Draft Report: - Tyler Pill, Kevin Ziomek, LSU Scrimmage, Nick Delmonico, and high school slotting

The Mack Draft Report – 10-22-10:



CBB  ranked RHP Tyler Pill as the 86th top college player eligible for the 2011 MLB draft.



Pill is a good pitcher, but I don’t have him near as high as this. Currently, I show him as the 96th RHP in the draft, which would make him come in somewhere in the 8th or 9th round.



He was named to the 3rd team 2010 NCBWA AA team, and did have a good stint this summer with Harwich of the Cape Cod League, but he stood out more as a hitter (critical home run in 2-1 win against Orleans).


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Amherst Bulletin

 Remember LHP Kevin Ziomek?



He was a hot shot high school prospect who fell in the 2010 draft after committing to play for Vanderbilt.



Ben Larsen, of Mass Live , said this week that he really impressed the hell out himself in a scrimmage against Texas. Turns out he threw three scoreless innings, which woke up the scouts in attendance.



I had Ziomek as the 10th top LHP in the 2010 draft, which was based on the last ten mock drafts released by the draft experts. I’m sure his signing with Vandy lowered him into that position. He was a cold weathered with only an average fastball, that topped out at 90. He did clock out a little higher against Texas which is a good sign. What he does possess is an above-average slider, change up, and curve, which, if he can develop some more movement on his fast ball, could make him a very effective prospect.


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In the scrimmage world, LSU just entered their fourth week of fall workouts and results from last Thursday and Friday’s games are out. OF Mikie Mahtook went 4-6 (double, triple), Austin Nola went 3-5, and Jacoby Jones posted 2-4. Obviously, the pitching went south, but Matty Ott and Kirk Cunningham did manage to pitch three scoreless innings.



Practice will resume on Monday, Oct. 25 and scrimmages will resume Tuesday, Oct. 26. All practices are open to the public in Alex Box Stadium.


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Baseball Rumor Mill  released their top 10 2011 draft prospects in an October 20 article which went as follows:

1. Anthony Rendon, Rice, 3B


2. Matt Purke, TCU, RHP


3. Gerrit Cole, UCLA, RHP


4. Nick Delmonico, Farragut HS, TN, C


5. Bubba Starling, Edgarton HS, KS, RHP/OF


6. Jack Armstrong, Vanderbilt, RHP


7. Daniel Norris, Science Hill HS, TN, LHP


8. Jason Esposito, Vanderbilt, 3B


9. Jackie Bradley Jr., South Carolina, 2B


10. Christian Lopes, Edison HS, CA, SS



We’ve read most of these names already in other mock drafts, but this is easily the highest either Delmonico or Esposito has been posted.


Delmonico went into this “draft” with one other sites, Draft Site, responsible for his best position in the draft. They had him as the 24th pick. And, only other site, PG, picked him at all and that was 89th.



Esposito, who plays both shortstop and third base, may have been picked in the previous seven-in-a-row mock drafts, but the highest he was picked was 20th, by Sully Draft.



How expert is this expert mock draft? Well, a possible indication is listing Matt Purke as a RHP, instead of the top lefty in the country.


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Anup Sinha, of http://www.prospectwire.com/  came uo with some interesting facts abut high schoolers going straight to the pros:



1. There were 101 high school players taken in the first round of the 2010 draft


2. There were 55 more high school players signed after the 8th round that signed above slot


3. Thus, 156 high school players were considered to be worthy of 8th round or better money.


David Rubin brought up “over-slotting” big time in his October 21 posting, so I’m going to leave that issue to him to further explain in one of his upcoming posts.


That being said, Sinha has pointed out which most of us already know… baseball teams, other than the New York Mets. have no problem spending good money on great players, regardless what round they are drafted in.


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Perfect Game  continued their release of their top 300 prospects for the 2011 draft. You can now get the top 100 for free, while the others are available for subscribers only.


Additional, they did do a little tweaking of their top 100 list, which originally came out less than a week ago. Some changes are:


RHP Cecil Tanner going from being ranked 100th to 86th


OF Ryan Garvey going from being unranked to 54th


LHP (6-8) Adam McCreery going from unranked to 48th


C Peter O’Brien going from unranked to 91st.


C Mario Amaral going from unranked to 87th


IF Josh Tobias going from unranked to 75th

I’m reminded above of a phone call I received a couple of years ago from a major league scout. He had been following online my weekly local column and noticed that the USCB college baseball team had a RHP on the squad who was lists as 7-2.

The call was during spring practice and he asked me if I had seen him pitch. I told him no and gave him a little history on the guy who came from a neighboring county high school here in South Carolina.


We both decided that he must have sucked at basketball, and the scout muttered over the phone “well… keep me up-to-date on this kid… he could be worth a late rounder…”.


I expressed my surprise on his candor about someone he had never seen pitch and the scout answered: “Seven foot two? Hell, if he was a lefty he would be worth a pick in the 10th round.”