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2012 MLB Draft Preview: Kyle Zimmer

In a previous post I commended San Francisco’s Kyle Zimmer for his standout career both as a student and as an athlete and suggested that he also will fall in the first half of round 1 come June, so I felt as though I should follow that up with a brief scouting report.

Zimmer has a prototypical pitcher’s frame at 6-foot-4 with lengthy limbs.  He is an excellent athlete and often receives better grades for athleticism than for anything else, a terrific sign given the fact that he has had to learn pitching on the fly.  He did not go to the University of San Francisco to pitch but rather as an infielder, but his arm is so strong that eventually he was bound to wind up on a mound even as simply an experiment.

Zimmer has added a lot of extension and length to his delivery and is far more solid in back than he was early in his pitching career, exactly what one expects from a converted infielder or catcher.  Quality deliveries require enough length to provide the time necessary to reach a repeatable release point from a healthful slot.  Zimmer definitely has a delivery now that allows him to do that.  He has been up to 99 mph this spring already and could throw up a triple-digit readout at any time.  With a potentially triple-plus fastball and some polish to his delivery, he immediately shoots into the one-one conversation.

His secondary stuff is behind the fastball, but not nearly as far as it could be given how little time he has spent on the mound thus far.  His curveball (we are only considering the sharper and quicker version even though he has used a loopier one in the past as well) already is a 50 pitch, and his changeup, while fringy now, has shown enough promise to assume that it will always be useable and will always be improving.

He commands the ball well to both sides of the plate, and his numbers back up his projectability.  He has filled out a lot in his time with USF (around 220 lbs. now), but he probably still has some development left in him as well.  His changeup has already looked better in his spring starts than it did on the Cape, and he has used his tighter bender more frequently as well.  All of this shows Zimmer’s propensity to listen and react to criticism.  Zimmer’s makeup is off of the charts, and I like him a lot more than other righties in the 1-1 conversation right now.


Baseball’s Unique Place in College Athletics: Academics

As opening weekend of NCAA baseball came and went, baseball fans, particularly those of the amateur and collegiate ranks, were once again swept up in the joy of spring and a return to normalcy.  We have been without the game since the end of the Arizona Fall League in many ways.  Although there is no such thing as the off-season for us here at The Sombrero, the recruiting season just isn’t the same as the spring and summer seasons.

The premier series of the weekend saw Vanderbilt travel to Stanford where Mark Appel, arguably the top talent headed into the 2012 MLB Draft, deal on Friday night.  This series also featured the loaded 2011 Draft’s only unsigned 1st-rounder, Tyler Beede, toss his first collegiate pitch.  Both of these teams rank in the top-10 and are absolutely loaded talent-wise.  What they also are loaded with are entire rosters of players devoted to academic excellence.  This weekend also saw Duke travel to 13th-ranked Texas in a game that also featured nothing but standout student-athletes.  Next weekend Texas travels to Stanford where the same applies.  These teams come from prime-time athletic conferences and perform well in sports other than baseball, but consider the fact that last year’s Texas squad hosted a series against Brown, a school in which no player on the field was receiving athletic-based financial aid, and actually dropped a game to the Bears.  They’re the University of Texas.  Just imagine for a minute the 40 or so kids that the Longhorns football team might send to the hospital if the Bears were to travel to Austin for a football game.  This hypothetical scenario reflects the idea behind this piece.

Baseball is unique in the world of collegiate athletics in that it provides academically inclined players and institutions many if not all of the opportunities that those players and schools where athletics must come first are provided, which quite clearly is not the case across the collegiate sports landscape.

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Top 50 Prospects: #1 – Matt Moore

#1 Matt Moore

Tampa Bay Rays

DOB: 6/18/1989

Previous Rank: 31

ETA: 2011

It’s almost impossible to earn a ranking ahead of Bryce Harper, but philosophically we consider a pitcher with present ace stuff and Major League opportunity to be more valuable than even a likely Hall of Fame hitter.  Moore made considerable steps forward in 2011 in the command department and catapulted himself forward into becoming the top pitching prospect in the game.  He then went on to make three appearances during Tampa’s stretch into the postseason before tossing seven innings of two-hit baseball to open the Division Series in Arlington.  Pretty impressive for a 22-year-old.

Year Age Lg W L ERA G GS IP BB SO WHIP H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB
2007 18 Rk 0 0 2.66 8 3 20.1 16 29 1.377 5.3 0.4 7.1 12.8 1.81
2008 19 Rk 2 2 1.66 12 12 54.1 19 77 0.902 5.0 0.0 3.1 12.8 4.05
2009 20 A 8 5 3.15 26 26 123.0 70 176 1.268 6.3 0.4 5.1 12.9 2.51
2010 21 A+ 6 11 3.36 26 26 144.2 61 208 1.175 6.8 0.4 3.8 12.9 3.41
2011 22 AA,AAA 12 3 1.92 27 27 155.0 46 210 0.948 5.9 0.6 2.7 12.2 4.57
2011 22 AL 1 0 2.89 3 1 9.1 3 15 1.286 8.7 1.0 2.9 14.5 5.00
1 Season 1 0 2.89 3 1 9.1 3 15 1.286 8.7 1.0 2.9 14.5 5.00
162 Game Avg. 17 0 2.89 51 17 158 51 255 1.286 8.7 1.0 2.9 14.5 5.00

Moore is 6-foot-2 with extremely clean and effortless mechanics.  His body projects, but honestly, what do we need to project here?  Moore is the easiest 70 fastball guy in baseball.  His secondary stuff and command are top shelf, and his makeup is championship caliber.  His fastball reaches 97 mph.  His breaker is a deadly downer that consistently receives double-plus grades.  His changeup is an easy plus pitch with double-plus potential.  His slider is new and rarely used, but it is also plus.  Stephen Strasburg didn’t even have four plus pitches as a 22-year-old, and he isn’t a lefty.

Matt Moore will challenge for a Cy Young as soon as he is given slack on the leash to grab 100 pitches per start and 32 or so starts per season.  There is not a pitcher in the game today I would rather have signed long-term than Matt Moore.  Not Gerrit Cole.  Not Tim Lincecum.  Not Strasburg.  Not Justin Verlander.  Not Clayton Kershaw.  Matt Moore will be the American League’s best pitcher sooner rather than later.


Top 50 Prospects: #2 – Bryce Harper

#2 Bryce Harper

Washington Nationals

DOB: 10/16/1992

Previous Rank: 1

ETA: 2013

There just isn’t very much to say that hasn’t already been said about Harper.  He is, in our opinion, the greatest offensive prospect in history, and he is second only to Strasburg in terms of history’s greatest prospects.  For an 18-year-old, Harper was insane in 2011.  He slashed .297/.392/.501 on the year across two levels including 37 games in Double-A.  He went deep 17 times and stole 26 bags.  He has no weaknesses aside from a lack of familiarity with professional secondary stuff, as his 87 strikeouts suggest.  Nevertheless, he is a quick learner and has already softened his stride to account for better breaking pitches.

Year Age Tm Lg Lev G PA AB 2B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG
2011 18 2 Teams 2 Lgs A-AA 109 452 387 24 17 58 26 7 59 87 .297 .392 .501
2011 18 Hagerstown SALL A 72 305 258 17 14 46 19 5 44 61 .318 .423 .554
2011 18 Harrisburg EL AA 37 147 129 7 3 12 7 2 15 26 .256 .329 .395
1 Season 109 452 387 24 17 58 26 7 59 87 .297 .392 .501

He followed up the Double-A season with a terrific 25 games in the Arizona Fall League, posting a 1.034 OPS and going deep six times.  Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Harper’s professional debut, though, was the fact that he seemed so comfortable being at the levels that he was.  The Sally League is no joke, and obviously an 18-year-old in Double-A is something to take note of.  He showed some flexibility in the outfield, collecting some innings in center as well as right.  His bat plays anywhere, but can you imagine a homerun champ in center?  He’d be Griffey Jr.  And that’s exactly what we think of Harper.

He can be one of the greatest players in the history of the sport.  We expect him to return to Harrisburg to open 2012, but no one would be surprised if he is quickly promoted to Triple-A and ultimately finishes the year in Washington.  We expect him to open 2013 in the Nationals outfield and to basically retire there 15 years or so down the road after winning several MVPs.


Top 50 Prospects: #3 – Dylan Bundy

#3 Dylan Bundy

Baltimore Orioles

DOB: 11/15/1992

Previous Rank: N/A

ETA: 2014

Bundy is without a doubt the best prep pitcher to come along in a very long time, if ever.  Based on a purely statistical measure, he is without equal, striking out more than two hitters per inning playing for a school that spent most of the year with the No. 1 national ranking.  High school stats are next to meaningless…unless they are that astoundingly dominant.  He naturally was awarded the Gatorade National Player of the Year award across all sports.  The Orioles must have peed themselves when they saw him there at No. 4, and Bundy would not be at No. 4 in any of the last 10 drafts either, but the 2011 class was exceptional.

Bundy is the kind of arm that really makes you wonder how he can be just a teenager and without a day of collegiate experience.  His mechanics are smooth and repeatable.  His athleticism is through the roof.  He trains extremely hard and has outstanding makeup, and we haven’t even begun to talk about his stuff.

Bundy features a mid- to high-90s fastball that has reached triple digits, a plus curveball with good shape and consistency, a cutter that routinely gets 70 grades, and a solid average changeup with a high likelihood of giving Bundy his fourth plus or better pitch down the road.  We expect Bundy to start the year in Easy A and totally blow it away.  The Orioles recently have been criticized harshly for rushing their young starters up too quickly without allowing them to refine mechanics and secondary stuff.  Bundy, however, needs no refinement, so we expect him to spend three years at most in the farm.  He very well could finish the 2012 season with a couple of appearances in Double-A if everything goes the way we think it can.  Dylan Bundy has a chance to be the best pitcher alive for several years.