Tornados and the draft

As fellow blogger recovers from cancer surgery (good luck Tony and our prayers are with you), tornados ripped through Northern St. Louis County where I live.   It was still 6-7 miles south of us but scary, nonetheless. 

Baseball America, in their latest midseason top 50 for the 2011 draft had Trevor Bauer, rated by this blog as the early favorite to be the Indians first round pick, as the 8th best prospect.  The Indians draft 8th.

Bauer's 2011 stats, including his 17 K, 4 hit, 2 walk complete game last night against 23rd ranked Stanford are:

1.42 ERA, 41 hits in 82 innings, 127 Ks (about 1.5 per inning) and 25 BB in 10 starts.  A little worrisome in pitch count as he threw 135 pitches last night and at 8 1/3 innings per start he is probably up over 110 pitches every time out.  Also, he is not tall (6'1" listed, probably 6-0" really) and has an unorthodox motion. 

Interesting things about the list:

John Stilson from Texas A&M was ranked 30th!  This seems low to me.  I guess his stuff may come up short  (his Ks this year have dropped from about 1.5 per inning to about 1.1) but his ERA is 1.05 and he is dominant in most starts as he has given up 60 hits in 81 innings.   If we only had two picks in the top 20....

Taylor Jungmann is 13th ranked and Matt Barnes is 14th ranked.  Interestingly I would right now consider taking either of these guys over Bauer.  Bauer is dominant but the lack of size and unorthodox delivery scare me.   BA indicated that last year Barnes would have been in the running for the top college pitcher in the draft last year.  That pitcher was Drew Pomeranz.  So, if he is healthy, either Barnes (or Jungmann, who is consistently rated more highly) would be great picks and I think a little safer than Bauer.

Matt Purke from TCU has been hurt and is a sophomore.  If you want to throw the bank at the guy he could be available in the 2nd round.

Both Okalahoma HS pitchers, Dylan Bunday and Archie Bradley are rated low enough we might be able to get either at #8.  Both might be tough signs. 

There are position players in this draft but their top 50 has only 4 of the top 17 prospects are hitters. 

Next time around I will talk about the college players who have dropped significantly during this draft year and may be later round gems.