{"id":857,"date":"2010-08-30T13:14:25","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T18:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=857"},"modified":"2010-08-30T13:14:25","modified_gmt":"2010-08-30T18:14:25","slug":"2011-draft-preview-vanderbilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/857","title":{"rendered":"2011 Draft Preview: Vanderbilt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There are very few schools each year that land a kid in the first round.\u00a0 Maybe a couple will land two.\u00a0 This year Vanderbilt<\/strong> 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.\u00a0 Those two righties are Sonny Gray<\/strong> and Jack Armstrong<\/strong>.\u00a0 The hitter is 3B Jason Esposito<\/strong>, who likely will be the second ranked collegiate 3B behind probable first overall selection, Anthony Rendon of Rice<\/a>.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with Esposito.\u00a0 The guy flies.\u00a0 He stole over 30 bases last season.\u00a0 His speed is rare for a corner guy and proves that he has the athleticism to stay at third in the pros.\u00a0 His slashes in 2010 were .359\/.455\/.599.\u00a0 He went deep 12 times and walked very nearly as many times as he struck out.\u00a0 The guy simply shows the polish and athleticism that scouts covet from the collegiate ranks.\u00a0 While he might slip to the supplemental round, he probably shouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 If he proves somewhere in the next handful of months that he can adequately do this, he is going to climb.\u00a0 His hands have room to develop, but third often skews perspectives in that area.\u00a0 I really like the guy because of his polish at the plate and defensive versatility.\u00a0 Guys like Esposito tend to stay productive for a really long time.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Next I will focus a little on Armstrong. Of the three, I think he is the most likely to be \u00a0overdrafted.\u00a0 The guy is a monstrous- 6\u20196\u201d, 230 lb.\u00a0 He has a lot of room to develop, but doesn\u2019t show enough ability to strike guys out, pitch deep into games, or locate pitches.\u00a0 His 2010 ERA of 4.71 came in under 80 IP.\u00a0 His K\/BB of 50\/39 is terrifyingly low in my opinion for a kid being ranked ahead of someone like UConn\u2019s Matt Barnes.\u00a0 Still, the projection and physicality are there.\u00a0 I think this is going to be a disaster of a pick, but someone will bite early.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s look at the guy I think will end up being an underdraft: Sonny Gray.\u00a0 I love this guy.\u00a0 Mid-90\u2019s heat with a 60-70-grade bender and the stats to back it up.\u00a0 Gray posted a 3.48 ERA in nearly 110 IP with 113 K\u2019s.\u00a0 He walks too many guys right now and his delivery is loud, but the arm speed is real.\u00a0 Guys compare Gray to Oswalt a lot.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think his command justifies that sort of claim, but he is good.\u00a0 I think he belongs in the top 10 picks.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the only other schools that should have multiple guys land in the first round are UCLA and Edison High (CA).\u00a0 I\u2019m 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\u2019s baseball program is a powerhouse led by three guys who any team would love to have in the system.\u00a0 Talkin\u2019 \u2018bout Vandy!
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are very few schools each year that land a kid in the first round.\u00a0 Maybe a couple will land two.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Those two righties are Sonny Gray […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,15,9,10,14],"tags":[630,730,727,728,729,726,529,725],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857"}],"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=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":858,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}