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College  | Story | 2/21/2017

Week 1 College Player Spotlight

Patrick Ebert
Jheremy Brown
Photo: Maryland Athletics
 


Perfect Game College Player Database

As the first weekend got underway for the 2017 college baseball season we also got to unveil our new College Player Database. If you're familiar with Perfect Game's college baseball coverage and overall content you know we focus on scouting. In the past our weekend recaps were filled with detailed scouting reports and corresponding videos of players from coast to coast. With hopes of making those reports more accessible throughout the entire season we decided to break things down a little more, creating a table-based database page in which every report on every player can be found in one easy-to-find place. Thus, the College Player Database as linked just above.

And in addition to the reports being located from the database page as referenced, they will also be accessible off of the players' individual Perfect Game player profile pages, continuing to bridge the gap from their high school (or earlier) careers to their college ones as they ascend towards professional baseball.

Here are the players, school-by-school, who were added to the database from the first weekend of play:

Louisville: Brendan McKay (both hitting and pitching), Michael McAvene, Riley Thompson, Lincoln Henzman, Adam Wolf, Kade McClure, Bryan Hoeing, Devin Hairston, Devin Mann
Maryland: Nick Dunn, Brian Shaffer, Ryan Selmer, Tyler Blohm, Mike Rescigno, Hunter Parsons, Andrew Miller, Marty Costes, Kevin Smith
South Florida: Shane McClanahan, Kevin Merrell
Ball State: Colin Brockhouse, Evan Marquardt
Alabama State: Terrell McCall
Georgia Tech: Kel Johnson, Xzavion Curry, Keyton Gibson, Austin Wilhite
BYU: Maverik Buffo, Colton Shaver
Western Michigan: Jack Szott, Connor Smith
Oregon State: K.J. Harrison, Nick Madrigal, Adley Rutschman
Duke: Jack Labosky
Indiana: Logan Sowers
Grand Canyon: Jake Wong
Bryant: James Karinchak
Vanderbilt: Kyle Wright, Jeren Kendall
San Diego: Nick Sprengel, Riley Adams, Paul Richan

While the reports do require a College Baseball Ticket (CBT) subscription to view every week we are going to pull a report, with video when available, and make it available for free. This week we leaned on our scout Jheremy Brown, who quickly pointed out just how impressive Maryland second baseman Nick Dunn and Louisville two-way talent Brendan McKay (both of whom coincidentally are Pennsylvania natives) were in each of their three games of the Clearwater Tournament.

To learn more about the CBT and to sign up today please visit this link.




Nick Dunn, 2B, Maryland (Sophomore, draft eligible in 2018)

It wasn’t too long ago that Maryland had a lefthanded hitting sophomore second baseman making noise in the inner baseball circle as Brandon Lowe went on a tear in 2015 before being popped by the Tampa Rays in the third round. Coach John Szefc has another exciting talent at second base in Nick Dunn and luckily for him and his staff he isn’t draft eligible until after his junior season.

He might not be overly physical at 5-foot-10, 175-pounds but don’t let that fool you as he can impact the baseball with hard barrel to all parts of the yard and handles the bat beyond his years as evidenced by his .300 average as a freshman before hitting .311 on the Cape. While checking around with some of the people on the Maryland staff about how Dunn looked in the fall everybody had nearly the identical thing to say: “Dunn’s been Dunn,” which translates to something of the effect “a ton of barrel.”

A pure hitter with a very balanced and fluid stroke form the left side with plenty of looseness to his hands, Dunn doesn’t try to do too much at the plate as he showed he will drive the pitches he can to his pull side or go with the outer half pitch just as he did on a 91 mph fastball that he put through the six-hole. Despite going 0-for-4 on opening day Dunn managed to hit the ball on the screws during his first two at-bats, first to the pull-side gap before lining out hard to the left field, and as everybody expected he bounced back and rattled off five hits over the next two games. 

Perhaps his most impressive swing on the weekend came in game two facing Louisville’s Kade McClure which resulted in a long home run to his pull side. It could have gone out or he could have flied out to the warning track, as it wasn’t so much the result that was impressive as it was the swing. Just once over his first three innings McClure showed his changeup and it was to Dunn who had no prior precedent as to McClure’s sequencing of the pitch. It speaks to his hand-eye coordination, ability to recognize out of the pitcher’s hand and adjust, as well as his barrel skills and it’s a set of tools you don’t typically find in underclass bats. 

The bat is the calling card with Dunn but that’s not to take away from what he shows at second base, the bat was just that good opening weekend. A sound runner down the line, though not a burner, Dunn moves well on his feet defensively and shows solid footwork and athleticism around the bag when turning two. He showed softness to his hands both fielding the ball and looking to finish the double play with a quick transfer and enough arm strength to make the flat-footed throw to first base. 

He essentially has two more years left of college baseball to solidify himself among his peers but he’s already managed to put together one of the better track records and will be vital to what appears to be a potential potent Maryland lineup.




Brendan McKay, LHP/1B, Louisville (Junior, draft eligible in 2017)

Pro scouts have a dilemma on their hands as the June draft approaches with the ultra-talent McKay: pitcher or hitter? Coach Dan McDonnell has the complete opposite problem as he’s been given the luxury of having McKay on his roster for three years, serving as a rotation piece as well as a middle-of-the-order threat since day one. If you need further proof look at what he did on opening weekend as he hit .500 with two bombs, drove in five and is currently sporting a .714 on-base percentage. On top of all that he threw six scoreless on Friday night, struck out nine and only threw 20 of his 81 pitches for balls. 

Having already filed a report on McKay’s performance on the mound I’ll utilize this space to talk about his offensive exploits and take a minute to wipe the drool from my chin after watching the performance McKay put together. Make no mistake about it, Brendan McKay is as legitimate of a two-way player as you’ll find and his numbers from his first two seasons confirm that: .321-10-75 as a hitter and 2.03 ERA, 21-7 record, 245 strikeouts to just 76 walks in 206 innings pitched on the mound.

I’ve seen McKay play at various points in each of the last two seasons and one of the bigger takeaways from his offensive performance this past weekend was his overall approach at the plate. Last spring he may have expanded the zone while chasing spin down or look to elevate a pitch left up but there was none of that opening weekend. It’s a very advanced, professional approach as he sees the ball very well out of the pitcher’s hand, he won’t press with two strikes and brings an quiet but intimidating aurora with him whenever he digs in at the plate. 

With the even more refined approach McKay found barrel after barrel in Louisville’s first three games, and twice left the yard, showing scouts the raw power they marvel when watching batting practice. The stance, load, trigger, and swing are all perfectly balanced and plenty quiet, as are his hands which are so fluid you almost don’t realize the explosiveness of them through the zone. Whether it’s a foul line-to-foul line round of batting practice with line drive contact, or turning on balls in game when he let it rip, McKay’s barrel skills are evident as is the fluidity to his bat path. Even the outs he made this weekend were barreled hard including a hard shot back up the middle which left the bat at 106 mph before the pitcher got a glove on it. 

There not much to dislike in what McKay brings to the field each weekend whether it’s on the mound or with his lefthanded stroke. The calmness to his swing that he shows during batting practice is replicated when the ump says “play ball” and that’s the same feel McKay gives with whatever it is he’s doing on the field; calm, cool, and collected. 

The talent on both sides of the ball is real and there’s little doubt he could be drafted in the first round as either an arm or a bat. If the opening weekend is any indication of things to come this spring than McKay doesn’t plan on making the question “pitcher or hitter?” any easier for scouts.

To read McKay's report from his pitching performance on Friday please visit this link.
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