With the fall baseball season in full swing nationwide and the WWBA championships coming to a close in Jupiter, FL, it seems fitting to discuss a prospect who perhaps has the most to gain or lose out of anyone in the months leading up to the June draft.  Stanford SS Kenny Diekroeger is arguably the best athlete in this year’s college crop.  He is basically a 60 across the board player in the “athlete” tools as well as with the glove.  He has all of the tools necessary to be a key up-the-middle contributor with a very good chance to be average at short or plus at second.  Diekroeger will have three years at Stanford under his belt come June and that combination of tools and experience should mean a very high selection in the draft, right?  Not necessarily.

Diekroeger posted a .293/.364/.356 slash line for the Cardinal in 2011 after .356/.392/.491 line as a freshman.  Many have used the new bat regulations to explain this drop in production.  I think there is more to it.  Kenny’s bat speed is easily at least plus, but he creates very little loft with his swing mechanics and produces entirely too many GB’s because his hands drop as he loads.  For most belt-high pitches and above (easily within the NCAA strike-zone) Kenny is a below-the-ball hitter.  This is not necessarily an easy fix, and it could be a problem that he will fight the rest of his days on the diamond.  It’s not necessarily as though he will ever be a bad hitter with his current mechanics, but he cannot be elite with them either, and with a frame as large as the one he currently has, sliding to third or the outfield is a real possibility.  An average or below hit tool on a 60 runner is not a first round player in many organizations’ opinions, and Diekroeger has potentially millions to gain from improved bat track and mechanics this year.

Diekroeger fails to transfer all of his weight and tends to close his lower half off as well.  This is usually an easier fix than the bat track issues, but is much tougher to do when also attempting to correct upper body flaws.

The PAC-12 is loaded with strong pitching this season, and Diekroeger will be able to prove (or not prove) that he is deserving of the top-10 talk that he was receiving after his freshman year as opposed to the late first round or early compensation round talk that he began receiving after his numbers softened up in 2011.  Diekroeger might very well be the second infielder off of the board in 2012 behind ASU SS Deven Marrero, but he also could end up falling behind several prep kids too like Gavin Cecchini.

–       Why do people get their panties in such a bunch over sign stealing?  Last night Josh Beckett had some choice words for the Yankees Brett Gardner last night after he caught him supposedly relaying signs to Mark Teixeira.  Teixeira probably had some words of his own for Gardner too after striking out that at-bat.

–       The San Francisco Giants are hosting a Star Wars night later this month.  Instead of bobble-heads they are giving away replicas of Brian Wilson encased in carbonite-awesome!

–       Mike Trout is boom-titties! (That one’s for you Lucey.)  Not only did he become the 9^th youngest player to ever have a two-homer game, the kid was hitting balls that were not even close to the strike zone.  We had him ranked as our No. 2 prospect and he is proving to everyone that he is well deserving of such a dubious honor.

–       In 13 professional innings this summer, Sonny Gray has allowed only 1 run.  The kid is sick nasty.  If you get a chance, watch him pitch and notice how fast the guy moves down the mound.  Surreal speed there, which allows such a small guy to have such devastating stuff.  Can’t wait to see how quick he makes it up with the big club.

–       Watching Francisco Cervelli’s first at-bat last night was pure comedy.  Beckett broke him off back-to-back hammers on the inside part of the plate and made him look like one of those sucky kids in little league who have never seen a curveball before.  Cervelli even gave a look at Beckett after the second curveball that said everything.

For those who grew up in the ’90s like the writers here at the Sombrero, you may recall VH1’s popular tv series, “Pop-Up Video.”  It was essentially a director’s cut of a trendy music video, but featured random captions during various scenes to provide the viewer with behind-the-scenes factoids about the video, artist/band and director.  Well, due to my three-plus hours in the car today and general idleness due to a poorly-timed cold, I thought I’d get the ball rolling on my latest idea: “Prospect Video.”

Every Tuesday I will post a prospect-related video that I feel our readers must watch.  So, for the first installment, I thought that I’d post an awesome video of UCLA right-hander Trevor Bauer, who was recently selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks with the third-overall pick in 2011 MLB Draft.

This particular video shows Bauer’s warm up pitches, first inning of work, and final out from a recent start against Fresno State in Game 3 of the 2011 NCAA Los Angeles Regional.  In the game, the Lincecum-like right-hander picked up his 13th win of the season and fired his ninth-consecutive complete game. (Not bad, right?). He ultimately struck out 14 while allowing one run on six hits and two walks.

What to look for: Please, just watch the dude’s first warm up pitch.  He gets a running start from behind the mound and absolutely burns one at his catcher, just as if he was playing long-toss in the outfield to get loose. Now, I know Bauer runs it up in the mid- to upper-90s, and granted there’s no radar gun on him at the time, but that first toss has got to be damn close to 100 mph.  His smirk after throwing it says it all.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys the Sombrero’s first installment of “Prospect Video,” and if anyone has any requests, drop me a line on Twitter and I’ll make it happen.

With Whitney graduating from U of A a couple of weeks ago, I thought I should write up the ace of that staff, sophomore Kurt Heyer.  Heyer had a truly remarkable season as the Friday-nighter for Arizona posting a 2.41 ERA in 130.2 IP with 128 K’s and only 25 BB.  His numbers were stellar, and Heyer will be one of the top arms in the PAC-10 in 2012 as well.  Heyer has terrific sink on his fastball, which allowed him to keep the ball in the yard quite well despite the thin Tucson air.  He only allowed 5 homers and 25 XBH’s in his 19 2011 starts.

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We hold Liveblogs for Sunday Night Baseball, so obviously we’re going to have one for the MLB Draft tonight.  So if you have absolutely nothing to do but watch the draft–which I’m guessing is the case if you’re reading this–then come hang out and gush about prospects with us.  Mevs from Diamond Hoggers will be there like always, and the same goes for those goofy bastards over at Off-Base Percentage.  The Sombrero should have our own prospect guru, Dee, stopping by, too.  If we play our cards right, maybe we can get Dylan Bundy to drop by to punch something.