4th round pick - Kyle Hudson, CF, U of Illinois

[OrioleLochRaven]

Can we get this kid a steak? Looks like he has some room to fill out on that frame.

http://fightingillini.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/060508aab.html

[TakebackOPACY]

Hudson Drafted by Baltimore

Orioles scout Darin Blair scouted Hudson in high school.

Blair was with the Florida Marlins organization when first showing interest in Hudson when he was a Mattoon High School senior. Now Blair has played a part in Hudson having the chance to play in the Orioles organization.

Shortly after the Orioles chose Hudson, he heard from one of the organization’s scout Troy Hoerner, who talked of having the center fielder in minor-league ball soon.

“He talked about hopefully being able to get everything worked out and I could be there in 5-10 days,” Hudson said...

“It got pretty loud,” Hudson said. “I didn’t get a call saying I was drafted first. We were watching the draft tracker on MLB.com. I got a call from (Hoerner) earlier saying he was pushing for me for this round. We were looking at the computer and saw my name pop up.”

“Kyle has a lot of athletic ability but he has a lot more going for him than that,” the Mattoon coach said. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders. I just hope he makes it to the bigs. If anybody could do it, he can. A lot of people have told him he can’t do things when it comes to football or the high jump and he’s proved them wrong.”

[Tony-OH]

http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2008/06/08/sports/doc484ca29fab6be024453927.txt

Looks like Hudson may be close to signing...

[glenn__davis]

http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2008/06/08/sports/doc484ca29fab6be024453927.txt

Looks like Hudson may be close to signing...

Cool, I look forward to seeing what he's got. I must say that of our 1st day picks this one puzzled me the most.

[Tony-OH]

Cool, I look forward to seeing what he's got. I must say that of our 1st day picks this one puzzled me the most.

I just got off the phone with Joe so I will have a lot more on all the top ten picks as well as sleepers. I'll be working on it all day so hopefully some of this will come out by early tomorrow...

[Captain_Cool007]

I don't see why every one hates all of these speed picks... speed is a very helpful part of the game.... the top three clubs in stolen bases are all winning teams, so maybe Jordan will follow the Boston or Tampa trend, cause you can't shut down speed.:mwahaha:

[Hank Scorpio]

I just got off the phone with Joe so I will have a lot more on all the top ten picks as well as sleepers. I'll be working on it all day so hopefully some of this will come out by early tomorrow...

Awesome news, very much looking forward to it.

Thanks much, Tony!

:clap3::clap3::clap3:

[glenn__davis]

Awesome news, very much looking forward to it.

Thanks much, Tony!

:clap3::clap3::clap3:

What he said.

Captain Cool, I'm not necessarily against speed picks, it just seems to me that Hudson offers little besides that and I thought we would've went a different direction there. Don't get me wrong, though, if Jordan thought he was worth taking I look forward to seeing him in Aberdeen this summer!

[BoysofArbutus]

Compared to another speedy center fielder out of the Big Ten the Orioles have drafted recently, Hudson looks pretty good.

Across the board, his numbers are better than Matt Angle's from his last year at Ohio State, but not by much. Hudson has many more stolen bases, but the rest of his stats are very similar.

Angle, 7th Round

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG

59 216 53 79 11 4 0 34 22 7 37 18 .366 .462 .454

Hudson, 4th round

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG

53 191 61 76 11 1 1 26 40 9 39 34 .398 .498 .482

[juanbell]

Watching some of the film on him, he reminds me some of Steve Finley. Finley was a lean guy with speed who developed some nice power over time. Not sure what Finley's power numbers were prior to the bigs and it is hard to say how Hudson will pan out.

[Jenius]

I would guess that Hudson hits a lot of line drives and grounders, given his speed, lack of power, and the fact that his BABIP was almost .500 (even with aluminum bats that's hard to sustain). If he can draw walks and hit line drives and grounders, his speed is a big asset. If he can't at least do those things, he's just minor league filler regardless of his speed. I guess we'll see.

[ChaosLex]

The Orioles are close to completing deals with second-round draft pick Xavier Avery and fourth-round pick Kyle Hudson.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-osnotesb614,0,273774.story

[Tony-OH]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-osnotesb614,0,273774.story

They've already signed Hudson. He'll start at Aberdeen.

[ChaosLex]

They've already signed Hudson. He'll start at Aberdeen.

Nice. Thanks Tony!

[Boy Howdy]

Saw Hudson play last night in Brooklyn.

He signed for me in BP, and impressed me with his attentiveness when coach Cesar Devarez was schooling him on something out of my earshot.

Once the game began, he was even better. 3-4 with a walk, a run scored and a RBI.

I kept hoping to see him run, but he never attempted it despite drawing probably 8-10 pickoff throws in his four times on first base.

Appeared to get a bad read on one fly ball, but the winds were swirling for a few middle innings & he made a nice grab on one of those balls hit right at (and nearly over) him that some outfielders call the toughest type to handle.