May 13, 2013

Perfect Game Presents

PG Pre-Draft to be Live-Streamed

by Jeff Dahn

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On December 5, 2012, Baseball Prospectus and Perfect Game announced a partnership to help promote and cover the game at both the amateur and professional levels. As a result of this partnership, Baseball Prospectus subscribers will now get the opportunity to read some of the great premium content being published by Perfect Game for its members.  

The Perfect Game Pre-Draft Showcase is one of PG’s longest-running programs, dating back to 1999 when young prospects such as Carl Crawford, Joel Hanrahan, and Jeff Clement were in attendance. Now, years later, the Pre-Draft has its foundation firmly planted in the 21st century while it welcomes the next generation of future major-leaguers to eastern Iowa.

The 15th annual PG Pre-Draft Showcase will be held at Perfect Game Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium on Monday, May 13, and for the first time, the event will be live-streamed on perfectgame.org. This will provide scouts, college coaches, and the prospects’ family members and friends that are unable to attend the showcase an option to watch online.

Skillshow will be producing video from the entire event—workouts and game action—and iHigh will live-stream the video through a link on Perfect Game’s website. PG Vice President of Player Personnel David Rawnsley will provide live on-air analysis and insight on all of the nearly 50 prospects that will be in attendance.

The PG Pre-Draft Showcase is designed to give top high school and junior college prospects a final opportunity to perform in front of the scouting community before June’s MLB First-Year Player Draft. The showcase is always held on a Monday so as not to interfere with weekend college games, thus providing scouting directors and cross-checkers an event that won’t conflict with any others on their schedule.

Highly regarded prospects from nine states and Puerto Rico will be in attendance. But it is the presence of three prospects from Venezuela and five others from Canada that make this year’s Pre-Draft Showcase a truly international event.

The two most-highly-ranked draft-eligible prospects in attendance happen to be a couple of left-handed pitchers from the Midwest. Jake Brentz, a left-hander/outfielder from Ballwin, Mo., has signed with Missouri and is ranked the No. 51 overall prospect in the draft; A.J. Puk, a left-hander/first baseman from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has signed with Florida and is ranked No. 71 on PG’s draft board. Those rankings project both players to be selected sometime in the first two rounds.

Brentz is ranked the No. 18 national prospect in the high school class of 2013. Puk, who played in the 2012 Perfect Game All-American Classic, is ranked No. 20.

Another 2012 PG All-American who will be on hand is Alabama right-hander Kevin Davis, an Auburn signee from Brewton. Davis is the No. 69-ranked national prospect in the class of 2013 and is projected to go anywhere from rounds 4 through 10 in the draft.

Texas right-hander Andrew Dunlap, a Rice signee from Houston who set an event record when he threw a 96 mph fastball at the PG Pitcher/Catcher Indoor Showcase in February, will also pitch Monday. He is a converted catcher who is ranked 56th nationally in the 2013 class, and who, like Davis, is projected as a rounds 4-10 type of guy.

Right-hander Casey Meisner from Cypress, Texas, is ranked 93rd nationally and is yet another prospect projected to be taken in the first 10 rounds. Meisner is a Texas Tech recruit and will be joined at the showcase by fellow Red Raiders signee Bryce Welborn, a right-hander from The Woodlands, Texas.

The highest nationally-ranked 2013 position players that will be on hand include: No. 75 Ronnie Healy, a catcher out of Jupiter, Fla. (Broward CC); No. 79 Ian Hagenmiller, a shortstop from West Palm Beach, Fla. (Palm Beach State); and No. 89 Stephen Alemais, a middle infielder from New York City who attends Elev8 Sports Institute in Florida (Tulane). All three are projected as first-10-rounds selections heading into Monday's Pre-Draft Showcase.

Canadian prospects Lachlan Fontaine from North Vancouver, B.C.; Malik Collymore from Mississauga, Ontario; and Daniel Pinero from Toronto, are all intriguing. Fontaine, a third baseman, is ranked 136th nationally (both U.S. and Canada) and No. 2 in British Columbia (Central Arizona CC); Collymore, a shortstop, is No. 178 nationally and No. 3 in Ontario (Blinn College); and Pinero, also a shortstop, is No. 406 nationally and No. 5 in Ontario (Virginia).