#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.

However, there really is only one collegiate position player who will even draw the slightest interest from the Pirates at the #1 spot, and he is University of Connecticut outfielder George Springer.  Springer has insane tools, but is not nearly as polished as Rendon at the plate, and will take considerably longer to reach his full potential despite possessing a potentially higher ceiling.

Many scouts now view UCLA ace Gerrit Cole as the top talent available.  Cole has outstanding numbers through the first month of the season, and many scouts think he could be successful in the Big Leagues today.  Reports of triple-digit fastballs and double-plus secondary pitches are beginning to warrant the Stephen Strasburg comparisons.  Signability issues exist with Cole, however, and his refusal to sign with the Yankees out of high school was highly publicized.

A draft-eligible sophomore who many after the 2010 season thought could challenge for the top overall selection is TCU’s Matt Purke.  Purke has had a somewhat pedestrian spring so far relative to the borderline unprecedented success he experienced in his freshman season, however.  The lefty has missed time due to a blister and experienced a dip in velocity.  Saturday night saw Purke work in the 88-92 mph range, and despite striking out 11 UNLV hitters, that velocity simply is not enough to justify the top selection at this point.  When at his best, though, Matt Purke is perhaps the finest amateur pitcher in the United States.

Another pitcher, who many still view as a longshot to move into the #1 overall discussion, is Vanderbilt ace Sonny Gray.  Gray has the best pitch in the draft in his triple-plus breaking ball and a fastball that has reached 97 mph.  His delivery is repeatable and fluid despite being a tad on the aggressive side, and he is considered an easier sign than Cole and Purke, who both have turned down multi-million dollar bonuses in the past.

While no high school player has drawn serious consideration with regards to the top pick, the premier position player and pitcher deserve mention.  Bubba Starling of Gardner High in Kansas has tools to drool over and profiles well at both CF and RF.  His bat speed is otherworldly, and his arm is double-plus.  Unfortunately, he also is an exceptional football talent – why anyone even cares is beyond me – but it will likely take a great deal of dollars to keep him from fulfilling his commitment to play both sports for Nebraska.

Archie Bradley of Broken Arrow High in Oklahoma is beginning to distance himself from a strong crop of prep arms in Dylan Bundy, Daniel Norris, and Dillon Howard.  Bradley works in the mid-90s with a plus to double-plus breaking ball, and possesses tremendous athleticism and size.  He, like Starling, is also an excellent football player and is committed to play both football and baseball in college (Oklahoma), and, like Starling, a massive bonus is the only way to keep him from wasting his arm playing something other than baseball.

If the draft was tomorrow, I predict the Pirates will select Cole first, and the subsequent selections will be Rendon, Gray, Springer, Purke, Starling, and Bradley.  The collegiate pitching crop is especially talented, however, and there is plenty of reason to believe that someone like UConn’s Matt Barnes or Virginia’s Danny Hultzen could break into the #1 discussion as well.

• 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.

• Baseball America has released their 2011 Preseason All-America Team as voted upon by MLB Scouting Directors.  The First Team is comprised of many of the names that we would expect to see on the list: Anthony Rendon (Rice), Alex Dickerson (Indiana), Gerrit Cole (UCLA), and Matt Purke (TCU).  One interesting note: incoming Stanford freshman Austin Wilson managed to sneak on to their Third Team.  This makes me wonder how good this kid has to be to receive such a prestigious recognition without having had a single collegiate at-bat…

• Earlier this week, Blue Jays manager John Farrell mentioned that Kyle Drabek could crack the starting rotation out of Spring Training, and possibly log more than 200 innings in his rookie season.  After coming over from Philadelphia in the Roy Halladay trade, Blue Jays’ fans – as well as all of baseball – were offered a glimpse of Drabek’s potential thanks to a September call-up.  This winter, Drabek was named the Blue Jays’ #1 prospect, as well as the 12^th-best prospect in all of baseball.  Here at the Sombrero, we ranked Drabek as the 33^rd-best prospect in baseball.

• Today I will be at Prep Baseball Report’s Super 60 – a showcase that features the best high school players from Illinois, Missouri and Indiana, and is attended by over 40+ Major League scouts.  The players I’m most looking forward to see include New Trier (IL) OF Charlie Tilson, Oak Forest (IL) OF Tim Barry, Warsaw (MO) SS Johnny Elerman, McCluer (MO) outfielder Lance Jeffries, and Vianney (MO) 3B Matt Brown.  The event is being held at the Max-McCook Athletic & Exposition Center, which might be the largest and most impressive indoor facility on this planet.

Prospect Buzz is the new, prospect-related link drop of The Golden Sombrero that will appear every Wednesday and Sunday.  As you may already know, we love prospects here at the Sombrero.  So if you have an article or link that you would like us consider for this segment, feel free to either email us or send it our way on Twitter.

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.

Next I will focus a little on Armstrong. Of the three, I think he is the most likely to be  overdrafted.  The guy is a monstrous- 6’6”, 230 lb.  He has a lot of room to develop, but doesn’t show enough ability to strike guys out, pitch deep into games, or locate pitches.  His 2010 ERA of 4.71 came in under 80 IP.  His K/BB of 50/39 is terrifyingly low in my opinion for a kid being ranked ahead of someone like UConn’s Matt Barnes.  Still, the projection and physicality are there.  I think this is going to be a disaster of a pick, but someone will bite early.

Now let’s look at the guy I think will end up being an underdraft: Sonny Gray.  I love this guy.  Mid-90’s heat with a 60-70-grade bender and the stats to back it up.  Gray posted a 3.48 ERA in nearly 110 IP with 113 K’s.  He walks too many guys right now and his delivery is loud, but the arm speed is real.  Guys compare Gray to Oswalt a lot.  I don’t think his command justifies that sort of claim, but he is good.  I think he belongs in the top 10 picks.  It will be really interesting to see what Norris, Howard, Bundy, and Bradley do this season because they really could shake these pitcher rankings up a lot, but the college guys are just so good this year that I would not be surprised to see the high school arms fall to the middle or back of the first round.

Anyway, the only other schools that should have multiple guys land in the first round are UCLA and Edison High (CA).  I’m a little skeptical of the Edison guys just because this draft is so stacked, but the purpose of this was to point out that Vanderbilt’s baseball program is a powerhouse led by three guys who any team would love to have in the system.  Talkin’ ‘bout Vandy!

Anthony Rendon, 3B

Rice’s Rendon put up these slashes as a sophomore: .394/.530/.801.  The dude went deep 26 times, stole 14 bags, and turned in a 65:22 K:BB.  His performance is absolutely mouth-watering, and a reasonable argument could be made that if he were a junior putting up these numbers he could have understandably been selected before Harper.  He at least should have earned the Golden Spikes over Harper.  Sorry, but there has never in the history of the sport been a JUCO guy who deserved the Golden Spikes, not even Harper.

Anyway, Rendon’s defense is at least playable at the hot corner professionally, and while collegiate defensive metrics are somewhat dubious when attainable, scouts seem to regard his defense as good to great.  Perhaps the part of Rendon’s game that I am most impressed with is the fact that he is doing this at an institution like Rice.  Yeah, he’s a baseball player, but he still has to go to class at a place like Rice.  Hell, he probably is expected to perform as well in the classroom as a lot of the other kids on campus not in athletics.  That is a rarity among the better hitters in most draft classes.  I personally feel as though this sets Rendon apart.

Unfortunately, Rendon went down with a broken ankle while playing for Team USA against South Korea a week ago.  With him out we dropped two of three against Chinese Taipei too.  What he provides is irreplaceable for the Red, White, and Blue.  Hopefully Rendon heals quickly and gets back to the form that landed him at the top of the list prior to last week.

I keep thinking that Rendon might become Longoria.  The numbers sure look similar.

Gerrit Cole, RHP

Cole struck out 131 guys in 101 innings as a sophomore Bruin.  He posted a 3.11 ERA and won ten games, not that I care about either of those marks.  What I care about is Cole’s ability to dial it up to 99 mph when he needs/wants and the fact that his breaking stuff comes in around 15 mph slower than the heater.  He actually throws a power sinker as well, but scouts don’t seem so high on it simply because the 4-seamer is so big.  He also has a change that may play as plus in a couple of years, but only plays at a 50 at the moment.  Changeups are feel offerings, though, and can improve every season until a guy bows out (Hoffman).  I don’t put a lot of stock into a guy’s third pitch before he reaches the bigs.  Look at Lincecum.  The guy basically didn’t throw a changeup for outs until the middle of his second season.  Now it grades 80 some days.

Cole will be the first arm taken because Cole’s stuff is retarded.  His mechanics raise some questions from scouts because he fights to get the arm speed he has.  Who cares?  They will be cleaner by the time he arrives to the bigs.  He turned down the Yanks’ offer of $3 million out of high school in 2008 because he really wanted to play in college.  The three years he will have spent under John Savage might be worth the extra $5 million the Yanks weren’t offering come next August… this would likely be a deadline kind of sign for the lucky squad that lands this arm.

Taylor Jungmann, RHP

The Longhorns’ Jungmann posted a slightly better K:BB than Cole, but his stuff is generally regarded as being a little less than Cole’s.  Jungmann is a true mid-90’s guy with a long frame and plus command.  He too has a couple of plus other offerings with the ability to get both sides of the plate out.  The secondary stuff may be a little ahead of Cole’s at the moment.  Jungmann has more pace on his breaker than Cole, but he exhibits a number of the same flaws in his delivery that Cole exhibits.  Both guys are across the body throwers and tend to use a lot of arm in their deliveries, but that is what the minors are for.  Jungmann is a horse as he averages 7 innings per start.  There just aren’t a lot of flaws here.  From what I have personally seen of Jungmann, I expect him to generate a lot of groundballs from the right side of the plate and a lot of swings and misses on secondary stuff from both sides.  Jungmann is as premium an arm as exists, and the fact that he has had the success he has in a Longhorns uniform is worth millions.

Matt Purke, LHP

The Sombrero has already mentioned the lefty Purke, but he deserves to be included with these other guys.  Matt Purke won 16 games as a freshman while striking out 142 guys in 116.1 IP.  His stuff is electric.  He throws real mid-90’s fastballs with good arm-side action as well as a plus slurve.  His changeup is not used frequently, but he has some feel for it, and it should be good enough to get the right side out so long as it is in the zone.  Purke is also long in the arms – very long – and that may lead to some difficulty locating his changeup.  Purke is available in 2011 due to some faulty wording in the rules designed to keep guys in college three years, but his early departure is ultimately going to be better for everyone.  It will provide Purke the leverage to get the bonus he wants as well as the chance to get through the minors quicker due to the extra polish he has picked up since the Rangers deal fell apart in 2009.

We will periodically discuss other higher profile guys in 2011’s draft class.  These first four will all be multimillion-dollar bonus babies and will all get through the minors quickly.  I know this is about a month late in getting posted, but I have been a little fixated on the local baseball scene back home.  Go Cardinals!