M’s Tag 1B Maguire Wiswall at #222
Fantastic name, not on the level of Gauntlett Eldemire though.
Wiswall, who goes by Mickey, is out of Boston College, a left-handed hitting first baseman. He did quite well in the Cape Cod League last year. He got a little bit of a big head about it, apparently, because he was trying to pull everything out of the gate this seasons and everyone abandoned ship on him.
Since we’re suddenly experts on horizontal vs. vertical leverage in our training programs and swings, we may be able to tweak him to the point where he’s effective and not quite so pull happy. He’s pretty much locked into first base, so that bat will have to carry him if he’s going anywhere in the league. There’s a lot of potential there, it’s just a matter of tapping into it.
M’s Pick C Keanu Carmichael at #192
Not a tremendous pick at this point. Catching is not regarded as a strength of this draft and I honestly thought that we’d bypass picking one for quite a while, but hey, someone has to back up all these pitchers.
Carmichael slipped down the boards because he transferred high schools in Hawaii earlier this year, which made him ineligible to play. He’s defensive guy, good feet, flexible, arm which while solid is not likened to artillery so far as I see. Behind the plate, he seems quite proactive, which is a good sign. The bat is not horrible, level swing, probably conducive to liners.
M’s Go with RHP Stephen Pryor at #162
Another college pitcher, this one a bit of an unknown relative to everyone else that’s been on the board so far. Pryor is out of Tennessee Tech, a transfer from Cleveland State. He’s another 6’4 guy, but considerably heavier than the other two we’ve seen thus far. He’s a reliever who has gained traction of late, recently gaining control over his body, and will pump in fastballs in the mid-90s while touching in the high-90s. The slider is still a work in progress, as he only picked it up after having trouble with his curve. Overall results were inconsistent for him, however. He could move fast and work his way into the bullpen within two or three years if everything breaks right for him.
M’s Nab LHP James Paxton at #132
Fan-tastic.
Paxton was a supplemental rounder for the Jays last year, but failed to come to terms. Because the Jays ended up negotiating with Scott Boras, Paxton was ruled ineligible for the NCAA season with U Kentucky bailed for the Grand Prairie Air Hogs in Texas. Last year, he was 93-4 touching 97, but this year he was down a bit, 88-93 with the fastball generally, and his curve wasn’t biting quite as much as it did in the past.
Other teams were probably scared off from Paxton both because he’s had nagging injuries over the years, elbow issues as a prep, back issues two years ago, knee problems recently, but I see a couple of reasons to be positive about the M’s taking him. For one, our Canadian scouting is pretty good, so you have to believe that they’ve had their eyes on him forever, and for another, we have a pretty solid minor league training and conditioning program now and are more than willing to sit guys with slightest hint of arm trouble. It seems weird to think that the M’s are now and organization that may be more capable than others of keeping a pitcher healthy, but I’d say we have a shot here. It’s a gamble. It could pay off extraordinarily well.
M’s Pick RHP Ryne Stanek at #99
Great, great pick for the time. Top-rated player out of Kansas as a prep right-hander, and as I said, I trust our Midwest scouting more than just about anyone else’s. We’ll have to buy him out of an Arkansas commitment, but it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve done that, as I think we did that with Nate Adcock a few years back.
If you liked the Walker pick, you’ll love Stanek. It’s the same basic profile, 6’4 already, approaching 180 lbs, throws across his body a bit, and sits in the low-90s while touching 96 now and then. The difference is that Stanek’s mechanics are clean and developed, as you’d expect from a lifelong pitcher, and his curveball as a result is deep and consistent.
Royals Prospects Write-up
PerfectGame.org
M’s Tab SS Marcus Littlewood at #67
I talked a lot about him on the draft preview yesterday. It’s another slight overdraft, but opinion on Littlewood is mixed enough that you could find people who thought he was a legitimate first-round pick. The M’s knew they wanted this guy and weren’t going to take any chances with it. He’s a baseball through and through, like a lot of guys the M’s selected last year, so regardless of what you think of his long term potential, he’s a good bet to work hard and come close to maximizing his physical abilities. The floor is a utility player, the ceiling is a defensive-minded third baseman who could hit you about twenty home runs or more as a switch-hitter.
M’s Select RHP Taijuan Walker with #43
The Mariners have built a farm system around Midwest scouting for many years. Ryan Feierabend, Tony Butler, Nate Adcock, the list goes on. When #43 came up, it seemed logical. It seemed like the Mariners were going to pick Ohio right-hander Stetson Allie, widely regarded as a top ten prospect, who had somehow managed to drift all the way to them. And then the Mariners picked California RHP Taijuan Walker.
This wasn’t really what we expected. It wasn’t really what anyone expected, but that doesn’t automatically make it a bad pick. It is a signability pick, however, as Walker has no known college commitments and is likely to be brought in with some ease. He’s certainly not lacking on overall ceiling either, it’s just that he hasn’t had all that much experience to this point.
Walker is roughly 6’5 and 200 lbs, which would project him to around Michael Pineda’s body type in the long term. He throws in the low 90s and can touch 95 on a good day. The arm action is a little whippy and he’ll throw across his body, but the delivery itself is not so damning as his mechanical consistency.
A team that picks Walker is likely to be in love with his athleticism. He’s a two-sport star at his high school and known as a competitive basketball player, which leaves him a little unrefined on the baseball front. Last season, he was even tried out on the infield for a while before they ultimately decided he was uncomfortable out there and better suited to starting on a regular basis.
Unfortunately for Walker, the extra focus on pitching has not helped his performances a great deal. He showed signs of a plus curve in the past, and that went south on him this spring. The slider he developed to compensate has been nothing extraordinary, and the change-up is merely an offering he has, not one that he uses, or demands to be used. A chart climber in summer and fall play for last year, this spring he wasn’t doing a lot to attract scouts on a regular basis.
Like their confidence in his athleticism, the Mariners will also have to be convinced that they can build a consistent motion for him in order for this one to work. This isn’t a bad pick, but it is more long-term than most of us might have hoped, with the potential of giving us some of that high-end pitching that the system so desperately needs at the lower levels.
MLB.com Player Profile
Baseball America Video (via YouTube)
Game 57, Mariners at Rangers
Lee vs Lewis, 5:05 pm.
Scott Feldman was supposed to start for Texas tonight, but he’s been replaced by Colby Lewis, so they can relive the classic that was their last match-up.
Finally fed up, Wak has blown the line-up to shreds, and we get something entirely new tonight. If you needed another sign that the M’s season basically depends on this series, here you go. Carp getting a start is interesting – that he’s hitting fifth directly after coming up from Tacoma is kind of depressing.
Ichiro, RF
Bradley, DH
Gutierrez, CF
Lopez, 3B
Carp, 1B
Josh Wilson, SS
Johnson, C
Saunders, LF
Figgins, 2B
First Round of ’10 Draft, Today
This isn’t nearly as exciting as last year, but I could say that and it could apply to a lot of different things at this point. As you may know, the MLB draft is starting up at 4 pm PDT today, 7 pm EDT, and the teams will make their first and supplemental first round selections and then call it quits until 9 am tomorrow, when they’ll go through round thirty. The Mariners will pick 43rd out of 50 when we get to that point.
After they make that pick, we might have a lot to say about who’s still on the board and where the team might go from here. Until we get there, we’ll have the usual exclamations of “I never expected (player) to go to (team) at (slot)!”, of both the good and bad variety, local product Josh Sale will come off the board, the Yankees and possibly the Red Sox will buy a promising but unpolished prep player out of his college commitment, and the Astros might do something stupid (they’re attached to Sale’s name at the moment, which is decidedly not stupid).
I’ve heard two names attached to the M’s so far, which is surprising given their usually clandestine dealings and how silly it is to project that far out. One of them is another sort of local guy in Langley B.C. catcher Kellin Deglan, who turned eighteen four days ago and I think went to the same high school as former farmhand Tyson Gillies. Deglan hits from the left side and has a good amount of raw power, though given the background, you can emphasize the rawness. He’s also regarded as a guy who’s nearly certain to stay behind the plate, as he has good pop times and his athleticism and arm strength are much praised. Baseball America has mentioned that Deglan worked out with Twins star and fellow Canadian Justin Morneau in the offseason, and his stock is definitely on the rise, but for those of you hoping to uproot Johnson or Moore from behind the plate, he’s more of a long-term option and would almost certainly take a few years to get going.
YouTube:
Baseball Factory TV, Deglan at Under Armour All-America, Aug. 2009
Baseball America, Deglan hitting at Wood Bat Championships, Oct. 2009
The other name that has come up a few times in the local and national media is Utah prep shortstop Marcus Littlewood. ESPN’s Keith Law claimed that the M’s were expected to take Littlewood with their first pick, which prompted a write-up from Larry Stone earlier in the week. The exact opinion you’ll get on him will vary depending on who it is you’re talking to. Some say that his stock is on the rise, that he possesses some of the best hands in the draft, that he’s a real gamer and a baseball kid through and through, and that he’ll hit at least fifteen home runs as a pro and is likely to stay at short. Others look at him and see the slow footspeed and less than ideal reactions and see him as a defensive-minded third baseman, without the rocket arm or the power to justify staying on. Any team that picks him up would have to be pretty confident in their ability to either get him to stick it out at short, hit for power, or both.
YouTube:
Hitting, 2009 WWBA World Championship
Fielding, 2009 WWBA World Championship
Right-handed at-bat, 2009 Tournament of Stars
Left-handed at-bat, 2009 AFLAC All-American Game
Minor League Wrap (5/31-6/6/10)
I’ve got a draft post coming scheduled for a couple hours from now. Reading, for your Monday morning.
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