PERFECT GAME CROSSCHECKER'S TOP TEN LIST
WEEK 20: 5/19/08 - 5/25/08
 
POWER ARMS IN PLENTIFUL SUPPLY
Friday May 23, 2008
There has been no shortage of draft-eligible pitchers who throw unusually hard this year, especially an elite group of college relievers. Assembling a list of the pitchers who have thrown at least 95 mph is a lot like compiling a Top 100 list, there are that many.

Of course, just determining who has thrown how hard is an inexact science. You can talk to scouts, college coaches and people in the game you trust and you get a reasonably accurate assessment. You can talk to players’ advisors, and then as a matter of course you can subtract 1-2 mph across the board. You can read stuff that a well-meaning dad or high school coach sends you, then subtract 2-4 mph.

Seriously, information from advisors and parents doesn’t qualify for inclusion on most of the scouting reports we write at Perfect Game. But I’ve been known to apply that formula on occasion.

By lucky coincidence, our attempt to list all the pitchers we’re aware of who have thrown 97 mph or above this spring (velocities from last summer don’t count) yielded exactly 10 pitchers at 98 mph or above.

Being a top pitching prospect isn’t all about throwing hard, of course. Two likely top 10 picks in this year’s draft are San Diego lefthander Brian Matusz and Tulane righthander Shooter Hunt, neither of whom comes close to making the hardest-thrower list. Neither do many of the high school arms considered potential first-rounders.

The country’s hardest-throwing amateur, San Diego State sophomore righthander Stephen Strasburg, sits in the upper-90s. I haven’t heard a credible report yet on what he tops out at, but his ability to maintain that type of velocity rather than just hit it once in a while is obviously noteworthy.

Here’s our list of the 10 hardest throwers in this year’s draft, their peak velocity and a rough idea where they’ll be drafted. If you know of someone who belongs on this list from what you have seen this spring, please feel free to email me at rawnsleyd@aol.com. But remember the formula above!
Rank Player Pos. School Peak Velocity Projected Draft
1 Andrew Cashner rhp Texas Christian 100 mph 1st round
2 Tanner Scheppers rhp Fresno State 99 mph 1st/Supplemental
3 Aaron Crow rhp Missouri 98 mph 1st round
  *Eric Hosmer lhp HS—Planatation, Fla. 98 mph 1st round
  Josh Fields rhp Georgia 98 mph 1st round
  Gerrit Cole rhp HS—Orange, Calif. 98 mph 1st/Supplemental
  Chris Carpenter rhp Kent State 98 mph Supplemental/2nd
  Josh Lindblom rhp Purdue 98 mph Supplementa/2nd
  Cody Satterwhite rhp Mississippi 98 mph 2nd/3rd
  Brett Jacobson rhp Vanderbilt 98 mph 2nd/3rd
*Will be drafted as first baseman
--DAVID RAWNSLEY Top Ten List Archives
1965 REVISTED
Monday May 19, 2008
As we close in on the 44th version of baseball’s first-year player draft, scheduled for June 5-6, we thought it would be a good opportunity to pause and look back at Draft No. 1—the one that got it all started in 1965.

It was actually held in a big ballroom at New York’s Commodore Hotel, and naturally there was much curiosity and speculation among a large delegationof club officials, scouts and media gathered for several days leading up to the event. No one was really sure what to expect, or even how to approach a baseball draft. The Boston Red Sox ended up drafting just 20 players, the Houston Astros 72.

While 13 of the 20 players drafted in the first round ended up reaching the big leagues, clubs clearly missed the boat on a couple of future Hall of Famers—Oklahoma high school catcher Johnny Bench, drafted in the second round by the Cincinnati Reds, and Texas fireballing pitcher Nolan Ryan, who was finally snapped up in the 10th round by the New York Mets. Bench was signed to a bonus of $6,000, Ryan for $12,000. A third future Hall of Famer was also drafted in 1965, but University of New Hampshire catcher Carlton Fisk rejected a 19th-round offer from the Baltimore Orioles.

The Kansas City A’s led off the proceedings by selecting 19-year-old outfielder Rick Monday, who had played only one year of varsity baseball at Arizona State at a time when freshmen were ineligible to compete in varsity athletics and college sophomores were eligible to be drafted. Four days after he was drafted, with A’s owner Charles O. Finley in the stands, Monday homered in a 2-1 win over Ohio State to lead the Sun Devils to their first College World Series championship. Monday would sign the largest bonus in the 1965 draft, $100,000, and went on to enjoy a productive 19-year big league career. He remains in the game as a broadcaster for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Some of the players drafted immediately after Monday weren’t so fortunate. The Mets picked lefthander Les Rohr, a player born in England and raised in Montana, with the second pick and he won just two games in a brief big-league career.

The Washington Senators, picking third, took Massachusetts high school pitcher Joe Coleman and actually promoted him to the big leagues in the same season. Lefthander Ken Holtzman, selected in the fourth round out of the University of Illinois by the Chicago Cubs, holds the distinction, however, of being the first drafted player to reach the top. Coleman, whose father Joe also pitched in the big leagues, will be in the news again this year as his son Casey, a junior righthander at Florida Gulf Coast, will be drafted—possibly on the first day (top five rounds).

With the fifth pick, the Red Sox sought to replicate the success of their 20-year-old phenom, Tony Conigliaro, who was in the process of becoming the youngest player ever to lead one of the major leagues in home runs. Boston took Conigliaro’s younger brother Billy, an outfielder from a local high school, but his career flamed out after five big league seasons.

The Los Angeles Dodgers drafted California high school shortstop John Wyatt with the eighth pick. Not only did Wyatt’s career fall far short of expectations, peaking in Class A, but he was later busted for being the leader of a cocaine distribution ring. Oddly, the Dodgers paid Wyatt a bonus of $40,000 and gave their second-round pick, California prep righthander Alan Foster, a $95,000 bonus—the second largest bonus in the draft after Monday.

The Minnesota Twins selected University of Arizona shortstop Eddie Leon with the ninth overall pick, but failed to sign him—marking the first of seven occasions through the years that the Twins didn’t sign their first-round pick.

A year after the Los Angeles Angels signed University of Wisconsin outfielder Rick Reichardt to a record $205,000 bonus, prompting the adoption of a draft to curb escalating signing bonuses, the St. Louis Cardinals signed their first-round pick in 1965, Delta State (Miss.) lefthander Joe DiFabio, for just $16,000.

Here’s a quick recap of the first 10 players drafted in 1965, their peak level reached and their signing bonus.
Rank Club Player Pos. School *Peak Level Signing Bonus
1 A’s Rick Monday of Arizona State Majors (19) $100,000
2 Mets Les Rohr lhp HS—Billings, Mon. Majors (3) $50,000
3 Senators Joe Coleman rhp HS—Natick, Mass. Majors (15) $65,000
4 Astros Alex Barrett ss HS—Winton, Calif. Triple-A $40,000
5 Red Sox Billy Conigliaro of HS—Swampscott, Mass. Majors (5) $62,500
6 Cubs Rick James rhp HS—Florence, Ala. Majors (1) $40,000
7 Indians Ray Fosse c HS—Marion, Ill. Majors (13) $28,000
8 Dodgers John Wyatt ss HS—Bakersfield, Calif. Class A $40,000
9 Twins Eddie Leon ss Arizona Majors (7) Did not sign
10 Pirates Doug Dickerson of HS—Birmingham, Ala. Class A $25,000
*Number of major league seasons played noted in parentheses
--ALLAN SIMPSON Top Ten List Archives