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Minors  | General  | 12/14/2017

PG in the Pros: NL Central

David Rawnsley     
Photo: Perfect Game


As part of Perfect Game's recurring PG in the Pros series David Rawnsley will take a look at some of the top prospects in minor league baseball and their impact on the sport prior to their professional careers. This will be done in a six-part series, one feature for each division in Major League Baseball while identifying one of the top prospects for each team. Links are provided below to past installments of the PG in the Pros series for other reports on prospects, both past and present.


Previous 2017-18 PG in the Pros features: NL West

Chicago Cubs

Before They Were Pros, 2013-14 – Javier Baez, Albert Almora, C.J. Edwards, Dan Vogelbach
Before They Were Pros, 2014-15 – Kris Bryant, Billy McKinney
PG in the Pros, 2015-16 – Duane Underwood
PG in the Pros, 2016-17 – Trevor Clifton

Dillon Maples, RHP

When this scout first saw Maples play at the 2008 PG Atlantic Coast Underclass Showcase he was a 6-foot-1, 170-pound primary middle infielder just coming out of his freshman year. He showed bat speed at the plate to go with an athletic build and lots of projection and a future third base profile. Maples also pitched at the showcase, topping out at 86 mph and showed a hard spinning curveball from a lower release point that he threw way, way too much, including eight straight at one point.

A year later, Maples was a primary pitcher and was topping out at 93 mph with a power upper-70s curveball, overpowering hitters at WWBA tournaments while pitching for the Canes North team. He had also grown to a listed 6-foot-3, 197-pounds.

When Maples threw at the 2010 PG National Showcase, he overmatched hitters with a 92-95 mph fastball that showed plus sinking life at times and an outstanding curveball. He was an easy pick for the PG All-American team and one could easily envision him becoming a first rounder in 2011. Too emphasize the life that Maples got on his fastball, even when in the mid-90s, two of the comparisons in the scout notes from that National Showcase were to Todd Jones and Jake Westbrook, two big leaguers best known for their hard sinkers. Add to that Maples' simple turn-and-throw delivery and his above average athleticism and it was easy to project solid average to plus command in his future.

Maples had a strong commitment to home state North Carolina, where he would have been draft eligible again in 2013 as a 21-year old sophomore. Teams were scared away by his signability and Maples eventually slid to the 13th round, where the Cubs paid him a first round equivalent signing bonus of $2.5 million.

Maples career didn't take off as anticipated. He was limited to 10 innings his first year due to a sore arm, then regressed into years of severe control problems, including walking 26 in 27 innings to go with 15 wild pitches and a 9.11 ERA in 2014. The light came on in 2017, though, and Maples struck out 100 in 61 minor league innings with his upper-90s fastball before fanning 11 in six innings in his big league debut. Not exactly the career path that many imagined six years before, but one that still brought him to the big leagues.


Cincinnati Reds

Before They Were Pros, 2013-14 – Robert Stephenson, Billy Hamilton, Jesse Winker
Before They Were Pros, 2014-15 – Michael Lorenzen, Ben Lively, Nick Travieso, Phil Ervin
PG in the Pros, 2015-16 – Amir Garrett
PG in the Pros, 2016-17 – Nick Senzel

Taylor Trammell, OF

Trammell flew under the radar until the summer before his senior year, largely because he was not only a primary football player but one of the best running backs in the football rich state of Georgia. As a senior, Trammell rushed for a state Class 1A record 2,479 yards and 36 touchdowns at Mt. Paran High School and was the Class 1A Georgia Player of the Year. He was signed with Georgia Tech to play both football and baseball.

Trammell played in numerous WWBA tournaments in the Atlanta area with the East Cobb Astros and Triton Rays. This scout got his first look at him at the 2015 USA Baseball Tournament of Stars and definitely took note with this impression:

Revelation of the event, top-round tools, very athletic, put on show in BP, hit well in games, hard contact, plays hard, scouts will love him.

Probably the most interesting part of evaluating Trammell, aside from appreciating his huge athletic ability, was that unlike most primary football players he had plus present instincts and timing for the game of baseball. In baseball parlance, he "knew how to play." He slowed the game down while playing hard and comfortably executed all the little things in the game, especially on offense. For a scout, it left one optimistically wondering just high his ceiling could be with full-time repetitions.

Trammell received many accolades after his senior year and all of the writeups concentrated, not surprisingly, on his football accomplishments. Baseball pretty much knew where his future was likely heading at that point. Perfect Game had him ranked as the 13th best prospect in the 2016 class heading into the draft. Trammell slid a bit beyond that due to his strong signing leverage but the Reds had designed their draft strategy to save money in the first round to pick a player exactly like Trammell in the second round. They did just that, signing him to a $3.2 million bonus at the 35th overall pick, over $1.3 million beyond the recommended slot for that pick.

Milwaukee Brewers

Before They Were Pros, 2013-14 – Tyrone Taylor, Jimmy Nelson, Taylor Jungmann
Before They Were Pros, 2014-15 – Devin Williams, Jorge Lopez, Tyler Wagner
PG in the Pros, 2015-16 – Kodi Medeiros
PG in the Pros, 2016-17 – Isan Diaz

Monte Harrison, OF

From a national perspective, Harrison was one of the more accomplished three-sport prep athletes of the last decade. He was All-State Missouri in all three major sports and an elite level prospect in two of them, baseball and football.

In football, Harrison was a 6-foot-2, 195-pound wide receiver with plus speed and the big and durable body (he's listed at 6-foot-3, 220-pounds today) that projected to potentially have a NFL future. He caught 60 passes for 1,007 yards and 13 touchdowns as a senior and also ran for 12 touchdowns for the state champion Lee's Summit West team. He signed with Nebraska for both football and baseball but was pretty clear that if he made it to Nebraska he was going to be a football player first.

Harrison also averaged 17 points and nine rebounds a game as a senior on a Lee's Summit basketball team that reached the state semifinals. He senior season dunk video is worth watching if one wants to get a sense of his overall athleticism.

Although he obviously didn't get as many repetitions in baseball as his peers across the country, Harrison's athleticism and baseball ceiling were obvious. He had no national profile before the summer for his senior year but hit the summer circuit pretty hard, appearing in a variety of events, including the PG Sunshine South Showcase, the PG National Showcase, a couple of WWBA tournaments with the Marucci Elite and participated in the PG All-American Classic before getting back to the football field.



In terms of present tools it was his defensive skills that stood out. In addition to his 6.6 speed Harrison had one of the best throwing arms in the 2014 class, hitting 95 and 97 mph at his two PG showcases with accurate laser-like throws. Offensively, Harrison lack of repetitions showed the most but tellingly Harrison hit much better in games against top level pitching than in batting practice or against softer throwers. Scouts commented it was if he had to think too much in those lesser situations and when faced with good pitching he let his natural athleticism take over. His approach was very simple and without much flow or timing and it was evident that he was going to take some time to catch up as a hitter, but that the tools were definitely there to develop with time.

Harrison had a strong senior year, hitting .433-2-35 with 27 walks in 31 games while stealing 26 bases and was ranked as the 22nd best high school prospect in the country by Perfect Game going into the draft. He obviously had lots of negotiating leverage with his football commitment to Nebraska and signed with Milwaukee in the second round (50th pick overall) for a $1.8 million bonus, $700,000 over slot for that pick.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Before They Were Pros, 2013-14 – Jameson Taillon, Nick Kingham, Josh Bell
Before They Were Pros, 2014-15 – Reese McGuire, Austin Meadows
PG in the Pros, 2015-16 – Tyler Glasnow
PG in the Pros, 2016-17 – Mitch Keller

Cole Tucker, SS

When Pittsburgh drafted Tucker 24th overall in the 2014 draft out of Mountain Pointe High School in Arizona, it qualified as one of the bigger surprises of the first round, especially for those who hadn't seen Tucker in the months leading up to the draft.

Tucker played in the 2013 PG National Showcase, and while his athleticism was evident, along with very good lefthanded bat speed, it was also clear that he hadn't completely matured into his long and lean 6-foot-3 body and there was plenty of young awkwardness to his actions, both defensively in the middle infield and in the righthanded batter's box. His PG notes from the Area Code Games later in the summer reflected much the same, adding the question of his future position:

Swung it well lefty, struggled righty. as per usual, 4.13 H-1 (LH), 4.47 turn (LH), performed well defensively in games, release is too long for SS, not enough arm for 3B, speed for CF? Power should come later but really needs to develop a lot of it to be a COF, very good player but a tough profile.



Two aspects of Tucker's overall package weren't well known at that point but in retrospect were very important to consider and accounted for much of his rapid improvement over the next 10 months leading up to the 2014 draft. First, he was very young for his class, not turning 18 years old until after his graduation, and his body and coordination reflected that. In addition, both of Tucker's parents were high level athletes and their son had those genes in him to develop.

Tucker hit .405-5-30 with 13 stolen bases as a high school senior and the scout talk about his improvement and potential started up by the middle of the spring. He was signed with Arizona but ended up getting a $1.8 million bonus from the Pirates.

St. Louis Cardinals

Before They Were Pros, 2013-14 – Kolten Wong, Carson Kelly, Tim Cooney, Randal Grichuk
Before They Were Pros, 2014-15 – Rob Kaminsky, Charles Tilson
PG in the Pros, 2015-16 – Luke Weaver
PG in the Pros, 2016-17 – Alex Reyes

Jack Flaherty, RHP

The most interesting thing about the Cardinals Jack Flaherty is that he never pitched during the summers, neither at PG events nor at other national level events such as the Tournament of Stars or the Area Code Games, aside from one inning appearance during the scrimmage of the 2013 Perfect Game All-American Classic. But he was such a good athlete that he was named a PG All-American strictly as a third baseman. It wasn't a hard decision, either, as 6-foot-4, 205-pound third basemen who run a 6.37 sixty and are athletic and polished in all their actions are very uncommon.

Flaherty's report from the 2013 PG National Showcase pretty much tells the story as far as his tools and skills as a third base prospect.

Long and lean athletic build, good present strength with more to come. Very fast for his size, 6.37 in the 60, smooth gliding actions in the infield, looks like a third baseman but has deceptive quickness and speed at shortstop; gets rid of the ball very quick and masks true arm strength, soft hands and comes through the ball well; balanced with body control, highly instinctive player. Righthanded hitter, deep load, easy fluid swing with bat speed, ball comes off hard, consistent hard line drive contact; has leverage without effort, hits under control, drives right-center field, doesn't show loft power now but likely to in the future. Didn't pitch but is a very successful pitcher as well. Polished player who performs and sees the game in slow motion.



Looking at Flaherty's performance over four years at Harvard-Westlake High School is instructive and makes it easier to understand why he didn't pitch in the summers. He started as a two-way player from the beginning of his freshman year and threw 89 innings as a junior and 78 innings as a senior, a very heavy workload for just the spring. Flaherty went 35-3 for his high school career, including 23-0, 0.63 during his junior and senior years. He walked only 22 hitters in 167 innings those two years while striking out 237. The scout talk on those who had seen Flaherty throw prior to his senior year was that he threw with an average fastball that would top out at 92 mph occasionally, with outstanding command and a very good slider that was his best pitch.

It's also interesting to look at Flaherty as a hitter those four years, as he didn't post the gaudy numbers that most high level hitting prospects post, although he did hit a respectable .348-8-62 over a four-year period and stole 58 bases. He actually only had a few more doubles (13) than home runs and had by far his worst season as a senior.

Flaherty was an outstanding student with a scholarship to North Carolina but his velocity inched up during his senior year and his command, maturity, slider and athleticism were all solid plusses. The Cardinals picked him with the 34th overall pick and signed him for a $2 million bonus.
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