Mack – Draft News – JT Ginn, Cole Wilcox, Hunter Barnhart, Devonte Brown, Alejandro Rosario

“Notabody”   Mets pick at #19:

            RHP    JT Ginn          Mississippi State

            2-20-2020:  The injury bug has hit Mississippi State pitcher JT Ginn again.

The Bulldogs' sophomore ace will miss his start against Oregon State this weekend due to soreness with his throwing arm, MSU head coach Chris Lemonis confirmed Thursday afternoon. Lemonis said Ginn's status beyond the weekend is unknown.

Bleed Cubbie Blue  participated in his first mock. His pick for the Mets in the first round was:

          RHP    Cole Wilcox   Georgia

          Lookout Landing =  Cole Wilcox is actually a year younger than his rotation-mate Hancock, but he’s a draft eligible sophomore who just celebrated his birthday on the 14th of this month (happy birthday Cole, and a shoutout to all summer birthday babies who never got their special day during the school year and had to have the “celebrate everyone’s birthdays at once” on the last day of school). The 6’5”/230 Wilcox, who played on Team USA and excelled at all the major showcases, was highly coveted out of Heritage HS in Georgia, but as the son of a Dawg himself—his father brought him to a Georgia baseball game when he was just five years old—Wilcox wanted to don the red and black, and set a prohibitively high price tag on his services.

In high school, Wilcox’s fastball already sat 91-94; as he’s added more muscle he’s boosted that into the high 90s, and has touched triple digits.

Carlos Collazo  -  @CarlosACollazo

RHP Hunter Barnhart (Calif.) might be the biggest riser in the country at the moment. The stuff has ticked up & there's a ton of heat on him recently. 92-96 FB with a banger of a curve—a future plus pitch. He's now in day one consideration.

PG - Hunter Barnhart is a 2020 RHP/1B with a 6-2 195 lb. frame from Paso Robles, CA who attends St. Joseph. Strong athletic build especially in the lower half, pretty mature physically. Has a very fast arm from an over the top arm slot, slight pause over the rubber with a long arm action in back, accelerates quickly to the plate with some energy, short stride out front will leave his arm behind at times especially on his breaking ball. Low 90's fastball, topped out at 94 mph, gets nice heavy sinking action down in the strike zone. Showed hard curveball spin with a sharp bite when his arm was on time. Has a present change up with good arm speed he used to both right and left handed batters effectively. Three pitch starter type whose next step is to get consistency in his delivery timing

  

Gopack - - NC State baseball junior Devonte Brown was named one of Collegiate Baseball's National Players of the Week, as announced by the publication on Monday. It is the first weekly award of his career.

After showing out on opening weekend, Brown kept up his hot streak and helped the Wolfpack earn a midweek win against Longwood on Feb. 18 and series sweep over Tennessee Tech on Feb. 22-23. He turned in a .357 batting average with five hits, including a double and three homers, as well as eight runs batted in and a 1.071 slugging percentage.

Draftsite's “Simmons”  Mets pick at #19:

          C          Patrick Bailey          NC State

        Lookout Landing - NC State’s Patrick Bailey. Bailey isn’t the slam-dunk prospect fellow college catcher Adley Rutschman was, but he shares many of the same attributes and has earned many of the same accolades as 2019’s first overall pick, including being selected to Team USA as both a high schooler and a collegiate and named to Golden Spikes and Buster Posey Award watchlists.

Well-regarded as a defensive catcher out of high school, teams chose to pass on the 175-lb. North Carolina native and his strong commitment to NC State until a courtesy selection from the Twins in the 37th round in 2017. Once a member of the Wolfpack, Bailey went on to win ACC Freshman of the Year, slashing .321/.419/.604. He didn’t quite repeat those torrid numbers as a sophomore, but still came close to a .300/.400/.500 slash line. A switch-hitter (#SwitchHittingCatcher alert), Bailey has shown to have power from both sides, and he walks almost as often as he strikes out. His swing looks very similar from both sides of the plate, incorporating a high leg kick and a sharp upward plane. Personally, I think he looks slightly more natural from the right side.

Fish Stripes wrote about the top 3 MLB draft prospects that will come out of the Miami-Dade high schools. One was:

            RHP Alejandro Rosario

Alejandro Rosario started his high school career as one of the top 2021 prospects in the country. However, he decided to reclass as a 2020 high school senior making him eligible for this summer’s MLB Draft. On Perfect Game, Rosario is the 21st-ranked prospect and the sixth right-handed pitcher in the country. MLB Pipeline also has him ranked as the 66th-ranked draft prospect. In his junior season, Rosario had a 6-0 record with a 0.81 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 43 1⁄3 innings pitched.

Alejandro Rosario is one of the best young pitchers in the 2020 MLB Draft. He stands at 6’1”, 165 pounds out of Miami Christian School. He has a live fastball that sits 92-95 and tops out at 97 mph. His best offspeed pitch is his splitter that can be a power pitch and work like a change-up. He’s also currently developing a cutter. Rosario is a very projectable arm that will need some time in the minors to develop before he can be ready for the MLB. This could be a really nice pick-up for the Fish as he’s expected to go day one of the MLB Draft.