Royals May Be Moving Past Miller
Andrew Miller was solid this weekend, but does Kansas City care anymore?
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--If the Royals were looking for some kind of affirmation that Andrew Miller is the right choice with the No. 1 overall pick in Tuesday's draft, they probably didn't get it in his NCAA regional start against Winthrop on Saturday.
Not that Miller did anything to hurt his stock. He just failed to dominate, allowing four earned runs on nine hits while striking out six and walking three over eight-plus innings in UNC's 14-4 win. So if the Royals were hoping that any lingering doubts would be erased by a statement game from Miller, they were disappointed. Of course, chances are they've seen enough from Miller by now to know what they're dealing with.
"He did nothing to change my mind--he was the same pitcher," said an area scout with a National League club who was on hand. "I don't think there is a club in the league that wouldn't feel confident with him at one-one. This year or any year."
It's not clear the Royals are focused on Miller with the first pick anyway. Though there was a full row of scouts with their radar guns trained on Miller at Saturday's game, no high-ranking Royals representatives were there. And the two sides don't seem like a good financial fit.
Miller reportedly wants a major league contract, the price of which started at $6 million and may now be eight figures. At the same time, Kansas City doesn't want to exceed the $4 million bonus it paid a year ago to No. 2 overall pick Alex Gordon, considered a superior talent to Miller.
Miller looked a little rusty in the early innings on Saturday, understandable given the 10-day layoff since he last pitched in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. He wriggled out of a first-and-third jam in the first inning and a second-and-third situation in the sixth to minimize the damage.
"I don't think Andrew had quite his best stuff, but he doesn't have to to be pretty good," North Carolina coach Mike Fox said. "He prevented the big inning, which is a big goal of ours."
Miller relied on a heavy diet of sliders, especially against lefthanded hitters Heath Rollins and Jacob Dempsey, two of the Eagles' biggest offensive threats. He struck out each of them twice thanks to his sharp 79-82 mph slider. Miller touched 95 mph with his four-seam fastball once in the first inning and hit 93 on a few other occasions, but for the most part he sat in the 90-92 range. He also mixed in quite a few 87-89 mph two-seam fastballs, which the scout said he uses instead of a changeup.
Miller said his stuff actually benefited a little from his long layoff between outings, even though he wasn't as sharp in the early going.
"I hadn't pitched in about 10 days going into tonight--I think that's almost too much time off," he said. "At the same time, when I don't have my best stuff is often when I get my best movement on my ball, so I might not have been throwing as hard, but it certainly helped me locate the ball. I was able to throw my slider pretty much wherever I wanted to, and that's usually a good formula for success."
--AARON FITT
Budget Crunch Hits Draft-And-Follows
When two significant draft-and-follow players went back into the draft rather than sign with the teams that took them last year, Major League Baseball may have played a bigger role than the teams' scouts.
MLB, which has established a system of recommended bonuses for every pick through the first 10 rounds, also provided bonus recommendations for significant draft-and-follows this year, sources said.
Those recommendations apparently played a big role in the Mets' decision not to sign righthander Pedro Beato, and the Devil Rays' decision not to sign righthander Bryan Morris. Both are potential first-round picks in this year's draft.
Beato was a 17th-round pick last year out of high school in Brooklyn, and he improved significantly in a year at St. Petersburg (Fla.) Junior College, showing a fastball that touched 96 mph. Beato reportedly sought a bonus of about $1.2 million, while MLB recommended a $750,000 bonus, which is about what it recommends for a pick in the middle of the second round.
The Mets decided not to challenge the recommendation and let Beato go, a decision made even more puzzling because they don't have a first-round pick this year. New York will give the No. 18 overall pick to the Phillies as compensation for signing free-agent Billy Wagner.
Beato is Baseball America's No. 13-rated prospect in this year's draft crop and is expected to go in the back of the first round now that he's back in the pool, where he should draw a bonus in the neighborhood of $1 million.
Morris was Tampa Bay's third-round pick last year, and he and the team had an oral agreement on a $1.4 million bonus last summer before the former Devil Rays management team didn't follow through on the deal. So Morris went to Motlow State (Tenn.) Community College to play for his father for a year.
MLB's recommendation for Morris' bonus was $800,000, and Morris naturally was expecting something in the neighborhood of his original agreement with the Rays. The new Rays regime was not anxious to rock the boat with MLB in its first year, so it let Morris go.
Morris is BA's No. 29 draft prospect, and he's expected to go around that point in the draft this year.
Another significant player who didn't sign with the team that drafted him, Luke Hochevar, was not affected by MLB's bonus recommendations. Hochevar was the 40th overall pick of the Dodgers, and the two sides went through acrimonious negotiations last summer before things fell apart.
Hochevar's agent, Scott Boras, talked to new Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti during spring training this year about Hochevar, but the two sides had almost no discussions after that, and there were no substantive negotiations as the signing deadline approached. So Hochevar, too, will be available on Tuesday.
DRAFT DOTS
• The player shooting up draft boards as zero hour drew closer was Canadian teenager Kyle Orr, a slugger out of Victoria, B.C. Orr is Baseball America's top-rated prospect in Canada this year, and now people are talking about him as a possible pick at the end of the first round. Orr has been an outfielder and righthanded pitcher coming up as a teenager, though he'll hit as a professional. Scouts think he'll eventually end up in right field or first base. More important, they think he has the tools to be a middle-of-the-order hitter. He has huge power from the left side of the plate and crushes the ball in batting practice. He'll need a lot of minor league at-bats to show that power in games, but in a draft woefully short of impact bats, teams are starting to think Orr might be worth a shot. Orr is committed to Kentucky, and one scout said earlier in the spring--when Orr looked like a fourth- to seventh-round pick--that it would take first-round money to sign him away from college. Now Orr might just get it.
• Jeffrey Maier is the talk of the town in Baltimore, where fans can't believe the 12-year-old boy who ruined their 1996 season is eligible for the draft--and that the Orioles are considering drafting him. By now you know that Maier, who reached over the wall at Yankee Stadium and changed the course of the American League Championship Series by grabbing a Derek Jeter fly ball and turning it into a home run, became a solid player at Wesleyan (Conn.) University and is a marginal draft prospect. Some Orioles fans think Maier's interference was the beginning of their team's downward spiral, but owner Peter Angelos said he is intrigued by the idea of bringing Maier into his franchise. "I wouldn't be at all opposed to (drafting Maier)," he told The Washington Post. "In fact, I'd say it's a very interesting development. You can say the Orioles are very seriously considering him. I know this much: I was at that game, and he certainly did seem to be a heck of an outfielder. Sure, we'd take him. In fact, I like the idea more and more, the more I think about it."
Contributing: Jim Callis, Matt Meyers.
Andrew Miller was solid this weekend, but does Kansas City care anymore?
E-mail
PrintCHAPEL HILL, N.C.--If the Royals were looking for some kind of affirmation that Andrew Miller is the right choice with the No. 1 overall pick in Tuesday's draft, they probably didn't get it in his NCAA regional start against Winthrop on Saturday.
Not that Miller did anything to hurt his stock. He just failed to dominate, allowing four earned runs on nine hits while striking out six and walking three over eight-plus innings in UNC's 14-4 win. So if the Royals were hoping that any lingering doubts would be erased by a statement game from Miller, they were disappointed. Of course, chances are they've seen enough from Miller by now to know what they're dealing with.
"He did nothing to change my mind--he was the same pitcher," said an area scout with a National League club who was on hand. "I don't think there is a club in the league that wouldn't feel confident with him at one-one. This year or any year."
It's not clear the Royals are focused on Miller with the first pick anyway. Though there was a full row of scouts with their radar guns trained on Miller at Saturday's game, no high-ranking Royals representatives were there. And the two sides don't seem like a good financial fit.
Miller reportedly wants a major league contract, the price of which started at $6 million and may now be eight figures. At the same time, Kansas City doesn't want to exceed the $4 million bonus it paid a year ago to No. 2 overall pick Alex Gordon, considered a superior talent to Miller.
Miller looked a little rusty in the early innings on Saturday, understandable given the 10-day layoff since he last pitched in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. He wriggled out of a first-and-third jam in the first inning and a second-and-third situation in the sixth to minimize the damage.
"I don't think Andrew had quite his best stuff, but he doesn't have to to be pretty good," North Carolina coach Mike Fox said. "He prevented the big inning, which is a big goal of ours."
Miller relied on a heavy diet of sliders, especially against lefthanded hitters Heath Rollins and Jacob Dempsey, two of the Eagles' biggest offensive threats. He struck out each of them twice thanks to his sharp 79-82 mph slider. Miller touched 95 mph with his four-seam fastball once in the first inning and hit 93 on a few other occasions, but for the most part he sat in the 90-92 range. He also mixed in quite a few 87-89 mph two-seam fastballs, which the scout said he uses instead of a changeup.
Miller said his stuff actually benefited a little from his long layoff between outings, even though he wasn't as sharp in the early going.
"I hadn't pitched in about 10 days going into tonight--I think that's almost too much time off," he said. "At the same time, when I don't have my best stuff is often when I get my best movement on my ball, so I might not have been throwing as hard, but it certainly helped me locate the ball. I was able to throw my slider pretty much wherever I wanted to, and that's usually a good formula for success."
--AARON FITT
Budget Crunch Hits Draft-And-Follows
When two significant draft-and-follow players went back into the draft rather than sign with the teams that took them last year, Major League Baseball may have played a bigger role than the teams' scouts.
MLB, which has established a system of recommended bonuses for every pick through the first 10 rounds, also provided bonus recommendations for significant draft-and-follows this year, sources said.
Those recommendations apparently played a big role in the Mets' decision not to sign righthander Pedro Beato, and the Devil Rays' decision not to sign righthander Bryan Morris. Both are potential first-round picks in this year's draft.
Beato was a 17th-round pick last year out of high school in Brooklyn, and he improved significantly in a year at St. Petersburg (Fla.) Junior College, showing a fastball that touched 96 mph. Beato reportedly sought a bonus of about $1.2 million, while MLB recommended a $750,000 bonus, which is about what it recommends for a pick in the middle of the second round.
The Mets decided not to challenge the recommendation and let Beato go, a decision made even more puzzling because they don't have a first-round pick this year. New York will give the No. 18 overall pick to the Phillies as compensation for signing free-agent Billy Wagner.
Beato is Baseball America's No. 13-rated prospect in this year's draft crop and is expected to go in the back of the first round now that he's back in the pool, where he should draw a bonus in the neighborhood of $1 million.
Morris was Tampa Bay's third-round pick last year, and he and the team had an oral agreement on a $1.4 million bonus last summer before the former Devil Rays management team didn't follow through on the deal. So Morris went to Motlow State (Tenn.) Community College to play for his father for a year.
MLB's recommendation for Morris' bonus was $800,000, and Morris naturally was expecting something in the neighborhood of his original agreement with the Rays. The new Rays regime was not anxious to rock the boat with MLB in its first year, so it let Morris go.
Morris is BA's No. 29 draft prospect, and he's expected to go around that point in the draft this year.
Another significant player who didn't sign with the team that drafted him, Luke Hochevar, was not affected by MLB's bonus recommendations. Hochevar was the 40th overall pick of the Dodgers, and the two sides went through acrimonious negotiations last summer before things fell apart.
Hochevar's agent, Scott Boras, talked to new Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti during spring training this year about Hochevar, but the two sides had almost no discussions after that, and there were no substantive negotiations as the signing deadline approached. So Hochevar, too, will be available on Tuesday.
DRAFT DOTS
• The player shooting up draft boards as zero hour drew closer was Canadian teenager Kyle Orr, a slugger out of Victoria, B.C. Orr is Baseball America's top-rated prospect in Canada this year, and now people are talking about him as a possible pick at the end of the first round. Orr has been an outfielder and righthanded pitcher coming up as a teenager, though he'll hit as a professional. Scouts think he'll eventually end up in right field or first base. More important, they think he has the tools to be a middle-of-the-order hitter. He has huge power from the left side of the plate and crushes the ball in batting practice. He'll need a lot of minor league at-bats to show that power in games, but in a draft woefully short of impact bats, teams are starting to think Orr might be worth a shot. Orr is committed to Kentucky, and one scout said earlier in the spring--when Orr looked like a fourth- to seventh-round pick--that it would take first-round money to sign him away from college. Now Orr might just get it.
• Jeffrey Maier is the talk of the town in Baltimore, where fans can't believe the 12-year-old boy who ruined their 1996 season is eligible for the draft--and that the Orioles are considering drafting him. By now you know that Maier, who reached over the wall at Yankee Stadium and changed the course of the American League Championship Series by grabbing a Derek Jeter fly ball and turning it into a home run, became a solid player at Wesleyan (Conn.) University and is a marginal draft prospect. Some Orioles fans think Maier's interference was the beginning of their team's downward spiral, but owner Peter Angelos said he is intrigued by the idea of bringing Maier into his franchise. "I wouldn't be at all opposed to (drafting Maier)," he told The Washington Post. "In fact, I'd say it's a very interesting development. You can say the Orioles are very seriously considering him. I know this much: I was at that game, and he certainly did seem to be a heck of an outfielder. Sure, we'd take him. In fact, I like the idea more and more, the more I think about it."
Contributing: Jim Callis, Matt Meyers.
indicates Premium Content | Copyright © 1999-2009 Baseball America Inc. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. All rights reserved. | Site Map | Frequently Asked Questions/Site Troubleshooting | Privacy Notice | Return/Refund Policy.
Baseball America, 4319 South Alston Avenue, Suite 103, Durham, NC 27713.