5 Tool Talk - Draft-Related Baseball Notes

College Notes 3-20-11

This week offered me the opportunity to check out quite a bit of talent, and that continued over the weekend, highlighted by Saturday’s game between Florida and LSU. Freshman sensation Kevin Gausman started that game for the Tigers, and looked incredibly impressive as a favorite to go among the top 10 picks in the 2012 draft as a draft eligible sophomore.

I also had a look at Burch Smith and Garrett Buechele of Oklahoma on Sunday as well as Matt Barnes and George Springer of UConn on Saturday, where I’ll start my focus.

Matt Barnes

I finally got a chance to see Barnes pitch this season a month into the year. He is a slender athlete with good strength to his frame and limbs with room for more strength. His size and stature, as well as his pitching style, reminds me a little of Matt Garza, especially at a similar stage in their careers.

He has a nice, smooth, repeatable delivery, and easy fastball velocity and overall arm action. He does have the tendency to overthrow at times, not uncommon for any pitcher, but the ball explodes out of his hand. His breaking pitches make his fastball look that much harder. He can throw both a curve and a slurvy slider, with both pretty much acting as the same pitch that he adds and subtracts off of. His overhand curve is the better pitch, although he still needs to work on tightening the break and improving the command in which he throws it. The more he threw it though, the better it looked.

He threw a few changeups that also need similar improvement but show the foundation for a solid pitch. He induced quite few ground balls in this game, and overall looked sharped, facing the first two batters in the eighth inning (hit the first, allowed a single to the second) before getting the hook.

George Springer

I’m sure anyone reading these notes know how good of an athlete Springer is. That’s immediately obvious just taking a single glance at him, with size, stature and overall tool-set that resembles Erik Davis from over 20 years ago. He is an aggressive hitter, and right now appears to be pressing as though he feels the weight of the world on his shoulders between his draft eligibility and the fact that UConn has been struggling to win games to open the season.

There is a pronounced uppercut to his swing, and currently he makes some curious decisions as to which pitches he takes and which ones he swings at. It’s almost as though he approaches some at-bats as if he wants to be selective, and others aggressive, instead of letting his overall approach dictate his overall selectivity in all of his at-bats. He showed some signs of turning things around during the Huskies’ West Coast trip which ended last weekend, and may benefit from reduced travel as the Big East opens conference play next week.

Nick Ahmed

I can see why it has been suggested that Ahmed may work best in centerfield. Not that he looks terrible at shortstop, as he showed good instincts and a strong accurate arm, but he’s built more like an outfielder. He has a high waist and long, angular proportions and somewhat of a loping stride. He has good speed, and I could see him covering good ground in center while also posing a modest threat on the bases.

He’s a slender athlete with some strength and room to add more. He showed a good eye at the plate, laying off soft stuff away while waiting for something over the plate to drive. He hits line drives with a level swing and also puts the ball on the ground. I’d like to see him some more to see if he can lift/lofty the ball more frequently.

Kevin Gausman

Gausman might have been the best prospect I’ve seen play this spring, and was one of my favorites in high school in which I thought he was the most projectable pitcher available for the 2010 draft. I also got the chance to see him pitch last summer in the California Collegiate League, where he reportedly hit triple digits (a number he has approached this spring as well).

He continues to add muscle to his lean yet strong frame. He has a high waist, and very long legs, and does an excellent job using his stature to throw on a downhill plane. In this game he did a nice job keeping his fastball down, and elevated it at times to induce some weak swings. He struggled to get his curveball over consistently well, needing to improve the command and break on the pitch, but it showed promise, snapping off a few good ones in the middle innings. He got stronger as the game progressed, giving up only the one run in the first inning picking up the hard-luck loss.

Most impressive is his delivery. For such a tall person, he does a really nice job repeating it, and overall his arm action looks free and easy. He employs a big leg kick as part of his delivery, which looks especially exaggerated given his size. The ball explodes out of his hand. He also threw a darting changeup that looked to be a promising pitch, and also looked to be able to take a little off of his fastball for added late life.

I was impressed with his composure throughout the game, especially as a freshman pitching against the number one team in the nation (not to mention a fierce rival), and in particular kept his cool to get out of a bases-loaded jam in the fifth. He enjoyed a much quicker sixth inning in which he sprinted off the field shouting and pumping his fist.

While I still need to see Mark Appel and Kenny Diekroeger this spring, Gausman would get my vote for the top 2012 draft eligible player.

Hudson Randall

Randall is what he is, and he’s remarkably consistent in doing it. He continues to throw strikes with a solid three-pitch mix. He’s always in rhythm and always is around the strike zone. Again, his ceiling isn’t particularly high, but his floor is.

Nick Maronde

Once again, Maronde was mostly fastballs for his 1.2 inning outing. He’s fearless, attacking hitters with a visible cockiness to his game. He isn’t afraid to elevate his fastball, and with reports of him throwing 93-96, it’s easy to know why. He got the first batter he faced to pop-up, and he walked the next before striking out the final four LSU batters to close out this 1-0 game. In this game he did a nice job catching the outside corner against right-handed hitters.

Greg Larson, who I saw earlier this week, continues to be a ground ball machine.

You can’t blame shortstop Nolan Fontana or left fielder Daniel Pigott for what seems to be a sputtering Florida offense. Fontana is an ideal leadoff hitter, and has been getting on base all season, either via the base hit or the walk. I’m not sure if any college hitter is seeing the ball as well as Pigott is, and if Preston Tucker, Austin Maddox and the rest of the Gators’ lineup ever starts producing like they’re capable of, they should score a lot of runs early and often given how frequently Fontana and Pigott have been on base. They accounted for the only run scored in this game, with Fontana leading off the game with a walk and Pigott bringing him home with an RBI double.

I mentioned this earlier in the week, but Florida is really built like a big-league team. They have a dominant starting staff, a deep bullpen with just about everything you need, a deep bench and a nice, balanced lineup that really doesn’t change too much from one game to the next.

Tyler Hanover

I’ve been a big fan of Hanover for a long time. He’s a shorter player, compact and strong for his stature. He puts a charge in the ball and employs a approach thinking up the middle and the other way, and yet he still has some over the fence pull power. He can play third base and second, and I think his first-step quickness at third. His upside is clearly limited due to his small stature, but I wouldn’t bet against him from succeeding.

Mikie Mahtook

Mahtook is almost the exactly opposite play as Hanover. He’s an incredible athlete with the prototypical size of a big leaguer, with great tools across the board from his bat speed, foot speed and power potential. That said, he can take some ugly hacks at the plate and doesn’t look to have much of an approach beyond ‘see ball, hit ball.’ He showed his strength by muscling a ground ball through the left side of the infield in the eighth, his only hit in the game, but otherwise has a lot of work to do in my opinion. That doesn’t just come from this one ballgame, I’ve had the same feeling the handful of times I’ve watch him play.

Austin Nola

Nola looks like has worked hard to add some strength to his frame. He did make an error in this game, but otherwise I really like the way he plays the shortstop position, with smooth gliding actions and a strong, accurate throwing arm. I need to see him swing the bat more to get a better feel for his offensive upside, but I do know that part of his game concerns scouts.

Ty Ross

Ross and Gausman formed a freshman battery in this game, and you probably wouldn’t have been able to tell that if you didn’t look. Ross looked a little raw at times, and had a few throws sail on him, but experience should help iron out any problems he has at this point in time. He has a strong, mature build for his age, somewhat similar to former LSU backstop Micah Gibbs. He put a few good swings on balls, including a solid single up the middle and another that he drilled through the left side of the infield.

JaCoby Jones

Jones, another freshman, has been off to a very hot start to his collegiate career, so this game wasn’t the best to watch him and try to form that great of an opinion of his abilities as a player. I remembered being impressed with his size and tools when he participated at the Aflac All-American Classic a couple of summers ago, and his physicality is still very evident. He did have a solid single up the middle in the seventh, and is another part of a very impressive freshman class.

Burch Smith

This was my first time seeing Smith pitch, and based by his outing, and by looking at his numbers up to this game, I’m guessing I didn’t see him as good as he can be. He’s a bigger fella, built similar to Barret Loux coming out of Texas A&M; a year ago. He’s not as athletic as someone like Austin Wood who also has a similar body type, but Wood is more flexible. In this game, Smith was over-throwing a little, particularly early in the game, which is a little odd to say considering he only last 3.2 innings. He could have gone longer, but Oklahoma was in the rubber match of their series with the Aggies.

His fastball is his best pitch, and he throws it fairly effortlessly. His size would likely indicate that he can maintain his velocity deep into games, and when he missed he missed low. He struggled to find consistency on his curveball, both in regards to its break and his command of the pitch. That caused him to throw his fastball more, and while I’ve heard he’s been in the mid-90s with the pitch this year, it’s rather straight, and its hittable when thrown in the zone when you know its coming. He looked to command his fastball fairly well, and snapped off a few promising looking curves.

Garrett Buechele

I believe I mentioned this in my last college notes update, but Buechele is a carbon-copy of his father, minus the curly mullet sticking out the back of his cap. He has the same pear-ish, modest built with sloped shoulders and a long neck. I really like his actions at third base, as he makes the position look easy with good quickness and great instincts. He also makes strong and accurate throws from the position, and charges bunts well.

At the plate his swing can get a little long at times. He started off the season very hot, but cooled a little since. He did hit his sixth home run of the season in this game, a towering bomb off of a low Ross Stripling curveball that cleared the fence in left centerfield by at least 20 feet, but that was his first dinger in over a week. He has a knack for driving in runs, and I think his overall power potential is a little better than what his father’s was.

I touched on Cameron Seitzer earlier this week, who I think has some potential to blossom at the next level similar to Brandon Belt given his left-handed swing, approach and glove. I covered infielder Evan Mistich a little in the Northwoods League last summer, and while he was a NWL all-star, he didn’t receive much support from the coaches and scouts that I talked to in regards to the top prospect list. That said, I do think he has some pro potential. He has a compact frame and showed a similar compact stroke, driving a ball over the center fielder’s head for a booming triple in this game that just missed clearing the fence straight away.

Caleb Bushyhead has good range at shortstop and offers an active presence on the field. I’m not sure if he has the tools to continue to play the position at the next level, but he’s pretty good for college and a program like Oklahoma with Omaha aspirations. A left-handed hitter, he turned on a Stripling curveball in the fourth for a double down the right field line.

Lefty Jordan John and righty Bobby Shore came into the game in relief of Smith. John isn’t going to blow anyone away, but he commands his fastball and slow, sweeping slurvy breaking pitch well to record quick outs. Shore has a good, not great fastball, with his best pitch being a hard downer curve.

Ross Stripling

Stripling started for Texas A&M; opposite Smith, and has some promise when it comes to the draft as well. I’m not sure if he’s a starter at the next level, or at least the highest of levels. He did hit 93 in this game according to the announcers, but was throwing a lot of curveballs. His curveball is a good pitch, somewhat like a ‘trick’ pitch in that he can throw it over and over and over again and still has success with it, but that’s a big reason why I see him settling in a relief role. And that is a role he’s familiar with in college, as I believe this was only his second or third start this year. Stripling has a nice athletic frame and repeats his delivery well. He comes straight over the top giving his overhand true 12-to-6 break.

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Dandy Dozen

SP	Andrew Gagnon	Well rounded RHP w/ good size, repertoire
SP	Erik Johnson	Big bodied RHP with good FB/CB combo
SP	Deshorn Lake	Live-armed RHP with sharp breaking ball
CL	Nick Maronde	Lived-armed LHP tough to catch up to
C	Nick Delmonico	May not be C long-term, big body, LH bat
1B	Zach Wilson	Aggressive hitter can put sting in ball
IF	Sean Trent	Well built hitter with pop, speed, arm
3B	Dante Bichette, Jr.	Clone of father with big build, power
SS	Austin Nola	Steady D' at shortstop, improving strength
OF	Nick Martini	Good all around player with patient eye
OF	Shon Carson	Shorter, well built 2-sport speedster
OF	Granden Goetzman	Fast riser w/ exciting power/speed combo

more

Analyzing Amateur Baseball Talent as it pertains to the MLB Draft