Crack of the Bat
by Patrick Ebert

Hoosier Battery

In a story I wrote over a year ago, I pointed out how many high profile arms hail from the state of Indiana, which includes talented pitchers such as Alex Meyer, Jarrod Parker, Josh Lindblom, Lance Lynn and Tommy Hunter.

During last June’s draft we saw three college players that played at colleges in the Hoosier state selected in the second (Lindblom), third (Kyle Weiland) and fourth (Ryne White) rounds, hailing from Purdue, Notre Dame and Purdue respectively.

Alex Meyer also would have been an early pick, but he fell to the 20^th round due to signability. Despite the Red Sox offering him first-round money, he decided to honor his commitment to Kentucky.

In the aforementioned story, I also pointed out how the two schools that adorn the state’s name, Indiana and Indiana State, aren’t particularly known for their baseball programs, at least when it comes to the number of pro prospects the two schools produce. That won’t be the case next year, as the Indiana Hoosiers will boast a very talented battery that will be on display on Friday’s in the Big Ten.

That battery consists of left-handed starter Matt Bashore and catcher Josh Phegley.

Bashore was named the conference’s pitcher of the week three times last year, and finished five of the 13 games he started. He generates a lot of pro interest for his left-handedness and for the simple fact that he misses bats. In just over 150 innings over his first two years at Indiana, he has struck out 136 batters.

He continued his successful sophomore season at Indiana with a strong showing on the Cape, where he was named one of the circuit’s top prospects. Batters continued to struggle to make contact off of him, as he struck out 32 batters in 20 innings of work.

The strikeouts come in bunches as he has very good stuff for a left-handed pitcher. His fastball sits in the upper-80s to low-90s, and he also throws a good curveball and changeup.

While Bashore’s stuff isn’t in question, he does struggle with command. It may be a matter of working with the right pitching coach and getting the necessary repetitions to make sure his mechanics are being repeated properly from pitch-to-pitch. When he starts to throw strikes more consistently, he’s going to be even that much more difficult to hit, and lefties with swing-an-miss stuff rarely fall far in the draft.

When the scouting community comes out in bunches to watch Bashore pitch next spring, they also will have the opportunity to see how Josh Phegley handles the young southpaw.

Phegley, like Bashore, is also a junior, and has the potential to sneak into the first round of next June’s draft. Phegley didn’t play this past summer, but put up huge, Nintendo-like numbers in the spring. If it weren’t for Nate Recknagel’s impressive power display for the Michigan Wolverines, Phegley very well could have, and maybe should have, been the conference’s player of the year.

Batting .438 is a good start. Hitting 20 doubles and 15 home runs with a .746 slugging percentage proves he can hit for power as well as a high average. The fact that he’s a catcher is the icing on the cake.

And he’s a gamer to boot. Shorter yet stocky and strong, Phegley is quick and short to the ball with very good extension. He likely will be pitched around this coming spring, so how he adjusts to seeing fewer pitches to hit will be key to his development in the eyes of scouts. His defense is considered solid average, with a strong arm and good tools for the position, although he does have some aspects of that game to iron out.

The Hoosiers didn’t have any problems hitting last year (.339 team batting average), led by the impressive season that Phegley had, and they only lost one starter to the draft last year in Andrew Means. While the pitching staff only lost one member as well, weekend starter Tyler Tufts, outside of Bashore the Hoosiers need a pitcher or two (or more) to step up this coming year after posting a 6.22 staff ERA.

Wolverines Down?

Staying in the Big Ten, it could be a good year for Indiana, or any other team in the Big Ten, to strike, as perennial Big Ten powerhouse Michigan lost most of its impact talent to last June’s draft. Michigan has taken the regular season title the past three years and the Big Ten tournament title in two of the last three years.

They are going to have a hard time continuing that run of success after losing two-way star Zach Putnam, the Big Ten’s pitcher of the year, and Nate Recknagel, the conference’s player of the year, who finished among the national leaders in home runs. Also lost were shortstop Jason Christian, third baseman Adam Abraham and closer Michael Powers.

Big things were expected out of Michigan when this class, in particular Zach Putnam, stepped onto campus. Schools in the upper Midwest unfortunately are used to losing premium recruits to schools in the sun-belt, but Putnam decided to play close to home despite being one of the nation’s best players coming out of high school.

The Big Ten has not had a team advance to the College World Series since Michigan did so in 1984. They got close in 2007, when they played spoiler by knocking out David Price and the Vanderbilt Commodores in dramatic fashion, before losing to the eventual national champion Oregon State team in the Super Regionals.

And speaking of Oregon State, they clearly are doing something right, and have done a very good job keeping the top talent in the area home, which helped propel the Beavers to consecutive national championships. That of course has allowed them to have a greater impact as far as recruiting is concerned on a national level, and you have to wonder how great of an impact that had on the Oregon Ducks not only bringing their program back, but doing so in impressive fashion (starting with prying George Horton away from Cal State Fullerton).

For fans of baseball in the Upper Midwest, myself included, hopefully Michigan (only because they seem to be in the best position to do so) can help lead a similar resurgence and make sure the Big Ten isn’t shut out from the College World Series for more than 25 years.

Canadian Prep Arms

Moving away from the Big Ten while continuing a recent theme of interesting draft groupings, keep an eye on a pair of high school Canadian pitchers in Mike Monster and Jake Eliopoulos.

The two pitchers are quite different, hailing from opposite ends of the country.

Monster (who I would draft first overall next year for his name alone), a member of the talented Langley Blaze program in British Columbia, is a relatively mature athlete, with good stuff and solid command of a three-pitch repertoire. He records most of his outs thanks to a sinker-slider combination. His fastball has been clocked as high as 93 at the Perfect Game Northwest Showcase, but two months later he topped out at 90 at the Jupiter tournament. The pitch isn’t known for its velocity as much as it is for its movement, with a knack for breaking bats and inducing weak contact.

Eliopoulos is from Ontario, and receives high marks for his long and slender proportions and overall projectability. His pitching approach has as much room to improve as his stature does. He touched 91 at Jupiter, but pitches mostly in the mid-to-upper 80s. Like Monster, his fastball does show nice, late movement, but he doesn’t command it as well. He has a very sharp curve when he snaps off a good one, and a solid foundation for a changeup, but both pitches need more work to become consistent, solid offerings.

Can one of these two young men step up do the draft may see a high school player drafted out of Canada for the third consecutive year, following in the footsteps of Phillippe Aumont and Brett Lawrie? At this point in time, that would seem to be a stretch. Neither Aumont nor Lawrie were considered to be first-rounders at this time the past two years, but neither was that far off. Eliopoulos’ upside probably gives him a greater chance to enjoy such a late surge, but I am a big fan of Monster’s overall approach.

The thoughts and opinions listed here do not necessarily reflect those of Perfect Game USA. Patrick Ebert is affiliated with both Perfect Game USA and Brewerfan.net, and can be contacted via email at pebert@brewerfan.net.