Chris Rusin (Kentucky, 2009) – 9 IP 7 H 2 ER 2 BB 11 K against Vanderbilt. What I like best about Rusin is the steady increase in performance each year he has been in school.
Matt Harvey (North Carolina, 2010): 2 IP 7 H 7 ER 2 BB 1 K
Kyle Winkler (Texas Christian, 2011): 0.1 IP 5 H 6 ER 3 BB 0 K
Two really rough outings for two really good young pitchers. Winkler is a huge personal favorite – consider my love for him as a prospect partially due to my reverse short righthanded pitching bias.
Justin Grimm (Georgia, 2010): 5.2 IP 3 H 1 ER 3 BB 9 K
Gerrit Cole (UCLA, 2011): 5 IP 6 H 2 ER 1 BB 6 K, 101 pitches
Grimm is well known in scouting circles, but I consider him a 2010 sleeper anyway because even though he’s expected to go high in his draft year, I think he’ll go even higher – love his 30/7 K/BB ratio in just 25.1 innings. The odds-on favorite to go number two overall in 2011 keeps on doing his thing for the Bruins…
DJ Mauldin (Cal Poly, 2009): 8 IP 6 H 0 ER 0 BB 6 K, 12/4/1 (GO/AO/LO)…another short righty with a big game.
- Strong outings, but heavy workloads…
Tyler Blandford (Oklahoma State, 2009): 8 IP 3 H 2 ER 3 BB 11 K, 117 pitches
Chad Bettis (Texas Tech, 2010): 8 IP 8 H 3 ER 3 BB 8 K (11/5 groundball to flyball ratio), 129 pitches
College Baseball Weekend Five – Pitching Retrospective
A quartet of fine starts from high-end draft-eligible righthanded pitching prospects (including three future pro relievers who took the ball as starters for their college teams), a host of current relievers and non-star starting pitchers put forth solid efforts (gotta show the little guys some love every now and again), a mixed bag of performances out of highly ranked 2010’s and 2011’s, and a huge baseball star (not to mention my personal favorite player of all-time) hits in the leadoff spot for Seton Hall…wait, what? Read on, my amateur baseball loving friends, read on…
Also, a slew of new content (lists, rankings, an updated mock, and even a creative idea or two…a first for this site!) is on the way…stay tuned!
Photo Credit: Al Dia Inc
Stephen Strasburg: Five Starts and Fifty Million
At what point do we just give up and rename the site The Strasburg Draft Report?
His latest start: 7 IP 2 H 0 ER 2 BB 15 K
Season numbers: 34.1 IP 21 H 6 ER 7 BB 74 K (3 WP, 1 HBP, 5 extra-base hits allowed)
His K/9 actually fell from 19.43 to 19.40…
His K/BB also dipped from 11.80 to 1 to a pedestrian 10.57 to 1…
Of his 74 total strikeouts, 54 have been swinging and 20 have been looking…
Batters so rarely get a ball off of him in play, so his ground out/air out/line out data is based on too small a sample to really draw any conclusion. Even so, his GO/AO/LO numbers break down as follows: 13/11/2…
There have been only two innings this year that Strasburg hasn’t struck out at least one batter, including the two partial innings he has thrown through five starts (each partial inning was two-thirds of an inning). He has struck out at least three batters in 14 out of his 33 completed innings.
He’s good.
So good, in fact, it’ll cost you. An arm, a leg, another arm, half your torso, and, yes, maybe even a part of your unmentionables. Signing this guy won’t be cheap (or so goes the rumor).
I’ve got my own take on the latest “Strasburg’s bonus demands likely to include signing over a small island to him just to show you are negotiating in good faith” story, but the current plan is to hold off on these kind of shenanigans unless explicitly asked. Instead, I’ll open things up to the loyal readers of this site (fine, even the disloyal ones, too) – what do you think of the latest report stating Strasburg’s asking price could shatter the previous draft bonus record? Believe it, don’t believe it, don’t care about it, think he’ll get whatever he wants, think he’ll settle for substantially less, will he make more than Mark Prior, more than Daisuke Matsuzaka? Will Strasburg end up a National when it’s all said and done? Any validity to the wonderful threat to go play in Japan for a year?
In other words, fill in the blanks: Stephen Strasburg will be picked number ____ overall by the _________ and sign for ____ years and _____ million dollars.
March 20th College Pitching Retrospective (Strasburg Free!)
A quick buzz over, around, and through college baseball’s Friday night pitching landscape (whatever that means) as I continue to tirelessly input the many weeks worth of statistical data recently lost because somebody has a weird mental block about saving his work…
Stephen Strasburg Through Four Starts
27.1 IP 19 H 6 ER 5 BB 59 K (3 WP, 1 HBP, 5 extra-base hits allowed)
His K/9 fell to a mere 19.43…
His K/BB improved to 11.80/1…
Of his 59 total strikeouts, 45 have been swinging and 14 have been looking…
Batters so rarely get a ball off of him in play, so his ground out/air out/line out data is based on too small a sample to really draw any conclusion. Even so, his GO/AO/LO numbers break down as follows: 10/8/2…
There have been only two innings this year that Strasburg hasn’t struck out at least one batter, including the two partial innings he has thrown through four starts (each partial inning was two-thirds of an inning). He has struck out at least three batters in 11 out of his 26 completed innings. He’s good.
College Team Profiles: North Carolina Tar Heels
One of the most popular (fine, the only) question I’ve been emailed since starting this site up goes a little something like this: I’m going to see ____ University/College/State play this weekend and I was wondering if there was anybody with a professional future that would be worth watching. The College Team Profiles are designed to preemptively answer any and all questions about the prospects from a particular college team…or maybe just open up a whole new set of questions, we’ll see. The next three draft classes for one particular school are featured, with the players ranked in order (great to less great) within each class.
As always, whether you agree, disagree, or think I’m a dope who should leave this sort of stuff to the experts (thanks, Mom)…let’s hear it via email (thebaseballdraftreport@gmail.com) or in the comments section.
Photo Source: Sports Logos and Screensavers
22 of the finest the University of North Carolina has to offer after the jump… (more…)
Monday Morning Update
Just a few idle thoughts to get the week going strong. The past few days have been more about research (tons of data input) than writing, but expect plenty of good stuff (college team profiles, finally!) coming your way in the coming days. For now, enjoy some amateur observations made while slaving away on some of that oh so much fun data collecting from the past weekend…
- I saw this fact somewhere over the weekend and it totally floored me – Alabama has won seven of eight all-time series against the number one ranked team at the time. Can that be true? It sounds almost unbelievable to me, but there it is.
The Crimson Tide took down top-ranked Georgia this weekend with a little help from senior slugger Kent Matthes. His numbers so far are astounding: 12 homers in 59 official at bats (1.169 SLG). That’s almost exactly one bomb for every five at bats…crazy.
- Answer: 127, 124, 122, 121, 125, 120
Question: How many pitches were thrown over the weekend by Austin Hyatt (Alabama), Kyle Gibson (Missouri), Grant Dayton (Auburn), Deck McGuire (Georgia Tech), Tim Clubb (Missouri State), and Nick Hernandez (Tennessee) in their most recent respective starts?
Hyatt, Dayton, and Clubb can all be called sleeper prospects on a generous day, but the other pitchers (Gibson, McGuire, and Hernandez) are big-time talents pitching for big-time professional contracts every time they take the ball. I know it can’t be easy for a college coach to balance the pressure of winning ballgames in the short-term with the obligation of keeping these young arms healthy for the long-term. It’s also difficult to pass judgment as an outsider without knowing all of the details surrounding each individual coach, player, and specific in-game situation. But, come on, 120 pitches is 120 pitches. I’ll do my best to stay off the soapbox for now, instead opting to just report on pitcher abuse when it happens. You see the names, you see the numbers…let’s see what happens next.
- The weekend saw plenty of excellent pitching performances, but we only have time to highlight the best of the best.
Out of all the players I inputed data for this weekend, Erik Stavert (Oregon) had the highest number of groundball outs. Stavert recorded 19 outs on balls in play, 15 of them on the ground.
Dallas Keuchel (Arkansas) shut down a good Florida lineup with the following line: 7 IP 4 H 1 ER 1 BB 9 K (9 GO/2 AO)
Kyle Blair (San Diego) was outdueled by the next player on our list, but his complete game line deserves props all the same: 8 IP 7 H 1 ER 1 BB 9 K (10 GO/6 AO)
Ryan Berry (Rice) clearly lives to to make me look stupid. It seems like every time I comment on how I like him but don’t love him, he goes out and does something like this: 9 IP 1 H 0 ER 0 BB 8 K (11 GO/6 AO/3 LO)
The most dominating performance of the weekend belonged to Anthony Ranaudo (Louisiana State): 6 IP 6 H 3 ER 3 BB 13 K. Thirteen strikeouts in six innings is pretty impressive, sure, but how he did it was what made it fun. First five batters – KKKKK. Then a dropped foul ball followed by a walk. Next four batters – KKKK. Ranaudo’s first nine outs came via the strikeout. Through three innings the man had 9 strikeouts. I think it works better visually when ripped right from the game log:
Kentucky 1st - C. Bisson struck out looking (0-2). N. Johnson struck out swinging (1-2). K. Wiley struck out swinging (1-2). 0 runs, 0 hits, 0 errors, 0 LOB.Kentucky 2nd - B. Kapteyn struck out swinging (2-2). C. Wright struck out swinging (1-2). Dropped foul ball, E2. M. Nidiffer walked (3-2). C. Farris struck out swinging (3-2). 0 runs, 0 hits, 1 error, 1 LOB. Kentucky 3rd -C. Wade struck out swinging (3-2).
A. Burns struck out looking (2-2).
C. Bisson struck out looking (2-2).
0 runs, 0 hits, 0 errors,0 LOB.
Mailbag!
Photo Credit: Quiz Law
One of the most appealing aspects of doing the blog thing is the ability to actually interact with people who care about college/high school ball and the draft. I like the diverging opinions people seem to have about the placement of players on some of the lists posted thus far. The comments have been of excellent quality and they always give me a chance to reevaluate how I’ve assessed a particular player’s value as a prospect – sometimes it takes nothing more than a kick in the butt from a different perspective than mine to remind me that, hey, Player X should/shouldn’t be ranked where he is…so long as there is some kind of reasoning to back it up, I’m always willing to listen and potentially change my mind.
To those that have comments featured in the mailbag, please let me know if you want attribution and I’ll add your name and a link or whatever so that you get proper credit. I wanted to do it right off the bat, but I figured I’d play it safe and ask just in case. I’m not sure if there will be any interest in this, but it’s something I feel like trying – my apologies to anybody who actually reads my responses in the comments and catches on that these are essentially re-runs…I’m not tryinig to pull a fast one, just wanted to give good comments (and hopefully well reasoned responses) the proper amount of recognition they deserve.
Reader comments/questions along with my answers after the jump… (more…)
2009 MLB Draft: College Big Board Report Cards
Things have been quiet around here lately, but for good reason…it’s report card season! Yes, I do have a day job that may keep me updating from time to time, and, yes, filling out report card after report card takes priority over draft coverage – sad, but true. However, with all that grading in the books, it’s time to move on. What better way to celebrate than by doing some more grading!
In case you’ve been busy like me and haven’t kept up with some of the top college prospects, below the jump is a look back at our earlier College Big Board 1.0 (just the top 25 this time) with grades based on their performance through the first three weeks of the college baseball season. (more…)
2009 MLB Draft: Top 15 College Righthanded Pitchers – Number 1, Stephen Strasburg
Photo Credit: yoda1 from minorleagueball.com
20.1 IP 13 H 4 ER 4 BB 45 K (2 WP, 1 HBP)
K/9: 19.92
K/BB: 11.25/1
Strikeouts – Swinging/Looking: 36/9
GO/AO/LO: 7/5/2
There has been only one inning this year that Strasburg hasn’t struck out at least one batter, including the two partial innings he has thrown in each start (each 2/3rds of an inning). He has struck out the side in 8 out of his 19 completed innings. He’s good.
2009 MLB Draft: Top 15 College Righthanded Pitchers (5-2)
Better late than never, right? The righthanded pitchers listed below comprise 5 of the top 8 prospects ranked on the College Big Board 1.0. If you’re a fan of a team picking in the top half of round one, these are five names to know forwards and backwards. We continue the countdown of college righthanded starting pitching prospects with the players ranked 5 through 2 (who will be number one??????)…after the jump. (more…)
2009 MLB Draft: Top 15 College Righthanded Pitchers (10-6)
And we’re back. We started the countdown of the top 15 draft-eligible righthanded college pitchers yesterday with 15 through 11. One thing I forgot to mention when players 15-11 were unveiled yesterday was that the list is restricted only to righthanded college starting pitching prospects – it’s a no reliever zone here. The bullpen guys will get their own special ranking at a later date. The top 10 through 6 draft-eligible college righthanded starting pitching prospects right after a very special picture. See, the young woman pictured below isn’t just making an appearance because showing pretty girls is an easy way to increase traffic; no, I’m far too classy a gent to stoop to that level. She is actually the significant other of the player used as a comparison to the sixth ranked player on the list. Hmm…
Photo Credit: DramaWiki
10 through 6 after the jump… (more…)
2009 MLB Draft: Top 15 College Righthanded Pitchers (15-11)
Ahhh, actual content. Get your work week off started off right by perusing the first third of the 2009 Rule 4 Draft’s finest draft-eligible college righthanded pitchers. Make sure to check back throughout the week as we count down to the number one spot. I won’t reveal too much information about our number one college righty, except to say that he could potentially be referred to as S. Strasburg. No, wait – too obvious. Let’s just call him Stephen S. Yeah, that’s much better. College righthanders 15 through 11 right after this stunning picture our 11th ranked righty…
Photo Credit: Juan Blas/The Daily Gamecock
The Baseball Draft Report 