Got hurt the worst and who benefited from the draft. We lost a ton. 2 starting pitchers, all infielders other than Martin, 1 outfielder, 3 relievers , top signee at catcher and 1 hs pitcher. How did our sec brethren fare? I read where Mississippi st came out smelling like a rose. Anyone know?
LSU came out really good as well. I think they will win the SEC next year.
Has to be Mississippi State, they got two first rounders to come to school, has that ever happened before?
It is easy to get enamored with the players who are drafted high, but easy to forget about players who could have been drafted just as high or higher, but made it known early in the process that they were going to college.
Take Casey Martin and Heston Kjerstad, for example. Both of those players could have been high-round draft picks last year. The scouts knew about them and they did not just develop into great players overnight. But both said they wanted to go to college. Andrew Benintendi was the same way and was not drafted until the 31st round out of high school.
Based on some conversations I have had, LSU had a number of big-time players tell the MLB teams they wanted to play college baseball. When you couple that with the outstanding freshman class LSU had this season and the return of Zack Hess, who was a draft-eligible sophomore, and account for some attrition at Arkansas and Florida, the Tigers are the team to beat next year in the league.
AR was in a similar spot after last year’s draft. We had some upper classmen not get drafted and basically all of our top recruits did not sign with the MLB team that drafted them. We thought we were set with guys like Cole Turney, Bryce Bonnin, and Jackson Rutledge.
As it turns out, we were set but with names that were afterthoughts to many.
Baseball scouting may be the toughest of all the sports to project. PG and PBR do an OK job of ranking the players but it is by no means set in stone who will succeed and who will not.
I would agree that LSU looks like everything has aligned for them. I also know that one of their highly touted pitching recruits has trouble throwing strikes.
DVH has pieces coming back. If just a few of the pieces coming in can contribute then AR will be in a good position, not just for 2019 but 2020 as well.