OK, I think I might have just found my favorite hitter in the draft! Kep Brown is a B-R, T-R, 6'5", 195 lb HS OF from South Carolina who looks pretty darn good right now and has mind boggling projectability. Here are the comments from his Perfect Game scouting page:
"Crushed balls at PG National."
"Very good hitting tools now that really project well."
"Showed huge power at NUC Main."
So, how old is Jayson Werth now? 37? On video, when Kep Brown takes his stance and swing, he doesn't just look like Jayson Werth 20 years ago. He IS Jayson Werth 20 years ago! Same angular, athletic build, same batting stance, same swing. Brown uses his height and the length of his arms to stand off the plate, yet maintain good coverage of the outer half. One scouting report described how he likes to drive balls on the outer half to right-center and how he thinks he hits balls harder and farther out to right-center than to left-center. He holds the bat up and away from his body, so he is already preloaded. There is no pre-swing hand and arm movement. He does have a fairly large weight shift back with a small, quick leg kick and about an 8 inch stride with his front foot. The swing is still long because he is long and he likes those arms extended, but he has definitely found ways to maximize the hit and power tools. He runs a 6.84 60 and has a decent throwing arm, but probably projects as a LF, which is probably why he is not higher in early draft rankings. BA has him at #48 and Kiley McDaniel has him off his board in the "others" category. There is enough risk here that I can see why you might not want to spend a first round pick on him or maybe even a supplemental rounder, but the success rates of second round picks is small enough, it seems to me you should be jumping all over kids like this if they are there in round 2. Oh, and he is one of the youngest players in the draft to boot! He is committed to Miami which is not quite the same as a Stanford or Vandy commitment, so I think he would be singable in round 2.
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Good athlete for a big kid.He ran better than I thought he would.His swing reminds me of Justin Upton.It would be nice to have a kid like this in our system.
ReplyDeleteWhere is John Aiello ranked?
Quick question. With low revenue teams getting competitive balance picks and more money to sign drafted players. Should something be done about teams with no tax. Isn't it unfair to California teams in free agency that players want to play in texas and florida because of tax situation? Or does MLB like that big revenue teams have to massively overpay for good players?
ReplyDeleteRight now, I would say there is precious little evidence other than a few anecdotes that the tax situation is working against the California teams.
DeleteThe more I look at this kid.I could definitely see us taking this kid in the second rd.Maybe with our #34th pick.They took Panik, and Arroyo in the first when no one had then going anywhere near the first.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but Panik and Arroyo were both up the middle player with huge contact skills. The closest comp I can think of to any 2'nd round player the Giants have taken would be Ryder Jones and even he was a HS shortstop although projected to move to 3B. Giants have taken some corner college hitters in the 2'nd and 3'rd rounds, but Jones is the only HS one. I will say, that Giants seem to be trending toward getting more adventurous in drafting HS talent, though, so who knows?
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