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College  | Story | 4/25/2018

Quick Take: Florida

Photo: Jonathan India (Tim Casey)



Perfect Game College Player Database | College Notebook: Stanford

During the season Perfect Game scouts will be traveling to some of the top series to watch the very best players in college baseball. Those observations, captured with both written notes and video, will be shared in the College Player Database as linked above, notes that can also be accessed on the players' individual PG profile pages. Throughout the season select reports will be shared in feature format to promote the players, the teams and college baseball as a whole.


 Florida Gators

What Happened: In what was a top 10 matchup heading in, Florida emphatically took the first two games of the series against Kentucky before falling in game 3. The Gators showed off their combination of pitching, hitting, defense and overall depth, further proving their No. 1 overall ranking and further establishing themselves as the premier team in college baseball at the moment, cementing themselves as the prohibitive favorite to repeat as National Champions at this juncture. 

Carrying Tool: All of the above. We could pretty easily use starting pitching or the offense in this space, but the fact that Florida's entire lineup 1-9 (along with a few bench guys) are all dangerous hitters, in addition to their weekend rotation potentially being the nation's best, gives Florida an extremely dangerous, extremely well-balanced club. They're pretty deep in the bullpen as well, anchored by closer Michael Byrne, as well as the "next wave" of Florida starters in talented freshmen Tommy Mace, Hunter McMullen, Jack Leftwich and Jordan Butler, among others. This looks like a very, very special team. 

Concerns: Youth in the bullpen. This isn't even really a concern, given how talented the freshman weekend bullpen of Mace, Butler, Leftwich and McMullen are, but at the same time they are still freshmen. Regardless of talent, freshmen pitchers usually end up hitting some kind of wall towards the end of the season, for a host of potential reasons. That's not to say it will happen to these Gator arms, it's just something to potentially look out for and may be viewed as a potential concern on a team where very few concerns exist at this point. 

Best Player on the Field: Wil Dalton. This was a difficult choice, as Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar and Jon India are all high-level draft prospects who had good weekends in Lexington, but in the vacuum of this individual series, Wil Dalton announced himself in a loud way consistently. He leads Florida in homers and RBI, and while only a sophomore, hits in that cleanup spot for head coach Kevin O'Sullivan. He's a threat to go yard in any at-bat, as seen over the weekend when he hit two homers for the Gators, and is just the ideal player to have sandwiched in that four-spot between India and J.J. Schwarz. 

Fearless Forecast: College World Series Champs. There's no real obvious deficiency, or even potential deficiency, to this Florida ballclub. They put out one of the best, and most deep 1-9 lineups of anyone in the country and their 1-2 starters can go toe-to-toe with anyone else in the nation as well, and that's without mentioning potential 2019 first rounder Tyler Dyson, who pitches on Sundays. Their bullpen is very talented, although mostly made up of freshmen, and closer Michael Byrne has been among the best closers in the country for two years now. 


Database Player Reports (8):

• Michael Byrne
• Wil Dalton
• Jonathan India
• Jackson Kowar
• Deacon Liput
• Tommy Mace
• J.J. Schwarz
• Brady Singer


Prospect Spotlight: Jonathan India, 3B



Florida's starting third baseman, essentially since he stepped on campus three years ago, Jonathan India has been setting the world on fire from an offensive standpoint this season, and along the way has risen into easy first round discussions for the MLB Draft, with some projecting him to go as highly as the top 15 picks. He's slashing .415/.544/.822 on the season through about 170 plate appearances with 26 extra-base hits (13 of which are home runs), along with more walks (34) than strikeouts (30). 

India is an athletically built, athletic prospect with solid tools across the board whose performance against the very best of amateur baseball (the SEC) has allowed him to rise up draft boards. He plays third base, and while his athleticism and overall tools have led some scouts to postulate as to whether or not he could potentially play shortstop, he's likely better off at the hot corner long term, where he projects plus. He's light on his feet with bouncy actions and good hands along with above average arm strength, and his instincts are solid as well. He got beat up a bit during the Kentucky series at third base but all the tools are there, along with the baseball IQ necessary, to project him plus long term as a defender. 

Offensively, India obviously has gaudy numbers this season, but he's not likely to be the next David Wright or Kris Bryant as far as all-everything elite hitting third baseman. He has above average bat speed that he generates with loose wrists, creating leverage off of his front side and creating some loft to the path, allowing him to get the ball into the air. The raw power grades out as average, and it's important to remember that while college bats aren't the rocket launchers they used to be, they still aren't wood, so power numbers are likely a bit exaggerated. With India, if you glance at his Cape Cod League numbers, where hitters hit with wood, you will see that while he's had success there from an average standpoint (.281 across two summers) he only hit one home run total in those two years.

India projects, potentially, to be an above average major league hitter with likely below average game power, meaning that, roughly, he could project to hit somewhere around 10-12 home runs annually in the Major Leagues with a good amount of extra-base hits while providing solid overall offensive numbers and excellent defense at third base. There's likely an aura of safety surrounding his profile right now as well, considering he's hitting (and has hit) at every stop of his career thus far, including both the SEC and the Cape, potentially the two highest-level amateur leagues in baseball. Will that be enough to warrant a top 15 pick for India? If he finishes the season like he's been playing all year it's well within reason to expect that.


Prospect Spotlight: Wil Dalton, OF



On a ballclub that features some of the higher upside freshman pitchers in America, Wil Dalton still has to be the newcomer of the year in Gainesville. A junior college transfer from Columbia State, Dalton, a sophomore, has made a significant impact for head coach Kevin O'Sullivan since Day 1, and now hits in the middle of the vaunted Gators lineup. Dalton is slashing .287/.366/.655 and leading the team in home runs with 16 and RBI with 47. 

An outfielder who profiles well in either corner, Dalton is a good athlete and could potentially see time in center field in Gainesville for stretches, though he's likely a better fit in a corner from a professional perspective. However, we're still a year away from fully nitpicking through his profile for the draft. 

He's very physically strong though that strength doesn't get in the way of his movements being free and athletic, particularly when it comes to his swing. He has good balance throughout even with a bigger leg lift trigger, getting the foot down on time and creating excellent separation between his hands and front hip, something that aids him in creating as much power as he does. The swing is strong and built to drive the ball, with plenty of loft and bat speed through the zone, though, as evidenced by his high strikeouts numbers (26 percent), he's prone to swing and miss and still has some problems identifying off-speed stuff out of the hand at times. 

There's legitimate raw power and athleticism to this profile, and with another year yet to refine his approach a little bit at the plate and develop better overall feel for hitting, Dalton is absolutely on the ID list for potential 2019 first rounders right now.
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