Make Way For More College Bats

It happens every winter.

In the dead of January, we contact scouting directors to vote on our preseason College All-America team. Every year, a majority of the clubs respond with votes, and we seek out scouting directors and national cross checkers to evaluate the entire class.

And most of the time, their response is the same: College baseball hitters aren’t good enough.

They aren’t taught to drive the ball consistently; their approach is too defensive. They don’t have enough athleticism.
Pro teams skim the cream off the top out of high school.

“We’re doing too good of a job,” a scout will say, just about every year, meaning that pro ball is evaluating players out of high school and signing all the top athletes at that time, leaving flawed leftovers in the college class.

There’s no question that there is truth to all those statements. And yet every year, as draft day nears, college hitters creep up draft boards, because they are a safer bet than raw prep hitters (especially high school outfielders and catchers) and definitely safer bets than high-risk, high-reward prep pitchers.

Why? As one evaluator put it this spring, “Look around the big leagues. It’s full of guys who were college hitters.”

The biggest example I always think of in this regard is Ian Kinsler, who was a 17th-round pick in 2003 out of Missouri, in part due to playing at three schools (starting at Arizona State and going through Central Arizona JC) in three seasons.

When Kinsler was hitting .400 in his first full pro season in the low Class A Midwest League, pro scouts who saw him asked, “How did this guy last until the 17th round?”

Often they ask the opposite question, as in, “How was THIS guy a first-rounder?” I’ve heard that most often about college hitters, with 2010 pick Zack Cox standing out. Now in the Tigers system, Cox was the 25th overall pick in 2010 after being considered one of the top college bats available early in the year. The third baseman’s overall lack of athleticism has hindered his pro career, as has his fringe-average power while playing a corner position.

This Year’s Model

No one saw Daniel Murphy (13th round out of Jacksonville) or Brian Dozier (eighth round, Southern Mississippi) or even Eric Thames (second round, Pepperdine before he went to Korea) becoming a big league star. But here they are.

So that means clubs will keep looking for college hitters this year, even among players they believe are flawed.
Players such as Missouri State’s Jake Burger, who is a fairly modest athlete but has a plus arm for third base and huge raw power. Not only that, but Burger has shown a consistent ability to get to his power, with 38 homers the last two seasons, including 17 in his first 40 games in 2017.

Another key test will be UC Irvine’s Keston Hiura, who joined Burger on USA Baseball’s 2016 Collegiate National Team. Hiura served as the DH on that club and for the Anteaters this spring as he struggles with an elbow injury likely to require surgery after he’s drafted. In that regard, Hiura’s case resembles that of Carlos Quentin, who needed Tommy John surgery while playing for Stanford in 2003.

Still, Quentin hit .396/.483/.630 and wound up being drafted in the first round en route to a nine-year big league career. Quentin had a longer track record than Hiura as a prep star in San Diego and was bigger and more physical than the 5-foot-11, 190-pound Hiura, but Hiura has the feel for hitting and power to rival or even exceed Quentin’s big league production (150-plus home runs).

Teams have to project where he’ll play in the field, with some saying second base is a possibility while others see him in left field.

But he’ll be drafted high, and he’s one of the best bets to be a big leaguer in this draft class. Because college hitters—no matter how flawed they seem as amateurs—wind up becoming big leaguers, and the industry knows it.