by Thomas Chu on January 28, 2012
Brandon Drury, 3B Atlanta Braves
8/2/1992 (Age: 19)
Height: 6’2” Weight: 190
In the 2010 First Year Player Draft, the Braves gave up their first round draft pick to sign flamethrower closer, Billy Wagner, who had a renaissance year at age 38 after surgery for a torn UCL. Some people hated the decision to give up a pick to sign him, but Wagner was simply amazing that year. Without a first round pick, the Braves still managed to draft guys they wanted in Matt Lipka and Andrelton Simmons. It is still too early to analyze the 2010 draft, but the player making the most noise is Brandon Drury, a 13th round draft pick out of Grants Pass High School in Oregon.
Drury is known as a hard worker and according to Danville’s hitting coach, D. J. Boston, Drury is a “baseball rat.” He’s a guy that gets to the park early and spends most of his time in the batting cage. In his first taste of pro ball after the draft, he hit a meager .198/.248/.292 playing for the Gulf Coast League Braves. In 2011, his performance was a complete 360°. He led the Appalachian League with 92 hits, but fell short of the batting title, despite hitting safely in 25 of his final 26 games (1 for 2 in his final game).
Overall, Drury hit a remarkable .347/.367/.525 with a .177 ISO in 278 plate appearances during the 2011 season. Since high school, Drury has been lauded with praises and compliments. He was the best player out of Oregon pre-draft and after playing in the Appy League, Drury was one of the league’s top prospects. With that said, I will let you in on a little secret. We will launch our Top 21s for every MLB team soon and Drury is #11 on my list as a potential breakout. With his excellent athleticism, strong work ethic, and above average bat speed, Drury’s stock value jumped and he’s ranked #341 on our Baseball Instinct 360°. [click to continue…]
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by Thomas Belmont on January 27, 2012
Dylan Bundy, RHP Baltimore Orioles
11/15/1992
Height: 6’1″ Weight: 200
Dylan Bundy was taken in the 1st round of the 2011 draft by the Baltimore Orioles. Bundy came out of Owasso High School in a very deep pitching class including Archie Bradley, Mike Fulmer and Mason Hope. Bundy is currently the best of the bunch. Out of the gate, let’s take a look at the 2011 Draft Review where Bundy was selected 4th overall despite being our #1 selection:
#1 Dylan Bundy RHP Owasso HS (OK) - This is a draft deep in pitching at the top end and there are pitchers more advanced than Bundy, but none have the ultimate upside that this kid can have. He’s a baseball rat who’s work ethic is already off the charts and he has a plus plus fastball, plus curveball and the frame to be a work horse for a long time. It’ll take a hefty bonus but he’s going to sign because the team that gets can’t afford not to sign him.
Our Instinct: The top talent in this draft and the Orioles are building a really solid big league rotation with more upcoming talent now. Great pick. Time to open the pocket-book.
And open up the pocket-book the O’s did. To the tune of a record signing bonus including a $6.225mm contract and $4mm signing bonus. Outside of dominating in High School at both Sperry and Owasso, his 2011 High School Player of Year honors saw him with an 11-0 record including a 0.20 ERA, no, not a mistake, and he hit .467.
Let’s take a look at what made Bundy our #1 Orioles prospect #9 overall in 2012 for us here at Baseball Instinct. We’ll take a look at the pitch arsenal and delve into his mechanics. [click to continue…]
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by David Reiffer on January 26, 2012
Addison Reed, RHP, Chicago White Sox
DOB: 12/27/1988
Height: 6’4″ Weight: 215
Addison had no trouble staying under the radar as a 3rd round selection out of San Diego State University from 2010. Being a teammate of Stephen Strasburg will do that to you. In 2011, however, his sleeper status evaporated as he rolled through four minor league levels, starting in Single A Kannapolis through Triple A Charlotte in 2011, eventually landing in the majors. Reed struck out 111 batters in 78.1 innings pitched while walking only 14 over those four levels. During 2011′s whirlwind tour through the minor leagues, Reed’s ERA never scored higher than 1.59. Though with a pitifully low amount of data, his 7 major league innings saw his ERA jump to 3.38 while striking out 12 and walking just one with a painfully low ground ball rate at 20% and a sky-high .474 BABIP. So Reed does have to prove that he’s ready for primetime yet.
After that banner season for the 23-year-old, it’s no surprise that he also found his way into our 2012 Baseball Instinct 360°. Here’s what we said:
123°. Addison Reed, RHP, White Sox, 12/27/1988 – Chris Sale part deux? It sure seems that way. Clearly, with the White Sox dealing Santos and pushing Sale to the rotation they feel that they have the real deal in Reed. You fantasy baseball types out there may want to remember this come auction/draft day or make a push for trading for him in those keeper leagues with farm systems. ETA 2012. [click to continue…]
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by George Utter on January 25, 2012
Anthony Rendon, 3B Washington Nationals
06/06/1990
Height: 6′ 0″ Weight: 190
It sounded something like this: “With the first pick in 2011 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft, The Pittsburgh Pirates take…” The answer, as expected, was RHP Gerrit Cole from UCLA. Up second was the Seattle Mariners who assuredly were going to take Rice 3B Anthony Rendon. In need of star potential bats, especially at the hot corner the Mariners called out the name of their future all-star third baseman. “With the second pick in 2011 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft, The Seattle Mariners take….” And there it was. Virginia LHP Danny Hultzen. Wait..What? Yes, the Mariners went another direction.
The slipping didn’t stop there, however. The Arizona Diamondbacks picked UCLA RHP Trevor Bauer. The Baltimore Orioles then selected Oklahoma high school RHP Dylan Bundy. With the 5th pick the Kansas City Royals would be the 1st team to break the ice and take a position player, but it wouldn’t be Rendon. It’s was Kansas high school sensation OF Bubba Starling.
To the shock of everyone including Washington Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo, for the third straight year the Nationals would select possibly the best player in the draft. There was no hesitation from the Nationals at this point. Rizzo met with the press to discuss the selection. “We were pleasantly surprised that he got to us at six,” Rizzo said, “Going into the draft season, he was projected to be the no.1 pick, the best college hitter in the game, and throughout the college season and the draft season he held onto that status, and as late as about twenty-four hours ago he was supposedly going one or two in the draft. So we’re pleasantly surprised, we did a lot of work on him we feel we know him very, very well, our Vice President of Player Personnel Roy Clark actually drafted him out of high school for the Atlanta Braves and got to know him very, very well, so we’ve had a long relationship with him and his family and we feel really good about it.”
We agree. The Nationals got themselves a steal at this spot. Recently we released our Baseball Instinct 360° and Rendon came in #18 where we had this to say about him:
[click to continue…]
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