MLB Draft Pack: April 27 | Weekend Preview
On April 19, Perfect Game published its updated rankings of the top 350 national prospects that are eligible to be selected in the upcoming MLB June Amateur Draft. The list includes players from the three major draft feeders: college, junior college and high school programs.
There are seven primary shortstops included in the top 54, including 2017 PG All-Americans Brice Turang (No. 20), Nander De Sedas (No. 26), Xavier Edwards (No. 30), Osiris Johnson (No. 33), Jordan Groshans (No. 43) and Jeremiah Jackson (No. 54). That’s right, six of the seven top shortstop prospects in this year’s MLB Draft are high school seniors.
The lone exception is 21-year-old Jeremy Eierman, an athletic 6-foot-1, 205-pounder from Warsaw, Mo., who for nearly three seasons has manned the shortstop position for Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo. Eierman is ranked No. 29 on PG’s big board, making him the highest ranked college shortstop prospect in this year’s draft; Stanford’s Nico Hoerner is next in line at No. 55.
When 36-year MSU head coach Keith Guttin looks at Eierman, he sees a 205-pound, extremely athletic shortstop and believes that size and athleticism is what separates him from the other elite college shortstops in the country.
He also thinks it would be wise for the MLB organization that drafts Eiermann to give him the opportunity to stay at the position until it’s not in the best interest of the club to keep him there.
“He’s shown his ability to make plays and I think he’s even more proficient at short than he was a year ago, and he was pretty darn good last year,” Guttin told PG in a recent telephone interview. “He’s a knowledgeable kid. His dad was his high school coach, so he’s had that benefit, and he played in some good summer programs, as well.
“He’s been a continual learner … and he makes plays that when you’re just sitting in the dugout watching and I don’t see a lot of college guys making those plays.”
Eierman is making plays for a Bears team that stands 25-12 overall and 8-1 in Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) play heading into this weekend’s important three-game MVC set at Bradley in Peoria, Ill. Eierman will enter with a slash-line of .314/.403/.562 with six home runs, 16 doubles, 32 RBI, 35 runs and 18 stolen bases in 37 games.
“I got off to a bit of a slow start,” Eierman told PG recently. “I had a lot going on with my swing and it took me a little bit to figure that kind of stuff out and quiet things down at the plate. I’m starting to feel a whole lot better at the plate and I’m starting to come into my own and get back to where I was.”
The Bears came into the 2018 season on the heels of a 2017 campaign that saw them win the MVC regular season title with an 18-1 record, go 3-1 in winning the NCAA Fayetteville (Ark.) regional – they beat the host Razorbacks from the SEC twice – and advance to the Fort Worth (Texas) Super Regional.
Once there, they dropped 3-2 and 8-1 decisions to host Texas Christian, and were stopped short of returning to the College World Series in Omaha for the first time since 2003; MSU finished 43-20 overall.
Eierman, junior center fielder Hunter Steinmetz and sophomore right fielder Jack Duffy are the only full-time starters that returned among that team’s position players, although sophomore second baseman John Privitera and sophomore catcher Logan Geha combined for 49 starts.
Guttin knows those players benefitted from the Super Regional experience and would be able to use that as a springboard into this season, but there was a lot of work to be done. Six position players that started 41 or more games moved on, including third baseman Jake Burger. The White Sox selected Burger with the 11th overall pick of the first round in last year’s MLB June Amateur Draft.
The roster is also down a pair of weekend starters in Doug Still and Jordan Knutson and lost elite closer Bryan Young. Junior right-hander Dylan Coleman (8-3, 4.80 ERA, 106 Ks, 99 1/3 IP) was the only weekend starter back in the fold, and he is the Friday night guy this year (6-2, 3.48 ERA, 79 Ks, 64 2/3 IP).
Sophomore catcher Andrew (Drew) Millas (.338-4-44) and Steinmetz (.299-2-27) have also been swinging it pretty well in support of Eierman; the Bears are hitting .258 as a team.
“I think we definitely had some momentum coming into this year,” Eierman said. “Last year was a very big year for our program and we definitely lost some key hitters and a couple of our weekend guys, but we’ve had some guys step up this year in our lineup, and we’ve had some key freshman arms and juco arms that have come in.
“We’re still trying to find our way a little bit,” he continued. “We have a good team, but we’re all trying to come together and really get clicking on the offensive side and pitching-wise.”
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MISSOURI STATE FIRST FIELDED A BASEBALL TEAM IN 1964 AND KEITH GUTTIN began his MSU head-coaching career in 1983, the same year the program moved up to NCAA Division I status.
The Bears averaged 35 wins a season during his first 35 years on the job, won 17 regular-season or conference tournament champions, earned 10 NCAA Regional berths – three in the last six years – with one trip to the College World Series in Omaha in 2003.
“This program was successful before I got here, and you want to keep that tradition going,” Guttin tells his players before the start of each season. “The only way you’re going to do it is to grind it out and have a blue-collar work ethic and listen to the older people that have been through it before.”
Guttin and his staff don’t really have a recruiting base, per se, but they do seem to find most of their players inside a 300 to 350-mile radius surrounding the school’s Springfield, Mo., campus.
It’s a regional recruiting area, to be sure, but that’s not to say they wouldn’t be willing to scour the country while looking for a prospect that would thrive in this unique setting. The Bears play their home games at beautiful Hammons Field, the 19-year-old, 8,000-seat stadium that is also the home of the Double-A Springfield Cardinals.
Eierman was attracted to the MSU program by its rich history and winning tradition. He called the three years he’s spent on campus the best of his life so far and the decision to come to Springfield the best one he’s ever made.
“It’s really just helped me with my baseball career,” he said. “I’ve made such (big) strides with my baseball career because of the coaching and everything. The amount of time and care (the coaches) put in with their players has just been awesome these last two-and-a-half years.”
The wizard from Warsaw started all 59 games at shortstop for the Bears as a freshman in 2016 and hit .296 with nine home runs and 48 RBI; he drove in an MVC-high 25 runs in league-play, with five home runs.
Eierman re-introduced himself to the college baseball nation during a thunderous sophomore season in 2017 when he slashed .313/.431/.675 with team-highs of 23 home runs, 68 RBI and 17 stolen bases (Burger hit .328 with 22 home runs and 65 RBI). He was a first-team PG All-American last season and first-team PG Preseason All-American this year.
Having the opportunity to play alongside Burger on the left side of the infield for the past two seasons proved to be very beneficial.
“My freshman and sophomore year, he was someone I really leaned on because of the amount of success he had; we talked hitting all the time,” Eierman said. “It was really helpful just because of the amount of knowledge he had and the way he approached the game. If I was ever struggling, he’d kind of see some stuff … and we were just real open with the game; it was great having him next to me.”
Eierman has lived a baseball life his entire life, eagerly following in the footsteps of his father and older brother, John and Johnny Eierman.
John Eierman, an outfielder, was selected by the Boston Red Sox in the 13th-round of the 1991 MLB June Amateur Draft out of Rice University and played in the minors for four seasons; he was his sons’ baseball coach at Warsaw HS. Johnny Eierman, an outfielder and shortstop, was a third-round pick of the Tampa Bay Rays in 2011 out of Warsaw HS and spent three seasons in MiLB, with 2013 being his last.
“My dad has a ton of knowledge of the game, and he’s seen my swing since I was six years old. He knows me very well, and it’s the same thing with my brother,” Jeremy Eierman said. “Both of them are people I can really lean on and go to, whether I’m struggling or having success. It’s been great having those two around.”
PG ranked Eierman a top-500 national prospect in the high school class of 2015, and he was ranked the No. 7 overall and No. 1 shortstop prospect in the state of Missouri. He was a three-time all-state performer at WHS and was named the Missouri Gatorade Player of the Year in 2015 after hitting .542 with eight home runs, 33 RBI and 18 stolen bases in 26 games.
Eierman was at five PG events from 2013-14, including three of PG’s most exclusive showcases: the 2013 Junior National Showcase in Minneapolis, the 2013 PG Underclass All-American Games in San Diego and the 2014 PG National Showcase in Fort Myers, Fla. He also played at the 2014 PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., with the St. Louis Pirates/Midwest Mets Scout Team and was named to the all-tournament team.
“Those experiences helped me realize where I needed to be,” Eierman said. “The players there were the best-of-the-best from around the country at that time, and it was just seeing where you’re at with your game and watching these other really good players and seeing where you need to get to. I saw the work that needed to be done going forward, and that was very helpful for me.”
The five days he spent in Jupiter were especially memorable: “I had read about it before I went there but it was kind of wild looking around and seeing 100 scouts at your game,” he said. “It was kind of wild, but it was definitely a good experience.”
His two-plus seasons at MSU have brought him many more memorable experiences, those of the type he might not have gotten anywhere else. He has especially enjoyed playing for Coach Guttin:
“Just how long he’s been around the game and the amount of knowledge that he brings to practice every day and to every game,” Eierman said. “He always has some good knowledge to bring to you however you’re doing in the game, so it’s been great.”
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MISSOURI STATE NEEDS TO DO A GOOD DEAL OF WINNING THROUGHOUT the remainder of its schedule if it hopes to secure its third NCAA Regional berth in four years this season. There are 14 games remaining on the Bears’ regular-season schedule and 12 of them are in-conference (the MVC also plays a postseason tournament). Their RPI heading into the weekend is No. 62.
In order to bolster that RPI, Guttin every year schedules a strong non-conference slate. This season they played games against nationally ranked schools like East Carolina and Arkansas State, and power-five programs Oregon State, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Kansas and Iowa.
“You’re going to see all types of quality pitching and styles of play when you play people from different parts of the country,” Guttin said. “If you’re observant and paying attention as a player and a coach, you can see what goes on with other successful teams and programs and see if can take some of their ideas and copy some of their things.”
Added Eierman: “We’re always looking to play the best teams. We’re not a power-five conference or program but we go out there we play like we are; we don’t really backdown from anyone. It’s just baseball and we’re going to go out there and play our game, and we can compete with the best of them when we’re playing well.”
Guttin anticipates an exciting stretch run for the MVC championship, especially considering the Bears have weekend series remaining at Bradley (25-9) and at Dallas Baptist (25-13), the two teams right behind them in the MVC standings at 7-2.
The road to the postseason will present its share of challenges, to be sure, but it’s the one the Bears will have to successfully traverse if they want to once again find a seat at a Super Regional table.
“Every year you have goals and you have desires, and obviously a desire for every school is to get back to that point,” Guttin said. “You’ve got to earn that a game at a time and we’ve been kind of up and down in that regard.”
Eierman likes the Bears chances: “When our offense and our pitching are clicking all at the same time, we’re very tough to beat. Right now, we’ve shown glimpses of having a very good offense and our pitching staff has shown very well so far this year and going forward we just need to show consistency with both of them.”
Results over the next two months will determine where the Bears land; they’ll also determine Eierman’s fate. When he was a youngster, his dad would tell him that he saw first-round potential in his son’s abilities, but the high school-aged Eierman quite honestly had a hard time wrapping his mind around those words.
The draft, after all, was a room reserved for the country’s best amateur players and Eierman didn’t yet have the needed confidence in his game to feel like a member of that exclusive fraternity. But he continued to improve as he learned valuable lessons playing alongside the first-rounder Burger and is now more at ease when he hears his name mentioned in any first-round conversations.
“It is kind of crazy to think about after I didn’t get drafted in high school, but that’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me was coming here,” he said.
When asked to assess his own strengths and weaknesses roughly six weeks ahead of the draft, Eierman said he felt very good about his play defensively and his base-running and is starting to feel better about the way he’s swinging the bat now that the weather is finally warming up.
It’s a matter of establishing some consistency, which means not getting overly aggressive at the plate and minimizing his strikeouts. Other than that, he’s right where he wants to be.
“The biggest thing for me to get my mind off of June and everything, is to focus on doing anything I can to help the team win,” Eierman concluded. “If I’m doing everything in my power to help us win and help us get to the postseason, then everything else will take care of itself.”