Mock Draft

With the competition, to be a Top Ten candidate, you’ve gotta be really special.

I have a minor league basketball background. Back in the 80’s, our team brought in a(nother) new backup guard. His first game was on the road. As a ballhandler, I had a decent read on him from the radio call. He sounded like the pressure defense didn’t get to him.

Fluke or no, my hunch was right. Emanuel Davis turned out to be very good, eventually made it to the NBA’s Rockets. He scored a career high 20+ in an NBA game the night before messing up his knee.

If the pitcher gets it, throws it, and has multiple pitches working, I’m a fairly easy sell like that. If he’s laboring, throwing to first a bunch, down 2-0 in the count, I don’t want him with the Ninth Pick this year. Anyone can have a bad night of course, but J Bradley and Purke sounded proper today, even though Purke scuffled.

I saw Sonny Gray last friday here at University of Arkansas (where he pitched an 8 IP CG loss) where I talked about Gray and I met an AL team scout there and we also talked about Gray as well… his line that game- 8 IP (complete game loss) 6 H 2 ER 4 BB 12 Ks 34 BF 4 FO 8 GO 121 pitches

Here’s what I typed

“I like Gray, but I don’t know if I would want the Cubs to draft him. I mean there are good and bad things about him. At least tonight, he had a good groundball % with a lot of Ks. I like seeing those 2 together. He also wasn’t locating pitches very well. While he had the endurance to be a starter right now, there’s a good possibility that he could end up being a bullpen arm as well. His mechanics looks violent and it may or may not cause injury in the future. One thing I don’t like is his follow through after he throws his pitch. He ends up in the first base side away from the mound a bit and it seems a couple times his back was facing the hitter. His slider was on tonight. I’m pretty sure that it’s a slider, not a curve. I don’t know his pitches, but it looks like fastball/slider/changeup. He fooled several hitters with his slider tonight. His fastball was a little off in location in the first, but got better as the game went on. I couldn’t tell if he used his changeup a lot or not, but it looked like the pitch that Arkansas got hits on. It’s not bad, but it’s not above average I should say”

Here’s what the scout said about Gray

“He thought Gray would stick as a starter (question I ask was about concerns of maybe being a reliever due to mechanics/endurance that had some people worry about). I ask him what was his speed tonight and his fastball topped out at 96, but sat 92-93 with late movement that tails against righty through the whole game and slider top at 87 (got hit hard as it was flat- a long flyout as he told me), but mainly 82-84 with very good movement. The scout likes those 2 pitches. He said his changeup is just ok, but it needs some improvement for him to be above average and to take the next step as a starter. I asked him (assuming he knew the draft order, which teams, etc…) where Gray would end up and he said he thinks Nationals will pick him with the 6th pick. I ask him if there were any reason and he just said it was a gut feeling.”

To answer your question Ryno, after thinking about it after a week, IMO I think he does have an usable changeup in where if he used it more often, it would keep the hitters guessing (instead of just being a 2 pitch pitcher- even though those 2 pitches are above average (his slider was great that night) even though it’s probably just average right now. I don’t think it’s a lack of a 3rd pitch, but I think he does need to use it more and trust it more. Then again, this is based on a game I saw where he rarely used his changeup and it didn’t look that good. I’m sure he has other games where his changeup looks really good and he use it more often in that game. I still don’t think the Cubs should draft him as he’s too risky IMO as there are other things I look at first before his changeup.