Player updates

[colbyjack]

[pogokat]

William & Mary will be here in athens tommorrow and im gonna try and check them out...hopefully it will be interesting because the dawgs suck this year...and our basketball team is about to get probation..and our entire football team filed for the draft...sheesh

[colbyjack]

[pogokat]

well, he sounds like quite a sight to see...sucks that he most likely wont throw tommorrow!

[OhioScout]

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.

[colbyjack]

He may end up being real expensive but here's a prospect on the rise.

 

Speaking of players being expensive to sign, and I don't know how comfortable you feel commenting on this issue OhioScout, but have any marquee players selected Scott Boras as their advisor? Last year a big deal was made of this a lot earlier than this point in time when it was known that Bobby Brownlie, Jason Neighborgall, Mark McCormick, Mike Pelfrey, Jeff Baker and a few others were all being advised by Boras. To no surprise, most to all of these guys fell much further than they would/should have, and all of the HS players listed attended college in the process. Did this have an affect at all on players either selecting Boras as their advisor and/or announcing that he was indeed going to be advising them? We haven't heard too much about certain players possibly pricing them out of everyone's range, and I'm curious if there are any rumblings of this in the scouting world. While you noted that Andrew Miller might take a lot to sign, is this just because he's pitching himself into a really high pick?

 

Thanks in advance.

[colbyjack]

Adam Loewen did pitch 4 innings over the weekend in impressive fashion. Reports say he was throwing in the 94-95 range, and his box score notes that he allowed only 1 hit in his 4 innings, didn't walk a batter & struck out 6.

 

And if pogo was at the Georgia game last night, he didn't see William & Mary pitcher Chris Ray, but he did see his Bulldogs win http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif .

[OhioScout]

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.

[igor67]

I'm sorry OhioScout but there was an inaccuracy I couldn't let stand the best public college in the nation no longer has baseball so clearly Miller isn't going there. Perhaps he's going to one of those other high quality yet obviously inferior institutions in California http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/happy.gif

[colbyjack]

I believe OhioScout was referring to the nation's 2nd best public university in North Carolina. Good catch igor http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif .

 

They still end up getting good contracts if they are good prospects.

 

What about Jason Neighborgall? He clearly priced himself out of the draft completely. Was he that hell-bent to go to Georgia Tech? I find that hard to believe. I can see Jeremy Sowers, but his intentions were pretty clear the entire spring of 2001.

 

Some advisors often try and push certain organizations to draft their players.

 

How often does this happen? I remember reading that this is a big reason, or THE reason Ryan Anderson fell to the Mariners in the '97 draft (I think it was '97). From what I remember, he and/or his advisor told teams not to take him and he slid to the Mariners somewhere in the second half of the first round. Does, or better yet, can MLB do anything to try & prevent this from happening? Some of these tactics advisors use seem to border on tampering (probably more like reverse tampering).

 

And finally, the $1 million dollar question: How interested are the Brewers in Andrew Miller if he has placed himself that high? Is #2 TOO high for Miller with guys like Young, Milledge, Sleeth, Weeks & Loewen (possibly) being available?

[clancyphile]

That is the big question, and quite frankly, I'd rather take Loewen or Young over Miller as things stand.

[PrimetimeHater]

Maholm pitched against Lipscomb University today, the Bulldogs won, he has 23 K's to 4 BB's on the season now.

 

 

IP H R ER BB SO

Paul Maholm ........ 7.0 3 1 1 2 9

[colbyjack]

Maholm is off to a nice start. Will be nice to see how he fares against the tough SEC. He could really jump up the charts with strong in-conference performances.

 

It's tough to gauge some of these guys early in the season. Kyle Sleeth tossed a complete game today giving up 2 runs. I don't have the details on his line, but it was against LeMoyne. I don't know if I've even heard of LeMoyne or Lipscomb before today.

[pogokat]

lipscomb is d3 or naia (or whatever independent)....its a small christian school in nashville tennessee...for reference, i almost went there to play ball

[colbyjack]

Adam Loewen pitched earlier today. He went 4.2 innings (I'm assuming he's still on the limited pitch count I think around 60), didn't allow a hit, struck out 8 & walked 1 batter. It sounds as though Loewen is absolutely dealing. If he gets that pitch count up, he's going to put up some impressive numbers by the end of the year.

 

He also added a little with his bat today going 2-4 with a double, a run, an RBI & a SB.

 

Rickie Weeks' stats have been updated, and through 3/5 he is hitting .500/.554/1.043. In 46 ABs he has 5 2B, 1 3B, 6 HR, 24 RBI, 6 BB, 5 K & is 9 for 9 in stolen bases. He has 3 errors at 2B for a .944 fielding %.

 

TeamOneBaseball offered some scouting video of Weeks this past week for their subscribers & he looks a lot bigger than he did last year. He is known to be an extremely hard worker & hits the gym all of the time, and that work is most certainly starting to show for the young man.

 

We can't lose at #2.

[Katuluu]

We can't lose at #2.

 

Wanna bet we find a way? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smokin.gif

[pogokat]

we cant lose at #2 eh???? you could sign Jesus and it wouldnt matter if you didnt sign him!

[docduany]

I've got to agree with Kat, just watch us screw up the # 2 pick. There's a reason that we've been so bad for so long, I'll chuck it up to bad mojo. And as we all know there is no known cure for bad mojo. Or perhaps I misread Colby's meaning, maybe it was sarcasm-- whatever that may be.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/happy.gif

[colbyjack]

I think you guys are taking my comment a little too seriously. I didn't mean to imply that the Brewers can't possibly screw this up. All I'm saying that the talent at the #2 selection will be legitimate, and we shouldn't have to settle for anyone regardless of who the D-Rays take #1.

 

The Brewers blunder factor always exists http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif .

[Never Outhustled]

Lets not be tough on Jack Z just because all the screw ups that were made by someone else during the Bando era.

[colbyjack]

No one is taking a dig at Jack Zduriencik, we're just preparing ourselves in advance for another potential let down after years filled with disappointments & draft busts.

[colbyjack]

Here's some lines on the season:

 

Sleeth: 1.16 ERA, 31 IP, 19 H, 32 K, 4 BB

Sullivan: 2.45 ERA, 36.2 IP, 23 H, 42 K, 9 BB

Stauffer: 2.45 ERA, 22 IP, 17 H, 36 K, 3 BB

Ray: 2.17 ERA, 29 IP, 20 H, 32 K, 4 BB

Bakker: 3.13 ERA, 23 IP, 23 H, 23 K, 5 BB

 

Bakker got roughed up a little bit in his last start, but the rest of these guys are really dealing. Should be a special year for college pitchers.

 

One college hitter after Weeks that could go in the top 10:

 

Michael Aubrey: .492/.560/.778-63 AB, 4 HR, 6 2B, 6 BB

 

Matt Murton is hitting better, but needs to get over .300 before being mentioned here. He could do that with one good game.

[pogokat]

tim stauffer is quite the little K machine isnt he!!! wow!

[Katuluu]

What are the odds of Bakker dropping to us in the second round? It seems he's probably ranked about #20 overall at this point in time. I'd love to snag him.

[colbyjack]

At this point in time, Bakker dropping to the 2nd round doesn't seem very likely. I'm guessing he goes somewhere from the middle of the first round to the middle of the supplemental first round. If he bounces back from his last start & finishes the rest of the season strong, who knows, some team might just take him in the top 10.

 

Of course you never do know. Jeff Baker, Jason Neighborgall & Jeff Clement were all guys we talked about at this time last year as possibilities for our 1st round pick that fell well beyond our 2nd & 3rd round selections. Of course, 2 of those guys were affected by the evil Scott Boras. The only person from this year's draft that I know is represented by Boras is Landon Powell. For some reason, that info hasn't leaked out like it did last year.

 

That said, there still should be plenty of good players available at our 2nd round pick. The depth of this year's draft is similar to the 2001 draft.