Innholdsfortegnelse for June - July 2022 i Baseball America

Ken Griffey Jr. helped make the MLB draft mainstream. As the son of a famous player who starred for the Big Red Machine, Junior was a marquee name even as a 17-year-old Moeller High senior. The Mariners selected Griffey first overall in the 1987 draft. Almost immediately, he was a sensation. Heading into 1988, he ranked as Seattle’s No. 1 prospect. In 1989, a 19-year-old Griffey was the Mariners’ Opening Day center fielder. He was well on his way to becoming the face of baseball in the 1990s. For its June 10 issue in 1990, Baseball America flatly stated that Griffey was “the best No. 1 pick of all time.” He was 20 years old at the time and had only one full MLB season under his belt. Griffey’s transcendence…

Ryan Dempster wasn’t supposed to throw in the 2008 All-Star Game. Coming off a stellar first half in his first year back in the rotation with the Cubs, Dempster had thrown just days prior. National League manager Clint Hurdle told him that, unfortunately, he wouldn’t be available to pitch. Naturally, this bummed out the 31-year-old Dempster, whose first all-star bid came eight years earlier. While Dempster had committed to Notre Dame out of his British Columbia high school after a storied prep career, he had little interest in college ball. He signed with the Rangers as a third-round pick in 1995. Despite a desire to turn pro quickly, he didn’t know much about the road ahead. “I just knew that the bus rides were going to be long,” Dempster said,…

Florida and California produce the most professional baseball players per capita in the country. So it’s not surprising that those two states have most frequently frontloaded the Baseball America draft rankings with multiple high school prospects inside the top 10 in the class. Thirteen times in 42 draft classes have Florida and California placed multiple prep prospects among the top 10 overall on the BA board. Two recent draft classes are notable in this regard. California preps Hunter Greene and Royce Lewis ranked Nos. 1 and 5 in the 2017 draft ranking. Both are MLB rookies this season. In 2015, Florida high schoolers Brendan Rodgers and Kyle Tucker ranked Nos. 1 and 8 on the BA board. Today, both are 25-year-old MLB regulars. This year, the state of Georgia has…

BEST HITTER High School College 1. Termarr Johnson (#4) 1. Brooks Lee (#2) 2. Druw Jones (#1) 2. Kevin Parada (#6) 3. Cole Young (#15) 3. Cam Collier (#10) 4. Jackson Holliday (#3) 4. Jacob Berry (#7) 5. Malcolm Moore (#64) 5. Jace Jung (#8) BEST POWER High School College 1. Elijah Green (#5) 1. Ivan Melendez (#86) 2. Xavier Isaac (#93) 2. Kevin Parada (#6) 3. Sal Stewart (#59) 3. Gabriel Rincones (#107) 4. Malcolm Moore (#64) 4. Tyler Locklear (#112) 5. Henry Bolte (#41) 5. Jordan Beck (#32) BEST SPEED High School College 1. Jeric Curtis (#101) 1. Chandler Simpson (#90) 2. Chandler Pollard (#152) 2. Joe Lampe (#74) 3. Druw Jones (#1) 3. Tyresse Turner (#189) 4. Justin Crawford (#18) 4. Brock Jones (#29) 5. Jordan Taylor…

Rick Monday was the first-ever pick in the first-ever draft in 1965. He had a fine career, swatting 241 homer runs and making two all-star teams in a 19-year career. Monday did not come close to making the Hall of Fame—and neither have the vast majority of No. 1 overall picks in the MLB draft. As the draft nears its 60th anniversary, just two of 57 first overall picks—Ken Griffey Jr. (1987) and Chipper Jones (1990)—have been elected to the Hall of Fame by the writers. Harold Baines (1977) got into Cooperstown via an Era Committee vote, while Alex Rodriguez (1993) appeared on his first writers’ ballot in 2022 and received 34% of the vote. Joe Mauer (2001) will have his HOF case considered for the first time in 2024.…

KEVIN PARADA, C GEORGIA TECH Parada was an advanced offensive player upon his arrival on campus and had a standout freshman season in 2021. But as a sophomore this season he took a huge step forward, particularly when it comes to power production. With 26 home runs, he had arguably the best offensive season for any full-time catcher in modern college baseball history. MAX WAGNER, 3B CLEMSON One of the best breakout stories in college baseball, Wagner went from hitting .214 in 84 at-bats in 2021 to putting up a monster sophomore season in 2022 on the way to being named Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year. He hit .369/.496/.852 with 27 home runs and 76 RBIs and was flying up draft boards ahead of this summer’s draft. IVAN…

Henderson Cashes In On Lofty Potential The Orioles viewed Alabama high school shortstop Gunnar Henderson as a project of sorts when drafting him in the second round in 2019 out of Morgan Academy. Now, he is beginning to look like the organization’s shortstop of the future. Henderson is maturing physically and as a baseball player in his age-21 season with Double-A Bowie. He hit .312/.452/.573 with eight home runs and 12 stolen bases in 47 games before a June 8 promotion to Triple-A Norfolk. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Henderson had 41 walks and 38 strikeouts with Bowie. The lefthanded batter cut his strikeout rate from 30% in 2021 to 18% this year. “I think in particular the walk-to-strikeout ratio with the power that he’s showing is very intriguing,” Orioles vice president…

One year ago, a major league debut had to be the furthest thing from Chase Silseth’s mind. The righthander finished his 2021 season at Arizona with a 5.55 ERA and 1.45 WHIP, both reflective of a pitcher who struggled to limit hard contact. Yet, there Silseth was on a major league mound on May 13, less than a year after the Angels drafted him in the 11th round as they aggressively targeted college pitching. Silseth had pitched his way to Double-A Rocket City in his pro debut last summer and came out firing in 2022. He generated at least a dozen swinging strikes in each of his first four Southern League outings, and his ERA stood at 1.73 over 26 innings when the Angels called him up—the first 2021 draftee…

John “Jack” Kaiser was the first person to reach the College World Series as a player and a coach. As an outfielder, Kaiser led St. John’s to the 1949 CWS. After a brief stint in the Red Sox minor league system, he returned to St. John’s, first as an assistant and then as the team’s head coach from 1956. He led them to 11 NCAA Tournament appearances and a 1960 CWS appearance as well as further appearances in 1966 and ’68. He was 367-133-2 as head coach. Kaiser moved upstairs from coach to become St. John’s athletic director in 1973. He almost immediately created women’s varsity sports at the school. Kaiser held that role for 22 years. He was one of the ADs who helped found the Big East Conference…

What are your thoughts on Elly De La Cruz’s start to the season? Shady from Dayton, Ohio When the Reds’ Elly De La Cruz had a solid but unspectacular start to the season with High-A Dayton, there were club officials who predicted that once the weather began to warm up, so would the 20-year-old shortstop. They seem to have been on to something. On May 1, De La Cruz was hitting .254/.288/.476. He went 2-for-4 on May 1 and had been on a roll ever since. In his first 39 games from May 1 onward, De La Cruz hit .325/.381/.643 with 10 home runs and 12 stolen bases in the Midwest League. It does seem that once the weather warmed up to more of what De La Cruz is accustomed…

It is the best of times and the worst of times for college players at the top of the 2022 draft. After down years in 2020 and 2021, the strength of the college hitter class rebounded in a big way this year. Six rank among the top 11 prospects for the 2022 draft, headed by Cal Poly shortstop Brooks Lee, Georgia Tech catcher Kevin Parada and Louisiana State third baseman Jacob Berry. The most college hitters ever drafted in the top 11 picks of a draft is seven, which happened in 1985. The 2018 and 2019 drafts featured six each, which is a very real possibility for this year. The story for college pitchers is the polar opposite. Scouts cannot remember a weaker crop of first-round-caliber college arms. Former Vanderbilt…

1 IT MIGHT BE THE BEST YEAR EVER FOR TALENTED PLAYERS IN GEORGIA There’s a good chance their scouting directors and high-end decision-makers with teams picking at the top of the draft this year got heavily acquainted with baseball fields in Georgia. The Peach State is annually one of the better talent-producers in the country. Georgia falls behind only behind California, Florida and Texas on the volume of pro players produced, and the 2022 class has a chance to be one of the strongest years ever for the state. High school center fielder Druw Jones, the consensus top player in the class, hails from Georgia. So does shortstop Termarr Johnson, the No. 4 prospect, who is one of the most accomplished, polished and impressive amateur hitters scouts have seen in…

One thing has been constant all draft season: Hitters are dominating the top of the board and the entire first round as a whole. In fact, 22 of the 30 first-round picks in this mock are hitters, and the first pitcher doesn’t come off the board until the 14th pick. That would represent the longest shutout of pitchers in the history of the draft. Additionally, the first college pitcher doesn’t come off the board until No. 17, which would be the longest shutout of college pitchers since the 1960s. Twenty-two hitters would tie the 2019 draft for the most ever selected in the first round. A group of six or seven hitters at the top of the draft seem to be forming a consensus of top-tier players. Like this year’s…

When James Click took over as Astros general manager before the 2020 season, one of his first tasks was to assess the state of the organization. Very quickly, Click came to a realization. After years of cutting scouts under previous GM Jeff Luhnow, the Astros did not have enough personnel to sufficiently evaluate amateur players. “The Astros organization has done a lot over the last decade to push things forward in baseball and to add new information and new ways of evaluating players,” Click said. “But at the end of the day, the scout being in the ballpark, being in the house, being able to get a feel for the person and not just the data on the field, is something that we place a lot of value on. “And…

BEST FASTBALL High School College 1. Dylan Lesko (#13) 1. Ben Joyce (#82) 2. Brock Porter (#12) 2. Reggie Crawford (#55) 3. Cole Phillips (#80) 3. Landon Sims (#22) 4. Chase Shores (#91) 4. Andrew Walters (#175) 5. Nazier Mule (#97) 5. Zach Maxwell (#172) BEST BREAKING BALL High School College 1. Riley Kelly (#95) 1. Kumar Rocker (#19) 2. Jackson Cox (#43) 2. Landon Sims (#22) 3. Robby Snelling (#23) 3. Connor Prielipp (#37) 4. Jacob Miller (#33) 4. Ben Joyce (#82) 5. Andrew Dutkanych (#35) 5. Peyton Pallette (#38) BEST CHANGEUP High School College 1. Dylan Lesko (#13) 1. Carson Whisenhunt (#30) 2. Brock Porter (#12) 2. Drew Thorpe (#58) 3. Jacob Zibin (#121) 3. Parker Messick (#75) 4. Jackson Ferris (#34) 4. Justin Campbell (#27) 5. Michael…

Jackson Holliday was destined to be a star baseball player in high school, and a veteran starter for one of the top high school baseball programs in Oklahoma knew it would happen before Holliday was even in high school. Holliday spent time playing with Stillwater High over the summer as a rising ninth grader. That was when his family lived in Florida while they were figuring out the future in the closing months of his father’s MLB career. Seven-time all-star Matt Holliday was putting a cap on his 15-year career in a 2018 playoff run with the same Rockies organization that had drafted him in the seventh round in 1998 out of Stillwater High. “(Jackson) was always about whatever was best for the family, and we just felt like getting…

Fletcher Handles Double-A With Ease Dominic Fletcher might not have had the kind of Double-A season he wanted in 2021, but the outfielder still managed to find positives. Those positives, he believes, help explain his hot start to this season. The 2019 supplemental second-rounder from Arkansas started slowly last season but finished strong, then carried that success into this year. After being sent back to Double-A Amarillo to open 2022, Fletcher hit .346/.408/.591 in 32 games to earn a mid-May promotion to Triple-A Reno. The 24-year-old Fletcher said he has refined his approach this season by waiting for pitches he can handle and expanding the zone less. He said he is using the whole field better and being more competitive with two strikes. “He looks like he’s so much more…

Stoneman Douglas High is building a dynasty in South Florida. Located in Parkland—about 25 miles north of Fort Lauderdale and 45 miles north of Miami—the program captured back-toback Florida 7A state championships this season. Earlier this year, Stoneman Douglas became the second non-California program to win USA Baseball’s National High School Invitational, which has operated since 2012. On its way to complete domination this season, the team won a school-record of 30 games, ending the season on a 22-game winning streak. Hopefully, the Eagles have room on their trophy shelf for one last accolade: the Baseball America High School Team of the Year award. Stoneman Douglas won the TOY award previously in 2016, giving them two nods in the past seven seasons. Coach Todd Fitz-Gerald has coached Stoneman Douglas for…

Of all the many people to have written about baseball over the years, few have managed to do so like Roger Angell. The long-time New Yorker writer and editor wrote about baseball with insights and poetry. He also wrote about it with joy. Angell died on May 20 at the age of 101. The Spink Award winner became the first person to ever win that honor without being a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Angell wasn’t a baseball writer in the traditional sense. He never worked a baseball beat. And his job at the New Yorker meant he worked with many of the world’s bestfiction writers as well. But baseball was clearly a love, and Angell revisited his love in the pages of The New Yorker on…

The 1985 draft was famous at the time for its depth of talent, especially college hitting. North Carolina catcher BJ Surhoff went first overall and was followed by Will Clark, Barry Larkin and Barry Bonds in the top eight picks alone. That draft was the most robust for college hitters in the Baseball America era, which dates back to 1981. The tables below display the top first rounds in terms of industry esteem for each of the four major draft demographics based on where players were drafted and how many were drafted in the top 25 picks. Best college hitter class of BA era 1985 DRAFT The 1985 draft will probably never be topped for overall talent. Fourth overall pick Barry Larkin is a Hall of Famer. So are pitchers Randy…

Every year, the state of Georgia is a hot spot for the draft. The state has produced 24 first-round picks since 2012, the first draft of the bonus pool era, with signing bonuses for those two dozen players adding up to almost $80 million. Since 2000, Georgia has produced 51 first-round picks—an average of more than two per year—including 16 players drafted among the top 10 overall picks and 10 who signed for at least $4 million. Players like Mark Teixeira, Adam Wainwright, Jason Heyward, Nick Markakis and Brian McCann are among the most successful players the state has produced since 2000. And there’s no shortage of prospects looking to join that group who should make an MLB impact sooner rather than later. That list includes Padres shortstop CJ Abrams,…

Where are all the arms? That’s a question that scouting departments were asking about the 2022 draft class before the college season kicked off. And while there have been several high-performing college pitchers this spring, the combination of injuries, lack of innings and lack of proven starters has taken a massive toll on the pitching talent—particularly from the college demographic. When polling scouting directors about the draft entering the year, every demographic outside of college pitching received above-average grades. College pitchers were assessed as a 40 on the 20-80 scouting scale. Compared to the previous five drafts—2017 to 2021—the 2022 college pitching group entered with a startling lack of track record and industry appeal. Pitchers who ranked among the top 100 draft prospects this preseason entered the 2022 season with…

BEST DEFENSIVE CATCHER High School College 1. Adonys Guzman (#161) 1. Hayden Dunhurst (#139) 2. Brady Neal (#66) 2. Silas Ardoin (#120) 3. Ike Irish (#170) 3. Logan Tanner (#68) 4. Beau Sylvester (#145) 4. Daniel Susac (#11) 5. Brooks Brannon (#150) 5. Kody Huff (#178) BEST DEFENSIVE INFIELDER High School College 1. Anthony Silva (#137) 1. Ryan Ritter (#114) 2. Cutter Coffey (#63) 2. Trey Faltine (#140) 3. Jackson Holliday (#3) 3. Jalen Battles (#151) 4. Cole Young (#15) 4. Carter Young (#165) 5. Jett Williams (#16) 5. Josh Kasevich (#47) BEST DEFENSIVE OUTFIELDER High School College 1. Druw Jones (#1) 1. Jud Fabian (#57) 2. Justin Crawford (#18) 2. Ryan Cermak (#39) 3. Jordan Taylor (#84) 3. Brock Jones (#29) 4. Jeric Curtis (#101) 4. Drew Gilbert (#21)…

There are myriad reasons why Texas first baseman Ivan Melendez’s 2022 season shouldn’t have happened the way it did, beginning with the fact that it’s unreasonable to expect any player, no matter how talented, to do what he did. It certainly wasn’t the expectation upon his arrival in Austin. “I can just look back and see him hanging out in our dugout, a little insecure and just hoping that he fits into the program and that he can be a contributor,” Texas coach David Pierce said. “I never saw this coming.” This, as it turns out, is arguably the best offensive season any player has had since college baseball switched to the current BBCOR bats for the 2011 season. Going into the College World Series, Melendez had hit .396/.516/.888 with…

MALCOLM MOORE, C McCLATCHY HS SACRAMENTO Moore is probably going to move off catcher at the next level, but he’s also probably going to hit, hit and hit some more. He’s an advanced lefthanded hitter who can use the entire field for average, with plus raw power in the tank that should make him a middle-of-the-order fixture regardless of his position. JACKSON HOLLIDAY, MI STILLWATER HS STILLWATER, OKLA. Holliday checks most boxes for scouts, with pure hitting ability, some power now and more to come, plus speed, defensive instincts at shortstop and a strong arm. To make things more exciting, the Player of the Year hits from the left side and is the son of seven-time allstar Matt Holliday. He should go high on draft day. SAL STEWART, CI WESTMINSTER…

When MacKenzie Gore made his MLB debut for the Padres on April 16, it was more than just the debut of a long-heralded prospect. It was a return to prominence for a talented young pitcher whose career had been in a free fall for the better part of two years, and a sign that perhaps the version of Gore that was once the best pitching prospect in baseball is back. Gore had shined in his first MLB stint, logging a 3.64 ERA through his first 11 games (10 starts) with 61 strikeouts and 24 walks in 54.1 innings. It’s a stark turnaround from what transpired the previous two years. The 22-year-old lefthander ranked as the top pitching prospect in baseball entering 2020, but his delivery fell out of sync during…

For 36 years, Jeff Brookens hit the road, scouting amateur players for the Cubs, Brewers and Reds. Countless ballparks. Countless miles. Hundreds and hundreds of players. But he so loved baseball and sports in general, that in the baseball offseason, Brookens worked as a referee for football and basketball games. His officiating career lasted as long as his scouting career. He was involved in the game at all levels. Brookens died in April. He was 69. He leaves behind a lengthy list of big leaguers he scouted and signed, and a next generation still on the way up. He was the signing scout for 2020 Reds first-round pick Austin Hendrick and lefthander 2021 second-rounder Andrew Abbott. He also signed Chris Heisey—a 17th-round find out of Division III Messiah in Pennsylvania—Mike…

◼ John Brownlee, RHP, age 68 Athletics minor leaguer, 1972-78 ◼ Joe Buckstead, C, age 88 Pirates minor leaguer, 1951-53 ◼ Ronnie Caldwell, RHP, age 64 Expos minor leaguer, 1979-81 ◼ Barry Carter, INF, age 75 Mets minor leaguer, 1966-67 ◼ Bryan Caruso, C, age 42 Independent Northeast Leaguer, 2002-03 ◼ Ernest Cecaci, age 92 Diablo Valley (CA) JC head coach for two decades ◼ Lioner Evelyn, SP, age 92 Negro leaguer in the 1950s ◼ Don Flynn, age 83 Temple (Pa.) coach ◼ Jeff Forney, OF, age 57 Reds minor leaguer, 1985-90 ◼ Cody Fuller, OF, age 39 Angels minor leaguer, 2005-08 ◼ Jared Holve, 1B, age 71 Angels minor leaguer, 1969-70 ◼ Bill Johnson, age 83 Orioles minor leaguer, 1961; and scout and Spokane Falls (Wash.) JC coach…