I’m not usually compelled to make a seven-hour round trip to scout one player, but that’s what I did last weekend when I drove from my home in Raleigh, N.C., to Columbia, where South Carolina hosted Louisiana State in both teams’ final regular season series before the SEC tournament. The featured attraction was LSU shortstop Alex Bregman, who ranks No. 4 on Kiley’s draft board and went sixth in his mock draft at the time of this writing.

A 29th-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox in 2012, Bregman has been hitting from the moment he stepped onto campus in Baton Rouge, winning the Brooks Wallace Award as the nation’s best shortstop in his freshman year. Offensively, he took a step backwards in his sophomore campaign, but seems to have added a bigger power element to his game as a junior this season, slashing .329/.417/.577 with nine home runs and 29 stolen bases through 55 games.

A native of Albuquerque, N.M., he grew up playing travel ball with Red Sox catcher Blake Swihart. Because of that friendship and the fact that the organization drafted him three years ago, it’s hard to see Bregman falling past Boston at seventh overall. But as Kiley noted in his most recent mock draft, teams ahead of Boston have eyes for him as well.

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Of the pitchers expected to be selected in the first round of this year’s draft, Virginia lefthander Nate Kirby is one of the safer bets to remain a starter as a professional. But despite a clean profile, his limited upside restrains my enthusiasm as we head down the home stretch of the college baseball schedule.

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Over the last two weeks, my insatiable desire to rank everything manifested itself in a three–part roundup of the buzz, rumors and scouting reports of this year’s top international amateur prospects and an excessively long ranking of the top prospects for this summer’s domestic draft. Earlier this year, I mentioned the top two names already making buzz in the 2016 July 2nd class, so it only seemed reasonable to also dive into the next two draft classes as well.

For obvious reasons, there’s a lot more information available for future draft classes than for future July 2 classes, but there are still limitations to what we can know at this point.

– It’s easier now to scout non-draft eligible high school players because of the showcase circuit, but scouts aren’t focusing on them so many don’t have strong opinions, much less rankings of these players. An average scout’s knowledge about guys on this list is limited to a handful of guys that are on loaded high school teams they see regularly, a guy that really stood out at one summer event they went to, collegiates that play at major programs or that were known prospects out of high school. We have video of most of these players and will start adding it to the FG YouTube page in the coming weeks.

That means making this list is combining what I’ve seen, what scouts tell me, notes from various other sources and which underclassmen are attracting interest from advisors, which is a surprisingly good indicator.

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Since the middle of March, the author has published each week a statistical report designed to serve as a nearly responsible shorthand for people who, like the author, have enthusiasm for collegiate baseball, if not actually expert knowledge of it. These posts have served as a means by which one might broadly detect which players have produced the most excellent performances of the college season.

What follows is another edition of that same thing, updated through Thursday.

As in the original edition of this same thing, what I’ve done is utilize principles introduced by Chris Mitchell on forecasting future major-league performance with minor-league stats.

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In an otherwise depressing draft season, Kyle Funkhouser did his best to raise our spirits over the weekend, delivering a signature performance that – outside of Dillon Tate and the recently injured Chris Shaw – most of this year’s top amateur prospects have yet to.

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While it is generally regarded as a basketball conference, the Missouri Valley Conference has had a penchant for producing quality professional baseball prospects.  Wichita State is the most well-renowned program both in terms of collegiate success and high-end talent (Casey Gillaspie, Conor Gillaspie, Mike Pelfrey and Braden Looper, among others), but Missouri State University has had it’s fair share of pro prospects, particularly pitchers (Ross Detwiler, Shaun Marcum, Brad Ziegler, Scott Carroll, Mike Kickham, Pierce Johnson and Nick Petree).

Junior righty Jon Harris is the present iteration of the highly-regarded MSU hurlers, and while he will not be selected as early as Detwiler (6th overall in 2007), the right hander should be off of the board in the top 40 picks.

Harris was drafted out of a St. Louis area high school in the 33rd round of the 2012 draft, and has put up solid numbers since setting foot on campus.  After pitching for the Harwich Mariners of the Cape Cod League this past summer, Harris has received some more buzz, so it was little surprise to see 20+ evaluators, including a handful of scouting directors on hand to see Harris pitch against Jacksonville University two weekends ago.

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What follows does not constitute the most rigorous of statistical analyses. Rather, it’s designed to serve as a nearly responsible shorthand for people who, like the author, have considerably more enthusiasm for than actual knowledge of the collegiate game — a shorthand means, that is, towards detecting which players have produced the most excellent performances of the college season.

As in the original edition of this same thing, what I’ve done is utilize principles introduced by Chris Mitchell on forecasting future major-league performance with minor-league stats.

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Florida State outfielder D.J. Stewart was regarded as a first-round talent heading into his junior season, but after seeing him during an Easter weekend series at N.C. State in Raleigh, I came away with a lesser opinion.

A 28th-round draft pick by the Yankees out of high school in 2012, Stewart batted .364/.469/.560 as a freshman, then slashed .351/.472/.557 as a sophomore last year on his way to being named the ACC Player of the Year. He hit a disappointing .232/.362/.316 while playing for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team last summer, although he’s now carrying a .306/ .506/.595 line through 37 games this season. I got two looks at Stewart last week – one on Thursday and the other on Saturday – which is more time than you want to spend without sunscreen at Doak Field unless you’re a masochist who delights in the stinging pain of hot showers.

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What follows does not constitute the most rigorous of statistical analyses. Rather, it’s designed to serve as a nearly responsible shorthand for people who, like the author, have considerably more enthusiasm for than actual knowledge of the collegiate game — a shorthand means, that is, towards detecting which players have produced the most excellent performances of the college season.

As in the original edition of this same thing, what I’ve done is utilize principles introduced by Chris Mitchell on forecasting future major-league performance with minor-league stats.

Read the rest of this entry »

University of North Florida OF Donnie Dewees was a largely unknown quantity coming out of high school in Crystal River, Florida.  Three years after going undrafted, Dewees has put himself in position to be selected within the first 100 picks, and given the crooked numbers he has put up thus far, he has a chance go significantly higher.

Background

For the (many) uninitiated, let me give some background on Dewees. The left-handed hitting outfielder quickly worked his way into the starting lineup as a true freshman during the 2013 season, finished with a .347/.429/.535 line in 248 plate appearances, and garnered numerous conference and national awards.  He continued to hit in summer ball, posting a .321/.393/.526 triple-slash with 12 HR in the competitive Northwoods League.

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