The Draft Thoughts and Info Baumann Couldn’t Keep to Himself

As the draft comes to an end, I find that even after writing a number of articles about this class, I still have more to say. So now that the tables are being folded up and the bartender is cleaning out the taps, here’s an offering of potpourri from draft season: Stray anecdotes and quotes from the combine, or bits of analysis, that never found a home in an article.

Last week, I wrote about the top of this draft being loaded with Tennessee players, and sure enough: Three Vols went off the board in the first round, with four more going between picks no. 33 and 72.

But you could argue that the real school of the draft was Corona High School of California, which had right-hander Seth Hernandez go to the Pirates sixth overall, shortstop Billy Carlson go to the White Sox at pick no. 10, and third baseman Brady Ebel go to Milwaukee at pick no. 32. (In an amusing coincidence, Carlson is committed to Tennessee, though after he went in the top 10, I doubt we’ll ever see him in Knoxville except as a tourist.)

Carlson has some yellow flags on his profile: While he’s a stupendous defensive shortstop, he turns 19 in two weeks. His 185-pound frame is not especially imposing in a world where top shortstop prospects look like Konnor Griffin. And there are some minor but non-trivial questions about how his bat will translate to the pros.

Carlson did come out of the gate swinging when I interviewed him at the combine. He said one team had asked him what could go wrong that would prevent him from making the majors. Carlson’s answer: “A car crash.”

He went on to say that during his interviews, he was telling teams that he had his own training methods he wasn’t willing to compromise on. Better to make that known now, he said, rather than risk a clash over it after the team had already spent a high pick on him.

“I go against the grain a little bit in the weight room,” Carlson explained. “If having big legs helped you hit the ball a million miles, I’d be the last person picked. I’m a very small, skinny guy, kind of like a greyhound. I’m not a pit bull, so I don’t think I should train like one. I’ve done that in the past, and I haven’t seen the results I wanted.”

What does training like a greyhound look like?

“For example, I’ll do the bench press, but the weights will be hanging from the bar with bands,” he said. “You’re doing it, but it’s shaking you around, and you have to stabilize your core. I feel like you use your core a lot when you hit, and hitting is not one isolation of one muscle. It’s a group of muscles doing the majority of the work.”

I don’t know enough about working out to have a strong opinion on whether Carlson is right or wrong, but I do like to see a draft prospect — especially a high schooler — taking ownership not only over his own training regimen, but over what organization might want to pick him. And Carlson’s framing, that he’s just helping teams make an informed decision about him, seems reasonable. Communication is the key to a healthy relationship. Nevertheless, it is unusual to see an 18-year-old tell a major league team not to draft him if they don’t like the way he benches.

“I feel like I’ve earned the privilege,” Carlson said. “I played pretty well this spring, and if I didn’t, then I probably wouldn’t be in the position I’m in now to be able to call a little bit of the shots. I feel like, if you’re taking me with your first pick, you’re doing it for a reason, right? Like, I could be the face of the organization. So let’s do this thing, and let me be me, and let me help you win some games.”

Eric Longenhagen had Carlson ranked 12th on his draft board and mocked him to the Cardinals with pick no. 5. On Sunday night, Liam Doyle unexpectedly fell to no. 5, knocking Carlson back to the 10th pick and Chicago. In other words, it doesn’t seem like Carlson’s strong opinions on training hurt his draft stock any in the end.

…

Eric gave the Athletics high marks for their Day One haul, taking Jamie Arnold at no. 11 and Indiana outfielder Devin Taylor at no. 48. My feelings about Arnold are well known, and while I like him more than Eric does, both of us were high on Taylor, a three-time First Team All-Big Ten honoree.

Taylor isn’t a huge guy, only 6-foot-1, but he’s rock-solid and he can flat-out hit. He’s Indiana’s career home run leader, with 54 dingers in 169 career games. (Kyle Schwarber played in a much less hitter-friendly era, but even so, he only managed 40 bombs in his 180 games for the Hoosiers.) Taylor has power to all fields, and he’s incredibly consistent; he hit .300/.400/.600 all three years at Indiana, and he hit .296/.397/.510 last summer on the Cape as well.

Taylor swings that bat hard.

“I just try to keep it as simple as possible,” Taylor said. “In the past few years, I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve gotten pitched around. I’ll get one to two pitches in an at-bat, and it’s about how can I get my A-swing off and capitalize on those one to two pitches I get in the zone?”

As much as Taylor has been consistent over his time in Bloomington, he’s also made steady improvements, chiefly in his plate discipline. As a junior, he walked 19.3% of the time, with a strikeout rate of just 11.2%.

He also seems like a pleasant person to be around. Taylor was my last interview of the combine, and, being a little tired and punchy after talking to a cavalcade of amateur ballplayers, I took suggestions from the internet on some fun questions I could ask. The winner: “If you and your team were in a Donner Party situation, which of your teammates would you eat first?”

Taylor needed a second to answer — apparently kids these days aren’t up on their historical instances of cannibalism — but he landed on a good candidate: freshman catcher Hogan Denny.

Why?

“We call him Beef.”

…

RJ Austin played all over the place at Vanderbilt. He started at second base as a freshman, first base as a sophomore, and then center field this past season, where he won a collegiate Gold Glove. In three years of college, he appeared in at least one game at every position except pitcher, catcher, and right field. (Though he did get into a couple games in right on the Cape, so we know he at least knows where it is.)

“I like playing multiple positions,” Austin said. “It’s a lot of fun, but I feel like center field is my favorite for sure.”

What’s the key to playing good center field defense?

“Anticipating everything and being ready at the pitch,” Austin said. “Outfield is a position where you can get bored out there. Balls don’t come out there, so you can get lazy, end up not paying attention. But it’s one of those things where even in practice, I run into the wall to catch the ball, because if you’re not doing that in practice, you’re going to shock yourself in the game. If you’re in the game, it should be like second nature.”

There are some real questions about Austin’s bat in the pros; he hit .257/.353/.383 as a junior. But this season his coach, Tim Corbin, gave one of my favorite compliments I’ve ever heard about a player: “He plays the game, I’m not gonna say recklessly, but he plays the game ferociously.”

What a wonderfully vivid adverb. What does Austin think about it?

“It means I play my heart out every time I’m out there,” he said. “It’s just one of those things where, whenever I’m on the field, I’m trying to beat the opponent, no matter what, no matter what I have to do.”

The Orioles took Austin 93rd overall, and if you’re starting to feel like you’ve heard of Baltimore drafting a Gold Glove-winning Vanderbilt center fielder with questions about his hit tool before, fear not. We all remember Enrique Bradfield Jr. Especially Austin, who looked up to his once and future teammate when they played together in 2023.

“Leadership,” Austin said when I asked him what he’d learned from Bradfield. “He always knew what to say to me to give me the right mindset. He knows how it feels to have all the lights on you, all the cameras on you, so he taught me the way. Just watching him be mature about how he took everything. He was professional. You never, never saw him sweat, even when he was striking out. Like, you’d never know if he was going 0-for-4 or 4-for-4. Learning those things really helped me as a player.”

…

Carlson might not think having thick legs helps much, but Michael Salina does. Salina was the Padres’ fourth-round pick, and if a pitcher goes that high out of St. Bonaventure despite currently being on the mend from Tommy John surgery, he must be good. Well, Salina’s fastball topped out at 102 before his elbow blew out.

While his throwing arm is healing up, Salina has been blasting the legs. Here’s a video from May of Salina, his right arm in a brace, squatting 485 pounds.

“It just helped me so much in going from the guy who got under-recruited in high school, being up to 91, to the guy who throws 100,” Salina said.

I asked Salina how much he wants to have on the rack by the time he starts throwing again, and while he tried to walk it back later, he threw the number 600 out there.

…

Back when I was covering college baseball more closely, I kept getting attached to toolsy college center fielders with hit tool questions. I actually think I was a pretty decent evaluator in general back then, but players like this kept pulling me in and completely face-planting once they got to the pros. Brandon Downes, David Martinelli, Jeren Kendall — the list goes on. Whatever I did, I couldn’t quit.

Toolsy college center fielders with hit tool questions are like the toxic ex who I can’t keep myself from texting at 2 a.m. Eventually, I just blocked this prospect type’s number and moved on with my life.

Then I saw George Mason outfielder James Quinn-Irons work out at the combine, and I am ready to throw it all away again. Quinn-Irons put up big exit velo numbers — sixteen of his 26 batting practice hits left the bat at 100 mph or more, topping out at 112.1, and seven of those balls traveled 385 feet or more. Only six hitters hit the ball harder; all six are corner guys and four of them went on Day One. Quinn-Irons might look like a corner guy, at 6-foot-5, 230 pounds, but he’s a center fielder who ran in the high 3.6s and stole 36 bases in 61 games this past year. I know George Mason isn’t exactly an SEC team, but he also hit .419/.523/.734.

Now for some damning with faint praise. Quinn-Irons made some of the best throws I saw during outfield drills, though his arm strength and accuracy came with a Henry Rowengartner-like hitch in his throwing motion. Eric ranked him 83rd; he wrote that Quinn-Irons “posted some of the best peak exit velocities in college baseball this year, and [he] owns a 90% zone contact rate. He managed that even though his swings are often awkward and ill-timed. Does not consistently look comfortable in the box, lower half and upper half frequently disconnected.”

I’m ready to get hurt again. It’s going to be messy. Bring a mop.

You know who else is ready to get hurt? The Rays, who in my opinion got an absolute steal by taking Quinn-Irons in the fifth round, not long after they snapped up Texas high school catcher Taitn Gray, another combine exit velo monster. The Quinn-Irons pick is my favorite of the whole draft. Whether that means it’s a good pick depends on whether my judgment has gotten better since the mid-2010s. We shall see.