{"id":3975,"date":"2011-05-26T11:21:47","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T16:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=3975"},"modified":"2011-10-24T13:55:15","modified_gmt":"2011-10-24T18:55:15","slug":"early-look-at-2012-mlb-draft-alex-bregman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/3975","title":{"rendered":"2012 MLB Draft Preview: Alex Bregman"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With the 2011 MLB draft very quickly approaching, I wanted to take a little bit of time to write about a New Mexican kid not named Blake Swihart.\u00a0 Alex Bregman of Albuquerque Academy and the Albuquerque Baseball Academy, of which Swihart and Max Walla (2009 2nd<\/sup> Round, Brewers) have helped make famous around club baseball circles, is already a 2-time All-State 1st<\/sup> Teamer.\u00a0 He likely will be selected to his third one in the next couple of weeks after a monstrous 2011 with Academy that ultimately ended in crushing defeat to Farmington\u2019s Piedra Vista High in the title bout at Isotopes Park two Saturdays ago.\u00a0 Bregman had a nice day at the plate with multiple XBH\u2019s, but a costly error in the first inning which saw him turn an easy 2-ball into a 2-base throwing error.\u00a0 Nevertheless, he was the best player in AAAA and will likely be in 2012 barring a meteoric rise from PVHS\u2019s CF Shilo McCall.<\/p>\n

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Bregman is known very well in most baseball circles outside of New Mexico as USA Baseball\u2019s U16 SS.\u00a0 He hit .564 at the 2011 Pan Am\u2019s with a couple of bombs and was awarded the Dick Case Award, the highest honor any prep player can earn within USA Baseball.\u00a0 A list of guys who\u2019ve won the Dick Case includes Strasburg, Ryan Zimmerman, and Justin Smoak.\u00a0 As an alum of prep baseball in New Mexico, it is very nice to see guys like Swihart, who hit cleanup for the U18\u2019s, and Bregman put up such terrific numbers with Team USA because if reflects well on the competition existent at home.\u00a0 Early this spring Bregman committed verbally to Louisiana State, which unofficially means that in consecutive seasons the top player in the state will turn down offers from UNM\u2019s head coach Ray Birmingham.\u00a0 Not good.<\/p>\n

As far as 2012 draft stock goes, Bregman might be in a class of his own among prep shortstops with the bat.\u00a0 While Addison Russell of Monsignor Pace in Miami should be regarded as the top prep infielder available in 2012, Bregman could climb a lot.\u00a0 Preseason reputation called for Bregman to fall inside the first 3 rounds, but a terrific 2011 season has him poised to make a big push up if the summer and fall seasons go the way many think they can.\u00a0 His hit tool is easily the best he has, but he is an average runner with enough arm for the left side as well.\u00a0 His hands are playable, but his footwork keeps him from using them well right now.\u00a0 This is likely a product of playing against poor runners growing up, because his tendency currently is to stay back and passively absorb GB\u2019s as opposed to freeing his feet to move forward.\u00a0 However, he is athletic and smart enough to learn the footwork aspect of playing short against better runners.\u00a0 He has shown great plate discipline and some power with the bat too.<\/p>\n

The first swing I ever saw him take was against an 86 mph belt high fastball that he hit about 420 feet as a 15-year old.\u00a0 He probably weighed no more than 140 lbs. at the time.\u00a0 Bregman will continue to get knocks for his defense, but he works very hard and has already come a long way in that department.\u00a0 The nice thing about starting a pro career at short is that when a player is forced to move off of it, he can literally move anywhere on the field other than the bump.\u00a0 I expect Alex Bregman to make a push to get inside the first 100 names off the 2012 board, which will mark the 3rd<\/sup> time in 4 seasons a prep player in NM does so barring unforeseen circumstances with Swihart\u2019s signability.
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With the 2011 MLB draft very quickly approaching, I wanted to take a little bit of time to write about a New Mexican kid not named Blake Swihart.\u00a0 Alex Bregman of Albuquerque Academy and the Albuquerque Baseball Academy, of which Swihart and Max Walla (2009 2nd Round, Brewers) have helped make famous around club baseball […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2830,15,1300,8,6,9,13,10,14],"tags":[2283,2280,2278,1913,53,2281,2279,154,2282,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3975"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3983,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975\/revisions\/3983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}