The summer showcase circuit helps put a lot of players on the map. But last summer, during a game on July 9 at the 2010 World Wood Bat Association 17U National Championship—commonly referred to by scouts as East Cobb—a player was nearly removed from consideration.

Carl Thomore, an athletic outfielder from East Brunswick High in New Jersey, was on second base for his summer team, the New Jersey Twins, when the opposing pitcher tried to pick him off. The throw sailed into center field and Thomore broke for third. But as he was sliding into the bag, his left cleat got caught in the dirt, which dislocated and fractured his ankle.

Just like that, Thomore's baseball dreams were up in the air.

"I knew it was bad when I saw the other team praying for me," Thomore said.

The break was bad and Thomore's foot was beginning to turn purple. Luckily, an orthopedic surgeon happened to be watching the game and ran out onto the field to offer assistance. He knew a decision had to be made quickly and offered Thomore this choice: We can call an ambulance and you can go to the hospital, but there's a chance you'll lose too much circulation in your foot, which could lead to serious complications. Or we can set the bone right here, right now.
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Here are the weekend stats for the nation's top draft-eligible college players, listed alphabetically by school. The stats were collected by CollegeSplits.com. Follow CollegeSplits on Twitter @collegesplits. The list of players was selected before the season to include this year's top college talent for the draft.
 

Holly Springs (N.C.) High lefthander Carlos Rodon took the mound March 24 in a home game against Green Hope High and about 30 scouts—including several east coast crosscheckers—filled the small set of bleachers behind home plate.

It was a chilly evening at about 57 degrees, but the 10 mph wind gusts made it seem even colder. The weather may have affected Rodon, as he wasn't his best last night.

Rodon entered the season as Baseball America's No. 66 prospect, thanks to his athletic, 6-foot-2, 210-pound frame and the fact that he touched 93 mph this summer.

In last night's game, Rodon started off the first inning with ease, needing only 10 pitches to retire the first three batters with two strikeouts and a ground out to second base.

That inning, his fastball was 87-88 mph and he touched 90 once. But, as the game went on, Rodon's fastball lost it's zip. By the third inning, he was sitting 83-85 mph.
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About two months ago, just days before The Bolles School began baseball tryouts, shortstop Austin Slater was playing Frisbee with a few teammates, just blowing off some steam before the season. The game ended when Slater came down awkwardly and broke his ankle.

The injury, which Slater described as “kind of a bummer,” required surgery and doctors inserted a plate and a couple screws about a week later. Slater’s senior season is in jeopardy, though he is hopeful he will be able to return to action in time for the playoffs in early May.

Missing all or most of his senior season will likely hurt Slater’s stock in June’s MLB Draft. He is committed to Stanford, but was drawing plenty of attention from pro scouts as well. Before he was injured, Slater said teams had already invited him to predraft workouts and many others were interested in scouting him during the season.

“I’m hoping to be 100 percent by then,” Slater said. “Hopefully [teams] like what they see if I went out to some of those predraft workouts.”
[...] Continue Reading »

Here are the weekend stats for the nation's top draft-eligible college players, listed alphabetically by school. The stats were collected by CollegeSplits.com. Follow CollegeSplits on Twitter @collegesplits. The list of players was selected before the season to include this year's top college talent for the draft.

West Boca (Fla.) High is led by All-American seniors, shortstop Tyler Greene and righthander Mike Kelly, but they're not the only talented players on the team. The team has a group of underclassmen that has also helped the Bulls get off to a 9-4 start this season.

Head coach Nick Siano talked about some of his players that are making a name for themselves for the 2012 draft and beyond. . .

Michael Barash, C, 2013
"He has great upside. He's only a sophomore and he receives the ball really well, blocks it well and throws it well. He's going to be something special in the future. He's not afraid of anything and he really feeds off of Michael and Tyler. And he works hard—he's one of the first guys in and one of the last guys out and that's something you don't see all the time from a sophomore. Plus, to receive the ball as well as he does and to hit as a sophomore, he's got a bright future."

Parker Danciu, LHP/OF, 2012
"He's a lefty that's 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, I mean he's a man. And he's got some good stuff. His fastball is in the mid-80s now and he also throws a curveball and a changeup, but the sky's the limit for him, as well. If he realizes what he's got and puts it all together, he's something special. At the next level he can do both hitting and pitching, but he's definitely seen as more of a pitcher."

Ryan Owens, RHP, 2012
"Ryan Owens has a big frame. He's probably a 6-foot-4, 225 (pound) guy. He throws real hard, 87-89 (mph) with a good breaking ball. His offspeed pitches he needs to work on, but he's got a heavy ball and he strikes a lot of guys out. He has potential definitely for Division I."

Thomas Stallone, 1B, 2012
"He's a first baseman and a big buy that hits the ball hard. He's another big guy. If you look at our lineup from top to bottom, we've got some big kids. I think that he has grown a lot in the last couple years and he's still starting to come into his own and realize what he has. He's got a lot of raw potential power that he just needs to funnel into himself to show up, but he's going to be pretty good too. He's got to do some things to his swing—he's not fully there—but he's got some tools."

Running onto the court at Assembly Hall decked out in the crimson and cream candy-striped warmup pants as the band plays and the crowd goes wild. Playing for the Indiana Hoosiers is the dream of every boy in Indiana who has ever picked up a basketball and been raised on the virtues of Bob Knight and the bounce pass.

Jerrick Suiter had a chance to live that dream. Despite being an all-Duneland Conference basketball player as a sophomore and junior at Valparaiso (Ind.) High, it was Suiter’s baseball talents that almost landed him on the end of the Hoosiers’ bench.

While baseball coach Tracy Smith was recruiting Suiter to play for Indiana, basketball coach Tom Crean offered him a chance to walk on to the basketball team. It was stunning. It was tempting. It was a dream come true. [...] Continue Reading »

Here are the weekend stats for the nation's top draft-eligible college players, listed alphabetically by school. The stats were collected by CollegeSplits.com. Follow CollegeSplits on Twitter @collegesplits.
 

ORLANDO — In the shadows of Disney World and Universal Studios, about 20 scouts came out to see Francisco Lindor's Montverde Academy take on Olympia High—a team that features a few notable underclassmen.

But scouts keying in on Lindor didn't get to see much. He took some pre-game batting practice in one of Olympia's batting cages and then showed his usual lightning-quick hands and fluid actions at shortstop during infield and outfield drills, but didn't have much chance to make an impact once the game started. [...] Continue Reading »

When you think of baseball prospects from the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic will typically dominate the thought, with Puerto Rico and maybe even Curacao entering the picture. The U.S. Virgin Islands isn't nearly on the same level, but Darren Canton is doing all he can to get players there noticed.

Canton grew up in New York, playing in the Brooklyn Bonnies youth organization but returned to his family's roots of the Virgin Islands as an adult to see if he could have an influence in baseball. He took with him the hard-nosed mentality he learned from his Bonnies coaches and began the Virgin Islands Future Stars Baseball program. [...] Continue Reading »

Nearly seven months after the signing deadline that applies to most draftees, the Mariners finally signed 2010 fourth-round pick James Paxton on March 4. The lefthander received $942,500, the largest bonus Seattle paid any of its 2010 draftees and more than four times MLB's recommended $209,700 payout for the 132nd overall pick.

In 2009, the Blue Jays drafted Paxton 37th overall out of the University of Kentucky, but they couldn't sign the native Canadian. After Paxton turned down Toronto's final offer of $1 million, team president Paul Beeston told a Toronto newspaper that he had negotiated directly with Paxton's adviser, Scott Boras, which would be a violation of NCAA rules. The Wildcats wouldn't allow Paxton to play until he submitted to an interview with the NCAA, and when he couldn't secure a temporary injunction in the Kentucky courts, he left the team and signed with the independent Grand Prairie AirHogs of the American Association.

[...] Continue Reading »

Here are the weekend stats for the nation's top draft-eligible college players, listed alphabetically by school. The stats were collected by CollegeSplits.com. Follow CollegeSplits on Twitter @collegesplits. [...] Continue Reading »

HOUSTON—It's not hard to envision Alex Meyer blowing away big league hitters someday with his overpowering fastball and power breaking ball. There might not be a better example in the 2011 draft class of a huge-reward, high-risk talent than Kentucky's 6-foot-8 junior righthander. In that way, he's similar to former North Carolina State righthander Andrew Brackman, another very tall pitcher with sometimes-overwhelming stuff, and another Scott Boras Corp. advisee who required a significant financial investment from the club that drafted him. Meyer already turned down a reported $2 million out of high school from the Red Sox, and he doesn't figure to be an easy sign as a college junior, either.

But in front of a throng of scouting heavyweights Saturday at Minute Maid Park, Meyer showed enough tantalizing promise that some scouts were clamoring that he could very well go in the top 10 picks this June.

"Somebody's going to bite hard on Meyer," a National League scouting director said. "They'll see two potential 70 pitches (on the 20-80 scouting scale)—the fastball and the breaking ball. I see the breaking ball as more of a 60. I think he's a reliever (down the road)—he just won't throw enough strikes."

Meyer struck out six and walked three over 6 2/3 innings Saturday against Houston, allowing four earned runs on five hits. He had limited the Cougars to just one run until the seventh, when UK coach Gary Henderson said the game sped up on him a bit.

"It was the fourth time through the lineup, they'd seen some fastballs, they were on it," Meyer said of Houston's seventh, which turned into a six-run rally, propeling the Cougars to an 8-5 win. "I probably should have thrown some more offspeed. They ended up getting the barrel on some breaking balls too, but mostly fastballs." [...] Continue Reading »

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Video shot by: Alyson Boyer Rode

Scouts flocked to Southern Pines, N.C. yesterday for a matchup between Forsyth Country Day School (Lewisville, N.C.) and Pinecrest High. Pinecrest's starter was righthander Dillon Maples and he was going up against a loaded Forsyth squad that features five Division I players.

Scouts love matchup games and nearly 50 of them crowded in behind home plate, including a handful of crosscheckers and at least two scouting directors.

Maples sat in the 91-93 mph range with his fastball and touched 95 twice. The pitch had some armside movement, but he had trouble hitting his spots with it, leading to a lot of deep counts. Maples was on a pitch count of 60-75 and the deep counts limited how long he could stay in the game. He threw his curveball for strikes between 78-80 mph, but the pitch was a little slurvy at times.

Maples said he didn't feel like he had his best stuff and I can attest to that, as well. I've seen him at his best. He was dominant during his first outing at the Team USA 18U Trials this summer, with a fastball up to 96 mph and a tight, hammer curveball. He said that's the outing he tries to replicate each time he takes the mound.

"Early in the innings, I wasn't getting ahead with fastballs, so I couldn't establish the breaking ball," Maples said. "But I think later on, I started to get ahead with first-pitch strikes then I could start working in the breaking ball."

Maples wound up going 3 2/3 innings, giving up one run on one hit with two walks and seven strikeouts. He didn't dominate, but it was a solid outing, especially since it was his first official game of the season.

The lone hit Maples gave up was an opposite-field home run to Forsyth's George Carter—normally a first baseman, but the starting right fielder in this game. Maples threw a 91 mph two-seam fastball that caught too much of the plate and Carter destroyed it to left-center for a no-doubt home run. It was a line drive home run that looked to still be rising as it cleared the fence and Carter took his sweet time watching it leave as he slowly jogged to first base.

"I didn't care," Maples said. "The scoreboard says it all. He can pimp it if we win."
[...] Continue Reading »