There’s a lot of concern right now about Kumar Rocker, presumed to be a no-doubt top-three pick in the 2021 draft, who has been pitching more at 89 to 90 mph the past two outings than his customary 94-96, according to multiple scouts I spoke with this week.
Rocker’s Vanderbilt teammate Jack Leiter finally gave up a hit after two straight outings in which he went a combined 16 innings without surrendering any hits, although that’s more a fun tidbit than anything that will move the needle on his draft stock. Teams and scouts aren’t focused on those kind of results; they’re focused on how a pitcher is getting there, and Leiter has been missing a ton of bats with his fastball and landing his breaking ball more consistently where he wants to. At this point, he is the strong favorite for the first overall pick, especially because the Pittsburgh Pirates are unlikely to take a high school player.
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Rocker’s dip in velocity — which could easily be temporary — and Jaden Hill‘s partially torn UCL have changed the complexion of the top of the board. Gunnar Hoglund of Ole Miss has emerged as the next best college pitcher, just one strikeout behind Leiter for the Division I lead, followed by Ty Madden of Texas, Ryan Cusick of Wake Forest and Miami of Ohio’s Sam Bachman, who hit 102 mph while building back up from a couple of missed starts, showing the stuff of a top 15 pick. California shortstop Marcelo Mayer joins Jordan Lawlar as the two high school players who are certain to go in the top 10. Boston College centerfielder Sal Frelick and Louisville catcher Henry Davis have impressed scouts this spring with their performances and middle-of-the-field positional value, and likely will be the first two college hitters off the board. As of now, I don’t think there’s a high school pitcher drafted in the top 10, and would peg seven guys as “locks” to go in the first 10 picks, in no particular order: Leiter, Rocker, Davis, Frelick, Lawlar, Mayer and Hoglund.
• One of the top college bats in the draft coming into the spring, Miami catcher Adrian Del Castillo, hasn’t performed up to preseason expectations and might slide out of the top 10 due to other hitters, such as Frelick and Davis, passing him in scouts’ eyes. I watched Del Castillo at the University of Virginia two weekends ago and saw a good swing that should produce line-drive contact but probably not much power. He’s rough behind the plate, with a 40 arm and trouble handling better stuff, although he was better when he got his feet moving, making several good plays in front of or behind the plate when he left his position. It’s a strange profile: He’s a contact hitter who has good hand-eye coordination and a history of solid bat-to-ball skills, but he doesn’t hit for power or project to do so with his swing, and if he’s not a catcher, I’m not sure where you play him or whether his bat will be good enough wherever that is.
• Del Castillo didn’t see the ball well out of Virginia lefty Andrew Abbott‘s hand, which is also a testament to how Abbott succeeds with a lot of average stuff. He worked at 89-94 mph, toward the lower end as the game progressed, with a 78-80 mph curveball he used against left- and right-handed batters, later working in both a change-up and a slider. He’s on the extreme third-base side of the rubber with a weird heel placement that has his toe on the rubber but heel off it at a 45-degree angle, something I can’t remember seeing before. He showed average command and control, although twice he seemed to temporarily lose the zone before righting himself with the next batter. Abbott was undrafted in last year’s five-round affair, but probably would have gone in the third round or so in a normal year, and as a senior, he’ll be some team’s target no later than the third.
• Virginia third baseman Zack Gelof might go as high as the third round, although I think he’s more of a fourth- to fifth-round talent. He always looks like he’s going with a two-strike approach, trying to avoid the strikeout but ceding any power. He’s rough at third base and hasn’t thrown well since last spring, so second base may be his best option to stay on the dirt. He might have an above-average hit tool that’s partly masked by the contact-or-death approach.
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• This past weekend, I headed to College Park, Md., to see the Terps, Michigan and Northwestern play in one of the Big 10’s three-team pods. Terps right-hander Sean Burke has been up to 97 mph and is getting Day 1 draft buzz, but on a 40-degree day, he was 89-92, touching 93 just once, and had the most success with an 84-85 mph changeup where he showed excellent arm speed, probably a 55 pitch. His slider is average and his mid-70s curveball is more of a “show-me” pitch. He’s big and strong at 6-foot-6, 230 pounds, with a very strong lower half and a solid delivery with a little deception. He really didn’t have it from the get-go on Friday though, walking in a run in the first inning and issuing five free passes in total in five innings with eight strikeouts. He’s a redshirt sophomore who missed 2019 while recovering from Tommy John surgery, so teams don’t have a lot of history on him, which puts more scrutiny on every start. There were 22 scouts in attendance Friday, by my count, although we were all dressed like mummies in the cold. If he’s 92-94 mph and showing better control, as he did the week prior, he’s a second-rounder.
• Michigan lefty Steven Hajjar, also a redshirt sophomore, pitched on Saturday against Northwestern and was 87-91 mph, showing a change-up and an 11/5 curveball that touched average but sat just below. He’s 6-foot-5 with long levers and has no consistency to his delivery, starting on the third-base side of the rubber and often cutting himself off to come back across his body. He punched out 10 Wildcats and didn’t allow a hit till the sixth inning, when he gave up back-to-back homers on flat fastballs. His size and potential for huge extension if someone cleans up the delivery could make Hajjar worth a third-round gamble.
• Northwestern right-hander Tyler Uberstine started against Hajjar, and was 89-93 mph with a solid-average change-up and huge confidence in the pitch, throwing four straight changes at one point to a left-handed batter in the first inning. He’s a redshirt junior who transferred to Northwestern from Southern California in 2019, and could be a solid under-slot pick toward the 10th round for a team trying to save money.
• Jimmy Obertop leads Michigan with seven homers, but he’s also hitting .269 with a .354 on-base percentage and 20 strikeouts in 77 plate appearances. I can see the power and bat speed, and the swing isn’t bad, but it looks like there are some breaking-ball-recognition deficiencies that would probably limit him to Rounds 6-10.
(Photo of Leiter: Jonathan Mailhes / CSM via ZUMA Wire / AP)
