Tigers nab high school pitching phenom at #27
Porcello practices looking off Pudge
So yesterday I opined that the days of the Tigers competing to draft top talent were likely gone. After an impressive turn around last season that saw them play in the World Series they were relegated to picking 27th. Given how much of a crapshoot the Major League Baseball draft tends to be [yesterday David Price was the first left-handed pitcher selected #1 since the Yanks selected Brien Taylor in 1991] it wouldn’t be surprising if the Tigers weren’t able to draft a guy who has a legit chance of contributing at the major league level.
That turned out not to be the case as the Tigers selected right-handed pitcher Rick Porcello. He was widely considered to be the best high school pitching prospect. The righty pitches for Seton Hall academy in New Jersey and he was the Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year.
The award, which recognizes not only athletic performance, but also meeting high standards of academic achievement while demonstrating exemplary personal character on and off the field, distinguishes Porcello as the nation’s best high school baseball player. A national advisory board comprised of sportswriters and sport-specific experts from around the country selected Porcello from more than 470,000 high school baseball players nationwide.
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Porcello has maintained a 3.94 GPA in the classroom. He is a member of both the National Honor Society and the Spanish National Honor Society and serves as a volunteer youth coach at local baseball camps and clinics.
So evidently he’ll be able to talk smack to Neifi Perez in his native tongue. Excellent. Here are some other scouting reports on the pitcher.
Sports Illustrated - Top 20 High School Prospects
1. Rick Porcello, Seton Hall Prep (West Orange, N.J.), RHP, 6-foot-5, 200 pounds
He is the top pitcher in a very deep class of hurlers and appears on target to be selected among the first five picks, possibly as high as No. 2…Porcello’s four-pitch arsenal includes a mid-90s fastball, a slider, a curveball and a changeup.
Minor League Ball - Rick Porcello Profile
He’s tall and lanky…6-5, 190…with some projection left in his body. He’s athletic. He already throws 93-94 MPH, hitting 96-98 at times. His curveball and slider are both very good pitches. His changeup wasn’t very good last year according to my sources, but has really improved this season, giving him four pitches that should be above-average, or better, at the major league level. Control, an issue in the past, has also taken a major step forward this year. He’s very intelligent, with a 3.94 GPA for Seton Hall Prep.
So, let’s see….good size, athletic, throws hard, throws strikes, has a diverse arsenal, still has projectability, knows how to pitch, intelligent, has improved his previous weaknesses. Hard to beat all that.
The only reason Porcello dropped that far in the draft is because Scott Boras is his agent, so it was believed that signing him could be difficult. If the Tigers cannot sign him the pitcher will go to college at North Carolina. That’s where Andrew Miller played prior to signing with Detroit last year.
Here are highlights from a perfect game he pitched.
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