OhioScout

Tigerfanatic is right. Baseball America's indirect goal is to make everyone think they know more than they actually do. Some of the things they say are just wrong. They are journalists, not scouts, with information from isolated sources. Don't take them so seriously. The draft is going to go in directions that you don't expect it to.

A lot of pitchers that Weeks faces are brutal. He plays in a league with HBCUs in the South. There just aren't many young black kids playing baseball down there. All of the athletes in the Arkansas/Alabama areas are playing basketball and football. The ones that can actually play baseball end up on his team at Southern (its a good program)! It's very bad baseball, don't kid yourself. It can give you nightmeares. Of the 9 teams that Southern is playing in the SWAC, 7 of them have one of the 25 or so worst RPIs in the NCAA this year. You see a kid like Jeremy Cleveland at North Carolina batting .430 in the ACC. Think of what he'd be batting in the Southwestern Athletic Conference!!! .600? Weeks is going to be selected early next week because of his tremendous athleticism, not his batting average. Noone would be talking about how great his batting average is if he played the season in the SEC. I don't mean to sound like he can't hit, by the way. I heard Weeks hit a home run today in the regionals (real competition).

Mollekan is supposed to have a good arm. Not the type of prospect that Cornell is/was, though! He's a Canadian guy and his lack of exposure isn't going to help him go highly in the draft.

Has Cornell pitched on television? Sullivan threw a good amount his sophomore season but the pitch counts weren't as consistently high. The Houston team was a lot better last year, this year they might feel they have to push him further than they may be comfortable to win games. He hasn't really slown down much, even after throwing a good amount his sophomore season.

colbyjack, you bring up valid points/arguments. Cornell has a lot of upside. You're going to get concerns about his health. Marc Cornell's pure stuff may be the best in the nation, he has the stuff to dominate. Has he dominated? No. But those that like his upside will take him if he continues to throw well in his last few starts. This is the thing, some scouts thought/think that college pitching is down this year. With Sullivan and Stauffer you have undersized right-handers. Sullivan is seemingly throwing 110-130 pitches every time out and Tim Stauffer is starting to tire out some. A good deal of scouting departments look for size with pitchers. Cornell's got it, Stauffer and Sullivan don't. Cornell's pitchability isn't there with the others which is why he hasn't been so dominant. He gets too much plate at times and leaves pitches up sometimes. The reports by those that have followed him over time say that his improvement has been very good from this year to last. He wasn't an effective pitcher his sophomore season. Is it too much to ask of someone to go from an ineffective pitcher to a nationally dominant guy in one year? I don't mean to sound like a Cornell apologist, just giving you some thoughts!

You should start giving reports on Cornell. I have not seen him yet but we have regional guys writing glowing reports on him. They haven't seen 95 MPH look any easier since Mark Prior. Creating a major buzz.

#1 - I admit to liking statistics for high level college players. I don't think that I, nor other scouts, really care much about stats in high school or DII programs. When it comes down to it you have to project players out professionally and present-day tools, projectability, and skills are what make most of the difference. That's what really matters when looking at amateurs. #2 - I'm not sure I quite understand what you're trying to convey with "max effort" players. To me, effort is how much effort a player puts into his play on the field. Mark Prior does not break a sweat -- very little effort. Someone like, say, Chris Snelling gets hurt a lot because he plays with so much effort to compensate for a lack of physical tools. I think that you mean how much effort someone puts in off the field it depends on organizational philosophy. Drafting talented players that don't want to work off the field isn't a good idea. If you draft hard workers that can't play you get very little and no trade value. There is a ton of grey area with this subject and I don't think I can really answer it. You've gotta have a good mixture. One side more heavily weighted towards the other isn't good. When you draft players, most scouts look at the talent and hope for a maturation process which often comes around.

Those SB totals for Milledge are correct. The coach at Lakewood Ranch has him and another kid committed to U of Florida stealing a lot of bases.

Andrew Miller could definitely be a top 5 pick. With his arm strength, slider, arm action and stature, he fits the description for sure. Miller is a very intelligent kid. He's signed to go to the best public university in the country that happens to be in the best baseball conference in the NCAA. He's got a lot of leverage. You could compare his situation to that of Jeremy Sowers' of two years ago but Miller is a pitcher with more going for him from a scouting perspective. Yes, Boras' clients do fall in the draft. Some teams stop looking at players that he's advising. They still end up getting good contracts if they are good prospects. Guthrie and Brownlie got nice contracts, especially Guthrie. Then you look at Jeff Baker and he fell to the 4th round, that was not just because Boras was his advisor. There were some high price tags with Baker but the truth is that a lot of scouts were not sold on Baker as a hitter. His approach at the plate is questionable and scouts had been thinking twice about his ability to hit with wood for a long time before the draft. You're not going to be hearing about certain players pricing themselves out teams' budgets for at least another month. It's often a frustrating process. Some advisors often try and push certain organizations to draft their players. Because of that you'll sometimes get varying opinions on someone's signability, depending upon whom you speak to.

If you have not already noticed or heard, Andrew Miller is really sky-rocketing up lists. Teams with early picks are really looking at him and he's delivering. He may end up being real expensive but here's a prospect on the rise.