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5 College Baseball Box Scores of Interest (Weekend of 3/4/11)
I can’t really remember what made this particular box score stand out, but I must have copied and pasted it into a Word document for a reason. Could it be the 0-4 leadoff performance of the Mick Doyle, also known as college baseball’s best name to university fit? Perhaps. Or it could have been the good pitching matchup between Cole Johnson and Tyler Mizenko that lived up to the billing. Johnson’s talent (slightly above-average fastball and good slider) has too often surpassed his performance on the field. A big senior season could put him in line to be one of the top mid-round senior signs. Then again, and I realize I’m taking this whole “2011 college class has potential to be historically great” thing too far, this could be a historically great group of college pitching senior signs. Off the top of my head (or a Ctrl + F of “SR” of my 2011 college pitching Word doc), the 2011 group of senior sign pitching includes a whole boat load of potential big league middle relievers like Scott Matyas, Tyler Wilson, Brett Harman, Randy Fontanez, Patrick Johnson, Corey Pappel, Thomas Girdwood, TJ Walz, Steven Maxwell, Taylor Hill, Cole Green, Michael Rocha, James Nygren, Tim Kelley, Ryan Woolley, Rick Anton, Brian Dupra, Elliott Glynn, Kevin Jacob, Nick Fleece…the list goes on and on. Mizenko, on the other hand, is a damn fine junior prospect who has struggled with his stuff in the early going. His fastball velocity has been down and his typically sharp slider hasn’t been, well, sharp. I still like Mizenko’s upside as a potential three-pitch starting pitcher.
Villanova ace JR RHP Kyle McMyne is a personal favorite, so I’m always interested to see how he does against quality lineups. Wilmington’s lineup certainly qualifies, especially leadoff hitter Cameron Cockman and three-hole batter Andrew Cain. McMyne, one of the most consistent high velocity arms in the 2011 draft pool, delivered with a strong 7 inning, 10 strikeout outing good enough to get him the win. I’ll hopefully be seeing a lot of McMyne this spring, so expect a few firsthand accounts if all goes according to plan.
It was hard to pick one game out of the big Stanford-Texas. Then I figured, since this is college baseball after all, just go with the Friday night game. You know Taylor Jungmann is a good prospect when the biggest, and arguably only, question about his game focuses on his workload rather than his stuff or performance. The difference between Jungmann and Matt Purke is so minute that it really wouldn’t be a surprise to see team’s prefer the fresher arm (Purke) over the arm that has been “Augied.” We’ll see. Also, weird that a pitcher with Mark Appel’s stuff could ever go 7.1 innings pitched with only 2 strikeouts.
Mentioned it earlier, but it bears repeating: Trevor Bauer struck out 17 (!) batters in 10 (!) innings. Despite Bauer’s gem, UCLA still managed a way to lose. I wish I had mentioned this before the season started and the UCLA bats went cold, but the Bruins’ lineup is really underwhelming from a prospect standpoint. At first I thought my concerns about the their offense wouldn’t impact the 2011 team from a performance standpoint; certain college programs can be built on quality college hitters just doing enough to win behind excellent pitching and be quite successful. Now I’m officially worried that the lack of offense could hurt UCLA’s on-field bottom line. Outside of a solid prospect outfield (Keefer, Amaral, Gelalich, and Allen), there isn’t a lot of pro upside there.
59 batters stepped to the plate…only 10 reached base. Ground ball machine Hudson Randall (65% of his non-K outs recorded via the grounder) was particularly great on the mound (7 IP 1 H 0 ER 0 BB 5 K).
2011 Quick Draft Thoughts – Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
1. JR LHP Jed Bradley is the obvious headliner. The Ramblin’ Wreck’s lefty ace has a shot to become Georgia Tech’s second straight Friday night starter to go in the top half in the first round in a row. I recently finished ranking 2011’s best college arms — coming soon! — with Bradley coming in as my sixth favorite college pitcher and second overall college lefthander. He’s also the highest ranked pitcher in the ACC and, with apologies to Brad Miller, Harold Martinez, and Levi Michael, the conference’s best overall prospect. In fact, now that I’m looking at my freshly completed rankings — again, coming soon! — I’m realizing that the ACC’s three best 2011 pitching prospects are all lefties. Right now it goes Bradley, Virginia’s Danny Hultzen, [big gap], and Florida State’s Sean Gilmartin. Hey, speaking of lefties…
2. One of the most interesting draft subplots of the upcoming Yellow Jacket season could be the usage of Tech’s trio of lefties who are all decidedly on the bubble — as far as I see it — when it comes to the 2011 draft. SR LHP Taylor Wood, SR LHP Zach Brewster, and JR LHP/1B Jake Davies will all be duking it out for key late inning relief appearances parceled out by the venerable Danny Hall. I thought Brewster, a potential professional LOOGY with some seriously deceptive funk in his delivery, would show enough to get popped late in the draft last year, but he turned out to be my one Georgia Tech swing-and-a-miss during my short-lived Who Will Be Drafted? series. Damn, my guesses on North Carolina were especially brutal. Only 1 out of 7 were correct AND I missed on a player who actually did get picked. Anyway, now that I’ve refreshed the readership on my sterling track record on stuff like this, let me just say that I currently like Davies’ stuff (upper-80s FB, good SL, usable but improving CU) the best of the three, but it’s hard to pick a favorite out of these tightly bunched trio.
3. In an effort to not overextend my reach this year, I’m focusing as much as possible on 2011 while trying to leave the great unknown of 2012 and 2013 alone. Therefore, anything I say about the next two years worth of draft eligible players ought to be taken with a gigantic chunk of salt. For example, if I were to say my favorite Georgia Tech 2012 is SO RHP Buck Farmer and my favorite Georgia Tech 2013 is FR RHP Deandre Smelter, then you might want to think to yourself, “Hey, it’s cool that I now have two names to store away in the back of my head for future drafts — even though I already know all about Smelter, some guy’s 17th highest rated prep player in 2010, from last year’s coverage — but I’ll be sure to do my own homework and/or check back in to this site in the future to learn more about each guy before coming up with any concrete opinions about either player.” Farmer’s low-90s fastball, potential plus breaking ball, and emerging changeup give him the look of a potential solid big league starter. Smelter’s upside is more tantalizing; it’s not crazy to think that he could leave school as a plus fastball, plus slider, plus splitter power pitching prospect in the mold of the player he’s received instruction from, Kevin Brown.
Early 2011 Draft Guesses
JR LHP Jed Bradley, JR RHP Mark Pope, JR 3B Matt Skole, and SR RHP Kevin Jacob (Josh Fields 2.0?) are all stone cold locks to see their names pop up on MLB.com’s Draft Tracker this June. I’m more bullish on JR 2B Connor Winn than most; assuming he has the year I believe he’s capable of having in 2011, he’d probably fall in after those four, but before potential high risk/high reward plays like JR OF Jarrett Didrick, JR RHP/2B Jacob Esch, and JR OF Roddy Jones on my personal rankings. After those eight prospects, we come to the three aforementioned lefthanded relievers, Wood, Brewster, and Davies. If all eleven players get popped, and keep in mind that’s obviously a gigantic if at this point in the process, then that would top last year’s remarkable ten Georgia Tech draft selections. If I was a gambling man, I’d bet on Bradley, Pope, Skole, and Jacob only, and opt to wait and see on how much playing time players like Winn, Didrick, Esch, Jones, Wood, Brewster, and Davies actually get this spring. If I was an optimistic fellow trying to sell you on these guys, I might rave about Didrick’s overflowing tool set (plenty of raw power, above-average speed and range, plus arm), Esch’s opportunity to show his quality stuff on the mound this spring after a disappointing 2010 at second base, and Jones’ borderline unfair NFL speed and athleticism. Since I’m an optimistic betting man, let’s say Bradley, Pope, Skole, Jacob, Winn, Didrick, Esch, Brewster, and Davies all get drafted this June.
College Baseball Opening Night 2010 – Friday Starters
“Big” Name 2010s
Georgia Tech JR RHSP Deck McGuire – 7 IP 5 H 0 ER 0 BB 10 K
Florida Gulf Coast JR LHSP Chris Sale – 2 IP 0 H 0 ER 0 BB 2 K
LSU JR RHSP Anthony Ranaudo – 5 IP 1 H 0 ER 2 BB 6 K
North Carolina JR RHSP Matt Harvey – 5.2 IP 5 H 3 ER 2 BB 3 K
Ohio State JR RHSP Alex Wimmers – 6 IP 1 H 0 ER 1 BB 9 K
Georgia Tech JR RHRP Kevin Jacob – 1 IP 0 H 0 ER 0 BB 3 K
Mississippi JR LHSP Drew Pomeranz – 4 IP 4 H 1 ER 2 BB 7 K
Georgia JR RHSP Justin Grimm – 5 IP 4 H 2 ER 3 BB 6 K
Tennessee JR LHSP Bryan Morgado – 5 IP 4 H 3 ER 2 BB 6 K
Baylor JR RHSP Shawn Tolleson – 6 IP 5 H 3 ER 3 BB 11 K
Not really a bad line out of the entire Opening Night starter bunch, I’d say. Pomeranz’s command was shaky, Ranaudo’s stuff wasn’t as sharp as it could have been, and Harvey was all over the place with his control, but, all in all, a darn fine night for college baseball’s aces.
*** Sale only pitched two innings because he’s being saved for this upcoming Wednesday’s huge game at Miami. He was incredibly sharp in this one, hitting the mid-90s with regularity. Sale vs Miami is shaping up to be one of the most highly anticipated early season mid-week games in recent memory.
*** Baseball America had Harvey sitting 92-94, touching 96. Lack of control or not, that kind of velocity this early in the season is an excellent sign for Harvey, a pitcher with a history of inconsistent radar gun readings.
*** Best publicly available groundout ratios of the night belong to Harvey (10/1 ground out to air out ratio) and Wimmers (7/1). Use that information anyway you see fit.
“Lesser” Name 2010s
San Diego SR RHSP AJ Griffin – 6 IP 6 H 4 ER 0 BB 8 K
East Carolina JR RHSP Seth Maness – 5.2 IP 6 H 4 ER 1 BB 4 K
Notre Dame JR RHSP Cole Johnson – 5.1 IP 5 H 2 ER 0 BB 2 K
Virginia JR RHRP Tyler Wilson – 3 IP 2 H 0 ER 2 BB 4 K
Clemson JR LHSP Casey Harman – 5 IP 1 H 0 ER 1 BB 3 K
Louisville JR RHSP Thomas Royse – 5 IP 2 H 0 ER 0 BB 5 K
Arkansas SR RHSP Michael Bolsinger 5 IP 4 H 1 ER 1 BB 6 K
Florida JR RHSP Tommy Toledo – 3.1 IP 3 H 0 ER 2 BB 4 K (WP, 2 HBP)
*** Griffin had a bizarre 1/9 ground out to air out ratio. I’m almost positive Griffin was a significant groundball pitcher last year, so it’ll be interesting to see if this one start was an aberration or the start of a larger trend.
*** Johnson has a solid reputation and good stuff, but he still hasn’t been able to harness his natural talents to dominate at the college level. The solid line he put up on Friday is indicative of his college performance thus far. Steady results, uninspiring strikeout numbers.
*** Wilson is coming out of the bullpen because Virginia has a pitching staff that rivals that of some minor league teams, but his stuff is good enough to start professionally. He’s a top ten round player.
“Big” Name 2011s
Vanderbilt SO RHSP Sonny Gray 8 IP 3 H 0 ER 1 BB 8 K
UCLA SO RHSP Gerrit Cole – 6 IP 1 H 2 ER 0 BB 9 K
Texas SO RHSP Taylor Jungmann – 7 IP 7 H 1 ER 1 BB 8 K
Virginia SO LHSP Danny Hultzen – 6 IP 4 H 2 ER 3 BB 4 K
Kentucky SO RHSP Alex Meyer – 5 IP 4 H 2 ER 3 BB 8 K
Totals: 32 IP 19 H 7 ER 8 BB 37 K
Those five 2011 arms are something special. I’ve been toying with a 2011 Mock Draft for a couple of days and every time I do a rough sketch of the first ten to fifteen picks or so, all of the names above appear…but each time I do it, I come up with a new order. I think I like them in the order I have them above, but that’ll change, oh, about ten thousand times between now and next June.
The GO/AO numbers for the quintet: Jungmann – 9/1, Cole – 7/2, Hultzen – 9/3, Gray – 10/4, and Meyer – 2/4.
“Lesser” Name 2011s
Baylor SO RHSP Logan Verrett – 7 IP 9 H 6 ER 1 BB 5 K
Rice SO LHSP Taylor Wall – 3 IP 4 H 3 ER 2 BB 3 K
Verrett and Wall both struggled some in their debuts, but they are still both 2011s well keeping a close on eye, Verrett especially. He’s a pitcher that would be getting a lot more attention (talked about as a serious top of the first half round candidate) if he wasn’t part of such a loaded class. Timing is everything, I suppose.
The Baseball Draft Report 