The Top 50 Prospects...

[MiLFanatic]

Ugh, drafting high school pitchers in the first round, getting Loewen flashbacks. Anyone know the success rate of high school pitchers taken in the first round? I'm just curious if there's any obvious trend there.

Nope, nor do I really care about the success rate. What matters to me is Joe Jordan's success rate, and so far so good. It is all about scouting, looking for the right stuff and not getting blinded by the bling that some of these kids have. When it comes to HS arms, I feel more comfortable drafting them than HS position players. If you throw injury out of the equation, I think that HS pitchers may have a better success rate than position players.

But you cannot live life scared because of something that previously happened. I feel more confident in some of these guys than I would be in Loewen. Taillon is compared to elite HS arms like Kershaw and Beckett, he is very special. If injury doesn't strike he is about as sure of a bet to make the majors as almost any college pitcher. I will argue all day that he has the best raw stuff for a SP in the draft college or HS. He just needs to get his command and polish to develop and he will be something special. I even saw a Strasburg comp given to Taillon(though he doesn't and won't throw that hard).

[Stotle]

I look on youtube, google searches, project prospect has some decent stuff, and I also use my fiances computer at home which I am thinking is called Hulu to download videos and snippets. I agree about the videos out there. I would love to get my hands on more videos that focused on the pitcher's stuff rather than mechanics, but it is all fairly limited as far as being able to get my hands on different vids and sites. And I've seen baseballwebtv, but like you said its mostly warm ups. You can get a fair amount of info from that, but the problem for me is that it is just warm ups and pitchers do some things differently in warm ups than when under the spot light. When adrenaline gets to them, they may try to overthrow in the game situations or they may pitch better, some may pitch worse. Sometimes I'll notice a pitcher having troubles pitching inside in a game situation to a live batter that you won't be able to see during warm ups, but you don't see that as much IMO with the prep arms, its when the kids get to tougher competition.

I agree, personal video is the best(as far as film goes), you focus on what you want your own focus to be on. Its also kinda like having a real life DVR or Tivo. You see it in real life(while recording) and get your preliminary opinions and analysis, but the real fun is when you get to go home look at the vids, break it down and look for things your naked eye couldn't catch, and since you can now view it at home, you won't have as much emotion to sway you one way or the other. That is why IMO it is best to see it in person and then be able to go home and watch it again a bunch of times to get a full feel for it.

And I agree about Covey and Whitson in Jupiter, 1st and last impressions in scouting make a big difference.

As for Covey lacking projection and it negatively affecting his prospect status, I didn't even notice it over at Greg's site, I just remember reading about him specifically being completely filled out and some publications saying he may even need to watch his conditioning in the future.

One of the biggest things I look for when looking at these prep arms is the amount of projection they have. I personally split the top prep arms into tiers and try to look at them equally and come up with my own rankings and opinions. Of the top arms, Covey has the least amount of projection, and that mixed with the fact that he is normally ranked behind Cole, Taillon and Whitson, I just put 2 and 2 together considering that his stuff to me is better than both Cole and Whitson.

I will mention about Taillon that I think there is a tad bit more of projection in there. I don't expect him to start throwing in the upper 90's, but I think when its all said and done and he irons out a few tweaks that he will end up sitting in the mid 90's......

I never see mention of it, but I noticed (In my very amateur scouting knowledge) that Taillon sometimes seems to drift a little bit to home plate. Have you ever seen or heard anything like this? It may be just the video I was watching on him, but it looked to me he drifted some, but in most instances he seemed to drive right to the plate.

I mentioned Covey because I haven't seen anyone else write about his lack of projection at all, and it was something I had as part of my write-up. I was curious to see who else had the same opinion.

Re: Taillon -- haven't seen the drift. My biggest issues with him are 1) he can get a little herky-jerky (though he's a big boy and still settling into the body he's going to end-up with), and 2) his landing/follow-through needs to be cleaned-up some, I'd think, for him to maxamize his control/command in the future.

I think there will be a good number of HS arms very close to each other, and at all will separate them by the time the draft rolls around. Cases will be made, but there are a lot of similar arms at different tiers this year -- at least from what I'm seeing so far.

Just perusing the net, I'm shocked at how many STRONG feelings there are about these kids, as well as their "order of preference". I know I'm still working through a ton of data and have no clue where my top 300 will come out come early January.

[Greg Pappas]

Shortstop Rick Hague rounds out the Top 20...

http://www.draftamerica.com/2010-draft.php

[Greg Pappas]

http://www.draftamerica.com/2010-draft.php

Check out shortstop prospect (#21 overall) Manny Machado... one to watch.

[Ruzious]

He sounds interesting. Too bad we didn't have a Type A free agent to get a pick to have a shot at him. But Colon has my attention now. If Taillon goes at 2, I think I'd pick Colon. The O's have had some success with a couple of SS's with great hands and instincts and accuracy and only average range. How does he stack up vs. Grant Green as a prospect, and what would be a reasonable estimate of when he can play in the majors?

[Greg Pappas]

He sounds interesting. Too bad we didn't have a Type A free agent to get a pick to have a shot at him. But Colon has my attention now. If Taillon goes at 2, I think I'd pick Colon. The O's have had some success with a couple of SS's with great hands and instincts and accuracy and only average range. How does he stack up vs. Grant Green as a prospect, and what would be a reasonable estimate of when he can play in the majors?

Colon vs Green... I think Green is more athletic and has a higher upside, however, Colon seems more consistent in his approach, is better defensively and is a safer bet to be a solid major leaguer. I am higher on Green at this point, but Colon is a good player and a guy we probably wouldn't regret taking at #3. This all hinges on how Colon performs this coming season, but most feel he'll be fully recovered from the broken leg.

[Ruzious]

Thanks Greg. Just from reading about him - assuming he doesn't lose any range - he seems to have a lot of the qualities Mike Bordick had - with better bat speed and hitting potential. I like how one of the main criticisms of him is his speed, and then he goes out and steals 24 of 26 tries. Sounds like someone who defies his so-called limitations and goes about playing winning baseball game after game.

[Greg Pappas]

Thanks Greg. Just from reading about him - assuming he doesn't lose any range - he seems to have a lot of the qualities Mike Bordick had - with better bat speed and hitting potential. I like how one of the main criticisms of him is his speed, and then he goes out and steals 24 of 26 tries. Sounds like someone who defies his so-called limitations and goes about playing winning baseball game after game.

Yeah, I really like Colon. He may not be a superstar, but I'd be pleased with a line of .290/.375/.425/.800, along with solid defense, any day.

BTW, our profile of prep 1B/3B Kris Bryant is up... http://www.draftamerica.com/top-prospects.php

[Greg Pappas]

DA has a new update:

#23 and #24 Top Prospects (DeAndre Smelter and Kyle Blair) are up for review.

http://www.draftamerica.com/top-prospects.php