2016 MLB draft thread.

[TheHurl]

Who takes Quinn Hurl?

 

someone tomorrow?

[King]

Same with AJ Puk and AJ Puckett

[King]

someone tomorrow?

 

Boldt!

[King]

Guys we made it.

 

http://i.imgur.com/IKsOKJi.png

[Jonn]

Guys we made it.

 

http://i.imgur.com/IKsOKJi.png

 

Maybe he will creep us

[King]

Maybe he will creep us

 

Hopefully his uncle starts posting. We could use the insight.

 

Speaking of which Matt Dermody is pitching well in AA. 26 so kinda old but would be cool if he could make it to the MLB one day. His uncle should start posting again.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa502297&position=P

[Jonn]

Hopefully his uncle starts posting. We could use the insight.

 

Speaking of which Matt Dermody is pitching well in AA. 26 so kinda old but would be cool if he could make it to the MLB one day. His uncle should start posting again.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=sa502297&position=P

 

Its a new generation. Girls blowing up his cellphone. Got atleast 100 snapchat nudes to look through and reply with dick pics.

[Maahfaace]

lets get some first page highlights of who the jays selected in this thread, should of let King start this bitch.

[King]

[havok24]

Harold Reynolds just debated that Will Benson is a great pick because he saw a video of him playing basketball. You can't make this stuff up.

 

Does he love the game of baseball though?

[King]

Anthony Molina would be an interesting upside pick. He was a legit 1-1 candidate a few years back for this draft but character concerns have destroyed his draft stock. Some team will take the flier although I'm not sure if it'll be us.

 

http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/03/28/book-excerpt-the-arm-jeff-passan-tommy-john-surgery

 

At a baseball tournament on his 15th birthday, Anthony Molina threw a fastball clocked at 91 mph. About a year later, before the state of Florida allowed him to drive a car by himself, the Somerset Academy sophomore faced shortstop Milton Ramos in a high school game. Ramos was a future $650,000 bonus baby of the Mets, and a gaggle of scouts watched from behind a chain-link fence. Radar guns steadied, Molina threw the ball as fast as few other 16-year-olds ever have. Every reading said 95 mph except the one on the Mets scout’s gun. His said 96.

 

Scouts are inveterate gossips, and word of this flamethrower from the Miami suburb of Pembroke Pines quickly circulated through the baseball world. It was May 2014, and I was looking for a high schooler who threw hard and could illustrate the peril his gift posed. I asked a scout friend, figuring he would pass along a junior, someone from the class of 2015. Instead he mentioned a member of the class of ’16: “There’s a kid named Anthony Molina. Created a lot of buzz already.”

 

Even better, Molina had received an invitation to the 2014 Perfect Game National Showcase in Fort Myers, Fla., one of the most important events on the amateur baseball calendar. I had already planned on traveling to the showcase, a gathering of talent that draws scouts, executives and coaches from across the country. Another scout friend described it as “a cattle call where the cows pay $200 to be there.” Perfect Game, a company based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that hosted elite tournaments in addition to showcases, was a running joke—gallows humor, really, because some people believed it was killing the sport.

 

Among baseball people, lusting after a high school sophomore used to be a no-no. Too much could happen by his draft year. Perfect Game helped legitimize and monetize the hunger for outstanding youth players. One of Perfect Game’s partners, a company called Skillshow, which makes glossy highlight videos for high school athletes, handed out a flyer at the Fort Myers showcase that read, “Due to the increased availability of information in the computer age, the recruiting process is beginning much earlier than ever before. College coaches are starting to identify prospective recruits as early as seventh and eighth grade!”

 

During Molina’s ninth-grade season Miami offered him a full scholarship. He accepted, though it was just a backup plan, because arms like Molina’s are worth seven figures to major league teams. The first 55 picks of the 2015 draft were all offered signing bonuses of at least $1 million. If Anthony Molina was hitting 95 mph as a 6'5", 175-pound sophomore, his fully grown self might hit triple digits. The last righthanded high school pitcher to throw 100 mph was a Texan named Tyler Kolek. The Marlins drafted him second overall in ’14 and paid him $6 million to sign.

 

The Perfect Game nationals, at Fort Myers’s JetBlue Park, spring training home of the Red Sox, kicked off showcase season with aplomb. A military-grade radar system tracked every pitch to the 10th of a mile per hour and broadcast it on the scoreboard. Molina’s first pitch, a 92-mph fastball, was returned up the middle for a single. The hits kept coming—a single, a double, another double—and suddenly all the 92s and 93s looked middling. Scouts scribbled notes, undeterred; they figured Molina would hit the next year’s nationals and fare just fine—maybe with 96s and 97s.

 

Halfway up the first base line Nelson and Olivia Molina feared something was wrong. Nelson inspects homes for a living; Olivia has spent nearly three decades as a secretary for Carnival Cruise Lines. They are both Cuban immigrants. When their son trudged into the stands after his game, they were concerned. “Your arm good?” Nelson asked.

 

Anthony nodded. Olivia wanted more than a nod. “How’s your arm?” she asked. Anthony sat down. “It’s all right,” he said, and she started massaging his back.

 

A man named Roger Tomas approached. “Arm all right?” he asked. Tomas is Anthony Molina’s adviser, a code word for agent. His duty is to deliver a healthy right arm to the draft in June 2016.

 

Molina seemed to have been doing this forever. At 13 he played a tournament at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. He was 6'4" and could dunk a basketball. Olivia had to take his birth certificate everywhere to prove his age. Around that point, he said, “I just started blowing it by kids, and kid after kid would just walk back to the dugout with eyes wide open.”

 

Anthony Molina was baseball’s evolutionary archetype, the product of a system that fetishizes the next big thing. Perfect Game posts national player rankings for every age group starting with freshmen in high school. “Kids obsess over the rankings,” Nelson Molina said. Even after his 2014 performance at nationals, Anthony Molina was the No. 1 player in the class of 2016.

 

“He has no clue how talented he is,” said Richie Palmer, his coach with Elite Squad, a Miami-area high-level travel team. “He doesn’t realize he can be a multimillionaire in a couple of years.”

 

Anthony Molina’s name more or less disappeared from the site late in 2015. His ascent had been fraught with peril in the first place. As a freshman he went to West Broward High, near Pembroke Pines; then he transferred to American Heritage, a local powerhouse, but got kicked out after he was caught with $15 worth of weed. (He said he was just holding it for a friend.) After spending his sophomore season at Somerset Academy, a charter school, he returned to West Broward for his junior year. But after school on Jan. 13, 2015, Molina punched a kid in the face and blackened his eye. The kid called it a cheap shot. Molina, then 17, said it was self-defense. That evening police officers came to his house and arrested him, and he spent the night in detention. The next morning he was charged with aggravated battery, a felony. He cried. So did his mother, Olivia.

 

“I see two versions of Tony,” said Palmer, his travel-ball coach. “I see the great kid with me. And I see the f---up. It has nothing to do with the arm and everything to do with character.”

 

Six months earlier, at nationals, all that mattered was the arm. Before Molina pitched, he was handed a sheet of blank mailing labels and sent to a table in the empty concourse. He used red, blue, green and purple pens to sign dozens of labels that would be pressed onto limited-edition trading cards made by Leaf for Perfect Game. Each card is emblazoned with a number. For $29.99 on eBay anyone could have a gold-bordered, autographed Anthony Molina card—number 37 of 50—with an out-of-focus picture of him from nationals.

 

“I deal with five Anthony Molinas every summer,” Palmer said. “I try to tell him, ‘You’re not special,’ even though he can be. I’ve seen guys like him throw it away. And that’s the path he’s going on.”

 

Nelson Molina expected the phone call. It was the spring of 2015, and on the line was a coach from Miami. He was pulling Anthony’s scholarship offer. But Nelson never stopped sticking up for his son. The marijuana episode “was a misunderstanding,” he said, and the school transfers were “not a big deal.”

Molina took a few months away from baseball, and when he came back, his grades were up. He was practicing with Elite Squad again, even as his lawyer, Lyon Greenblatt, planned his defense. In June the charges were dropped altogether, according to Greenblatt and Nelson Molina, and back went Anthony into the full grind of showcase ball.

 

Though scouts nattered away about Molina’s bad makeup, the episode did little to diminish his standing in elite showcase events. Under Armour had invited him back to its All-America Game, alongside Pint. And of course Perfect Game expected him to show up at nationals. His fastball there sat 89 to 94 mph. The extra velocity never came, not after 27 Perfect Game events and not this spring as he angled to find a team that would bet on his potential.

 

-

 

Heres a tweet about him from a couple of weeks ago:

 

PBR Florida ‏@PBRFlorida May 28

2016 RHP Anthony Molina comes in for the South team and is sitting 90-92, touching 93 with a solid 71-73 mph CB. Pounding zone. #mlbdraft

 

 

as well as Austin Bergner, highly touted a few years back, he ranked in at 200 on MLB Pipelines draft list.

 

Scouting Grades: Fastball: 60 | Curve: 50 | Changeup: 45 | Control: 50 | Overall: 45

On the prospect radar for a while, Bergner had shown very good stuff on a big stage for two years, including strong performances on the summer showcase circuit and for Team USA in 2015. A combination of an unorthodox delivery, an inconsistent spring that included missing time at the end of the season and a strong commitment to North Carolina put a large dent in his Draft stock.

 

Tall and projectable, there might be more to Bergner's fastball in the future. It typically sits in the low 90s, but he has touched the mid 90s in the past. He can combine it with a good breaking ball that has good, tight spin at times. He doesn't go to his changeup too often, but he does have one, and given his overall feel for pitching, he should be able to develop an effective offspeed pitch in time. Bergner stays around the strike zone, though some are concerned about his funky arm action and delivery, even if it has been effective for the right-hander in the past and adds deception.

 

Bergner has a good arm, a feel for pitching, and some projectability. A team that feels comfortable with his delivery might still be willing to roll the dice, though the price tag to sign him way from becoming a Tar Heel might be too steep.

 

 

 

 

Some team will take a flyer on Jesus Luzardo, who had TJS in March, but has some upside:

 

Luzardo had established himself as perhaps the most advanced pitchability high school lefty in the Draft class last summer and teams were initially excited when he broke out of the gate getting his fastball up to the mid-90s. The enthusiasm was tempered quickly when Luzardo blew out his elbow and needed Tommy John surgery.

 

It's possible the physically mature 6-foot-1 southpaw was overthrowing, leading to the elbow injury. Over the summer, he was comfortably touching 93 mph and sitting in the 89-91 mph range. It played up thanks to its good sinking action and how well Luzardo commands it. He can change speeds on his curveball well and has a very good feel for a changeup.

 

Despite the surgery, there was buzz that Luzardo was still very much on teams' radars, as many don't shy away from those who have had surgery, signing them and then rehabbing them with professional staff. He does have a commitment to Miami, but with chances of him going in the first few rounds, he may never set foot on campus.

[King]

Just saw Stoeten tweet this out. Interesting he turned down 4(!) other offers to be drafted while being heart set on the Blue Jays.

 

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/baseballpreps/lakewoods-bo-bichette-drafted-65th-overall-by-blue-jays/2281094

 

Lakewood's Bo Bichette, 18, was selected 66th overall by the Blue Jays in Thursday night's Major League Baseball first-year player draft.

 

Bichette is the first Pinellas high school player to be taken that high in the draft since Dunedin's Ryan Harvey went sixth overall to the Cubs in 2003. He is also the first player from Lakewood ever drafted in the first two rounds.

 

Just two picks later, East Lake High 6-foot-3 right-hander Travis MacGregor was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates with the 68th overall pick.

 

"The Blue Jays were the top team that I wanted to go to,'' Bichette said. "They were the best as far as player development.

 

"I may end up taking a little less (in signing bonus), but this is the best fit. I actually turned down about four offers earlier in the draft because they weren't good fits."

 

The 6-foot, 185-pound Bichette had an impressive senior season.

 

He hit .569 with 13 home runs, which ranked first in the state and tied for seventh nationally according to MaxPreps. In his three years at Lakewood, Bichette hit 24 home runs, despite playing only seven games last season due to an elbow injury. He never had a batting average lower than .492.

 

MacGregor, a Clemson commit, was 7-1 for the Eagles this season with a 0.92 ERA and 82 strikeouts. Armed with a low-90s fastball, MacGregor said earlier this week that he was fine with whatever happened on draft day.

 

"It's hard to lose in this one," the 18-year-old said.

 

Bichette, who has orally committed to Arizona State, was named the Gatorade/USA Today and Florida Dairy Farmers' Florida Player of the Year. The son of former major-leaguer Dante Bichette, Bo could join older brother Dante Jr. as a professional player. Dante Jr. was taken 51st overall by the Yankees in 2011.

 

"He's just a special kid," Lakewood coach Jayce Ganchou said. "He's the complete package."

Bichette said he will bypass college and sign with Toronto.

 

Bichette and MacGregor join a string of recent Tampa Bay high school players taken on the first day: Plant's Kyle Tucker (fifth, Astros) and Jake Woodford (39th, Cardinals) in 2015; Hernando's Christian Arroyo (25th, Giants), Durant's Tyler Danish (55th, White Sox), Gaither's Oscar Mercado (57th, Cardinals) and Wharton's Tucker Neuhaus (72nd, Brewers) in 2013; Jesuit's Lance McCullers (41st, Astros) and King's Keon Barnum (48th, White Sox) in 2012; and Alonso's Jose Fernandez (14th, Marlins) in 2011.

[Angrioter]

Is Bichette without roids good?

[jays4life19]

That's awesome news about Bo Bichette. I'm liking the pick even more now.

[Jonn]

He seems like a fun personality. His great upside is whats most intriguing. But hes got that type of confidence and fun with the game that's rare with players. It will be a joy following him develop

[GD]

Gonna steal credit for pointing out Anthony Molina to King >:-)

[Pendleton]

Wonder what it was that endeared us more than those other teams....Weak farm = easy to climb?

[flafson]

Can't believe he's hurting his stock value so much by saying he only wanted the Blue Jays and that he will take less to sign...

[Sorrow]

Wonder what it was that endeared us more than those other teams....Weak farm = easy to climb?

 

I'm wondering if it might be some of the new stuff Gil Kim brought over from Texas with some of the performance stuff Shapiro and Atkins brought over from Cleveland.

[Angrioter]

Bichette face 3/10?

 

If he wants chicks, then he should hit the baseball as a motherf***er.

[King]

Can't believe he's hurting his stock value so much by saying he only wanted the Blue Jays and that he will take less to sign...

 

He's not saying he's going to sign with us for under slot value, he's saying he could have been drafted higher where the slot value is more and he would have gotten more money.

[flafson]

He's not saying he's going to sign with us for under slot value, he's saying he could have been drafted higher where the slot value is more and he would have gotten more money.

 

Yup, your point is valid.

[Pendleton]

"Every spring, a team of the top Canadian high school talent makes its rounds around Arizona and Florida, often playing against minor leaguers in extended spring camp. Invariably, a player or two from "North of the border" raises his stock with an outstanding performance in the warmer weather. This year, Balazovic was one of those players. While still a bit raw, there's a lot to like with this Auburn commit. At 6-foot-3, he's not physically developed yet. There's plenty of room to add strength and velocity. His arm works really well and fires fastballs up to 92 mph already, with heavy sink. He also has a good feel for his changeup. His breaking ball has a ways to go. Right now, it's a slurvy slider kind of caught in between a curve and a slider, with three-quarter break and thrown in the 79-82 mph range. He stays in the strike zone more often than not. A year ago, Mike Soroka was taken in the first round out of the Canadian high school ranks. The projectable Balazovic won't come off the board that quickly, but his spring work has moved him firmly into top five round territory."

[Daniel Labude]

Not a good first day imo. Hopefully it will get better today.

[Krylian]

Not a good first day imo. Hopefully it will get better today.

 

I'm a little underwhelmed as well. But this draft is far from over. I'm curious to see what they do today...and if they do heavy College, will we see some underslot deals and high end talent in rounds 11-40?

 

And then the most important part....who do they actually sign?

[King]

Here's a Callis article on some players still left on the board.

 

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/183209500/value-to-be-had-on-day-2-of-2016-mlb-draft?topicid=167757330

 

Avery Tuck (not mentioned in this article but ranked around 150 on MLB Pipelines top 200) had some hype for a while last summer although a disappointing spring has him down a bit.

 

Here's an article on him from BA about the PG National Showcase last June:

A week ago, outfielder Avery Tuck (Steele Canyon High, Spring Valley, Calif.) was something of a local legend. He had shown promise on the diamond and played in the Area Code Games as an underclassman. He was more well-known locally, but at PG National, he asserted himself as an excellent pro prospect in front of many high-level scouting officials. Tuck checks off many boxes. He has a high waist and wide shoulders, with present strength throughout his 6-foot-5 frame. The San Diego native now has scouts excited about his upside.

 

During his workout, Tuck showed at least above-average arm strength, making a few plus throws when he was able to access his lower half, and his live arm action points to a future plus arm. He also ran the 60-yard dash in 6.88 seconds, with a very quick first step that would later allow him to post a run time of 4.19 seconds from home to first base.

 

In his batting practice session, Tuck showed intriguing bat speed, but the ball did not explode off of his bat, as it would later in games. He hit a handful of line drives and a number of high-trajectory flies. Tuck’s swing gets started with a slight lean backward before he shifts his weight forward. He starts with an open stance and brings his front leg backward before closing off and landing with his front foot in line with his back side. Tuck has exceptional strength in his lower half, allowing him to stay balanced as he loads his hands and creates a smooth downhill bat path. He has an inside-out swing, and extends through the baseball very well.

 

Tuck really made a name for himself in game action. In the marquee matchup of the week, when the Red and Green squads faced off in a game that was televised on MLB Network, Tuck had three very hard hits. First, he took advantage of a curveball that southpaw Jeff Belge threw right down the middle, pulling the ball into right center field for an RBI single. Next, he demolished another mistake pitch, a loose-spinning curveball from another lefthander (Braxton Garrett), driving the ball with authority to the wall in left center field. In his third at-bat of the game, Tuck punished an 87-mph, knee-high fastball that was directly over the plate, smacking a slicing line drive into left center field.

 

Tuck’s performance this week certainly vaulted him onto teams’ follow lists, but he still has much to prove. While he did face quality pitchers, Tuck did not see plus fastball velocity. He swung-and-missed a couple times at PG National, once at an 86-mph fastball down and away, and once chasing an 86-mph fastball up above his hands. Tuck has shown that he is a dangerous hitter on the inner half of the strike zone, and that despite his long arms, he can get his barrel on pitches down and inside.

 

“I usually look for a fastball or a changeup, something that’s straight,” Tuck said. He also said he does feel comfortable against breaking pitches, and began to see more tightly spinning pitches at the Area Code games last summer. As the velocity dials up, Tuck could prove himself to be a truly elite talent if he can impact high-end velocity.

 

Initial reaction to Tuck’s coming out party was very positive. Three professional scouts said that Tuck was the top position player prospect they saw at the event, high praise considering the talent at PG National. Tuck will continue to play with Trosky Baseball this summer, looking to “stay within” his ability and make progress every day.

 

 

Read more at http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/pg-national-tuck-rise/#8UyjGVsHBQHmoijy.99

[Pendleton]

Back underway now

[King]

Day 2 stream

 

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/40395496/v691037183/2016-mlb-draft-day-2

[Laika]

I like the Zoik pick. I really like his age for a college guy. He seems like a pick that is both safe and projectable, which is awesome.

 

Woodman lead the SEC in dingers so I'll defer to the scouts and just assume the public reports saying that he has no plus tools are wrong.

 

Bichette looks terrible on video. Bad body, bad face, bad swing. I don't really get that pick buttttttt I only watched one 90 second video so.

[King]

http://i.imgur.com/UiZBbaR.png

 

Just me or?