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 1^st-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 13^th-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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#7 Anthony Rendon

Washington Nationals

DOB: 6/6/1990

Pre-2011 Rank: N/A

ETA: 2013

Rendon was our top guy going into the 2011 draft, injured or not.  This kind of bat is not common.  It might be draftable every five years or so, and it very rarely if ever can play a premium defensive position, let alone play it well.  Yeah, Anthony Rendon is a tremendously valuable prospect for the Nationals and should challenge for MVP votes as early as 2014.

When healthy he is a double-plus hit tool player, with plus present power with a chance at a 70 in that category too.  He has a plus eye, a plus glove, and a plus arm.  His speed is behind the other tools, but it is good enough for 2B if Washington decides to go with him there.  If that happens, then the club is looking at an infield of Ryan Zimmerman, Danny Espinosa, Rendon, and Mike Morse with Wilson Ramos behind the dish – every single guy on the dirt has a chance to make the NL All-Star squad.

Rendon signed late, so he has no professional statistics to assess, but we’d be surprised if he doesn’t go straight to Double-A and join Bryce Harper in the middle of the order for Harrisburg in the Eastern League.  We don’t see any reason that Rendon can’t force his way into Washington before the 2012 season is over.  Because he has such terrific makeup, adapting to professional baseball should be quite easy for him.  We expect Rendon to play a decade of excellent professional baseball with a chance to make the All-Star team every single season.  Aside from Bryce Harper, he is the top position prospect in the game.

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As the collegiate baseball season continues to pick up steam, we at the Sombrero think it’s time to examine some recent events that will inevitably shake up the 2011 draft landscape.  Prior to the start of the 2011 NCAA season, Anthony Rendon of Rice was widely regarded as the top talent in the 2011 Draft.  With a double-plus hit tool grading and power to spare, Rendon profiles as a middle-of-the order hitter on any team in Major League Baseball.  Because of his eye, which grades at least a 60, and ability to barrel up the baseball, Rendon will have a very short stint in the Minors before debuting with whatever club drafts him in June.  His glove grades at plus, and there has never been any reason for concern regarding his ability to stay at third, his position at Rice.

What does cause reason for concern, however, is Rendon’s ankle, which he severely injured last summer with Team USA.  This most recent injury is not the first injury to Rendon’s ankle, and he has spent some time at DH this season as a precautionary measure.  Rendon must demonstrate that he can play third on a daily basis this season to justify the top overall ranking headed into the draft.  Everything about his stats at Rice this season suggest that he is the same old Anthony at the dish, but this is not the year to select a player with injury concerns with the first overall selection.  The talent is simply too deep for that.

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• Our friends over at Splashing Pumpkins were lucky (not in the sense that they were undeserving!) enough to attend Giants Media Day this week, and capture a candid video interview with Madison Bumgarner.  Among the topics discussed in this must-watch interview: the Verducci effect, the Giants’ new Showtime series, and his hitting prowess.

• At the beginning of the week, MiLB.com sat down for an interview with San Francisco Giants’ prospect – a fan favorite here at the Sombrero – Brandon Belt.  After just one year in the Minor Leagues, Belt was recently named the #26 prospect in baseball by MLB.com.  Considering how careful the Giants were with their development of Buster Posey, I really don’t know what to think of GM Brian Sabean’s claim that Belt could break camp with the parent club.

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There are very few schools each year that land a kid in the first round.  Maybe a couple will land two.  This year Vanderbilt has a realistic chance to land three kids in the first round, including two righties who potentially could wind up in the top 10 overall.  Those two righties are Sonny Gray and Jack Armstrong.  The hitter is 3B Jason Esposito, who likely will be the second ranked collegiate 3B behind probable first overall selection, Anthony Rendon of Rice.  With guys like this, Vanderbilt has a chance to play deep into the NCAA tourney as well as help make some kids a lot of money.

Let’s start with Esposito.  The guy flies.  He stole over 30 bases last season.  His speed is rare for a corner guy and proves that he has the athleticism to stay at third in the pros.  His slashes in 2010 were .359/.455/.599.  He went deep 12 times and walked very nearly as many times as he struck out.  The guy simply shows the polish and athleticism that scouts covet from the collegiate ranks.  While he might slip to the supplemental round, he probably shouldn’t.  The fact that Esposito has a clear left-side arm and plus speed suggests that there is a realistic chance he plays short in the pros.  If he proves somewhere in the next handful of months that he can adequately do this, he is going to climb.  His hands have room to develop, but third often skews perspectives in that area.  I really like the guy because of his polish at the plate and defensive versatility.  Guys like Esposito tend to stay productive for a really long time.

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