Loading ...I was working on the Draft Tracker for the Reds and noticed something…the normal stuff, 23 pitchers (3 left handers), 7 middle infielders, 7 center fielders, and 6 catchers.
But also…
3 players selected from University of California, Santa Barbara. (Matt Valaika #20, Shane Carlson #32, Forest Cannon #34)
Not too strange, that’s where Chris Valaika was from (in fact, Matt is his younger brother) and I’ve heard it’s a known baseball school. But 3 out of 51 from the same school seemed a little odd.
But…
2 players from Taylorsville HS (Mississippi)? (#2 pick Billy Hamilton, #49 pick Darlon Hamilton) Brothers? I doubt it, I’d think some media person would have picked up on that if it were true.
2 players from South Forsyth HS (Georgia)? (#16 pick Chase Fowler, #45 pick Brian Adams)
2 players from Young Harris College? (#24 pick Derrick Lowery, and #48 pick Kenny Swab) (According to their website, Young Harris is a 2 year residential liberal arts school in Georgia, for those like me that had never heard of it before.)
I’m not questioning any of these picks, I don’t know anything about the players involved, but picking 9 of your 51 players from 4 different schools just seems strange and makes it seem like the scouts weren’t throwing their nets out very wide.
Heck, 4 of the picks (South Forsyth and Young Harris) are within 100 miles of each other (according to Google Maps). What are the odds of that?
I hope I’m wrong…they surely know more about this than I do, I just thought it was odd.
I have no idea how common this is in the MLB draft, but there is a pretty big gap between the rounds they were selected. It seems possible they could have been scouting the known prospects and then found the other guys and decided they were worth a late pick. I know that is not uncommon in scouting for college football players.
It is a little odd
Bill,
The Hamilton boys are cousin’s. If bringing in the cousin means Billy signs his name on the contract, not a big deal for me. The South Forsyth guys is likely what GRF said. The second guy taken is actually going to Kentucky to play football but is listed as ‘athlete’ in terms of position. They probably went to see Chase Fowler play but saw a pretty good athlete in Adams and put in a report on him and thought it may be worth a shot to see what happens.
With Young Harris, they are a lower level powerhouse. Not surprising at all there. Some small schools just get the better guys for whatever reason. Check out Kennesaw State for example, for a school I had never heard of coming into the year, they had 6 guys drafted including two guys inside the top 50.
Don’t worry. Odds are they completely overlooked the next Brandon Webb or someone by not looking in the back yard.
John that made me laugh….it’s somewhat true. How many teams overlooked Tim Lincecum?
9
well really 8 (or 7) depending on how you look at it. Longoria and Kershaw are very valid picks ahead of Lincecum at the time and even now.
Hey, the Reds got Stubbs ahead of him!
6 players ahead of Lincecum have made ZERO (in some cases negative) impact in the bigs
I just returned from a complete game shutout of Lincecum’s and was thinking about where he was drafted the entire time.
My point was that about 20% of their draft came from 4 schools…and nobody else thinks that’s odd?
I think it’s odd, Bill!!
The Reds are having an open tryout in Louisville this Wednesday for anyone aged 16-22.
It’s odd, but it may actually be smart.
I’ve read articles in the past that say it might be better off to focus your resources on a limited area, getting more in-depth information about those guys than anyone else has – whether your focus is geographic, or even looking exclusively at college guys and ignoring high school baseball entirely (for example).
Look at how well the Braves have mastered Georgia, and how much it’s helped them. This could just be laziness and lack of imagination – like when the Bengals drafted two linemen from Central Michigan back to back (Ghichek and Kieft). But it could well be brilliant.