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College  | Story | 5/19/2018

College Notebook: May 18

Jheremy Brown
Vincent Cervino
Photo: Griffin Conine (Duke Athletics)



Weekend Preview | College Notebooks: May 16 | May 17 | College Player Database

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.


Griffin Conine, OF, Duke



Son of former Major League great Jeff Conine, Griffin Conine is every bit the prospect in his own right, and even though he's having a bit of a down year statistically, the tools speak for themselves and they are pretty loud. Conine profiles well as a powerful lefthanded stick with a right field future and there is significant upside to the profile. 

The 6-foot-1, 200-pound outfielder has a slender frame but is very strong and athletic, both the frame and the strength allow him to create significant torque and bat speed through the swing. The path is uphill and geared towards launching the ball into the air, and although the swing gets a bit long at times, it is a very smooth swing and the impact strength is significant. Conine has plus raw power with him being able to get to most of it due to the path of the swing. 

Conine has significant leverage and controlled violence through the swing which makes it look visually appealing when he makes contact. There is some swing-and-miss, he already has racked up 56 strikeouts on the season, but the majority of his hits go for extra bases and is leading the team in slugging by a large margin. 

The arm strength is plus from the outfield and he gets significant carry through the release, he profiles well to be at least an average corner outfielder at the next level. Conine presents an intriguing profile for scouts as the bat-to-ball skills have been down this season, however the extra base and home run power are there to go along with true right fielder tools.


Jimmy Herron, OF, Duke



After starting the season in center field, Jimmy Herron has slid over to left field for the Blue Devils, but still hits atop their order as he looks to set the table. Herron is both an above average athlete and runner, with a best time to first of 4.17 seconds, and that speed allows him to be a solid defender in left field and steal multiple bags as he leads the team with 21 swipes on the season. 

Herron has a pretty clean swing through the zone with minimal extra movements that give him impressive bat-to-ball skills and allow him to not swing and miss often. The contact-oriented approach is aided by his speed and he does well when working gap-to-gap. 

Speed and contact skills are the primary tools to the profile, as both the arm strength and raw power are fringy tools. He doesn't strike out often as the strikeout-to-walk ratio is 22-to-36 on the season and Herron has a very patient approach that only results in selective swings. He is having a strong year for Duke and has a chance to be selected pretty early in June as a consistent collegiate performer.

Other Duke players added to the PG College Player Database:

• Zack Kone


Tim Cate, LHP, UConn



Much to the delight of the slew of scouts who lined up behind the backstop, lefthander Tim Cate returned to the mound after missing roughly half the spring which not only helped his draft stock but also helped bolster the Huskies’ chances of a deep postseason run. Cate entered the spring as a potential first-round choice and showed big stuff early on before going down, making just seven starts. But if Friday was any indication then Cate appears to be fully healthy and in mid-season form as he pitched two scoreless innings to help his club take the series over ninth-ranked East Carolina.

Every pitch thrown by Cate (all 34 of them, 27 of which went for strikes) was watched with a keen eye from the scouting contingent on hand and given the fact it was his first time throwing live in a while, he performed very well with hardly any rust to his game. Almost as expected with Cate, he opened the outing with back-to-back curveballs and spotted both for strikes with the same 12-6 shape and big depth he had shown in previously. In the first inning he left the pitch up some but still a landed it for strikes before locking in and locating the 79-82 mph pitch at the knees in his second frame. Cate’s curveball has become known around the baseball community as one of the better collegiate breakers and it’s a true swing and miss offering that he can go to in any count.

Cate’s delivery is smooth, deliberately paced, and balanced which allowed for plenty of strikes as he generates solid extension out front and showed the ability to move the fastball to either side of the plate with intent. The first fastball out of Cate’s hand registered at 95 mph before settling in comfortably at 91-93 mph with the same low-effort release he has shown in outings past. And while the pitch can be true in terms of life, the UConn lefthander is able to generate plenty of plane to the lower third and induced ground ball outs on three of the four batted outs.

It was a quick look at Cate yesterday but also a positive one from all angles as he showed he was healthy and the Huskies head into the conference tournament with even more confidence and talent thanks to a big series win and the return of the lefthanded ace.


Zac Susi, C, UConn

Ever since stepping foot onto campus during the fall of 2015, catcher Zac Susi has continued to refine his overall game, especially behind the plate and has blossomed into one of the top offensive prospects in all of New England for the 2018 MLB Draft. In the recent release of the Perfect Game Top 500 Susi checked in at No. 310 and though he didn’t have a huge weekend at the plate, he still picked up base hits in all three games and commanded the defensively from behind the dish. 

Strongly built at 6-foot-2, 207-pounds, Susi’s overall profile is an alluring one for scouts as a lefthanded hitting catcher and though he hasn’t hit for much power during his UConn career (three home runs, one coming this spring) but he did connect for three home runs this past summer on the Cape while swinging wood against some of the top arms in the country. Overall it’s a contact oriented approach for Susi as he swings with a linear path through the zone and looks to pull the ball, something East Carolina picked up on with a slight shift throughout the weekend, though Susi did work to the opposite field in a couple at-bats including a single over the shortstop’s head.

The area of Susi’s game that really stands out though is his catch-and-throw skills behind the plate as well as the overall accuracy he repeatedly showed on his throws, whether in game or in between innings. Staying compact and quick with his release and arm stroke, Susi delivered strikes down to second without any tail and nabbed a couple of base runners in the process. He’s a flexible backstop and showed bounce to his actions, dropping to his knees well on balls in the dirt and though some did scoot away he showed recovery skills which he’ll only continue to refine at the next level. Susi also showed his athleticism on a squibber out in front of the plate that popped out of the crouch and alertly fired a strike to third base to get the lead runner, going with his momentum rather than trying to pivot and make the difficult throw to first base. 

Catching prospects who you can project to stay behind the plate are always in demand and he finished the regular season hitting a team best .330 average while limiting the strikeouts, only adding to his overall profile.

Other UConn players added to the PG College Player Database:

• Chase Gardner


Trey Benton, RHP, East Carolina



For the second day in a row Head Coach Cliff Godwin called upon talented sophomore righthander Trey Benton out of the East Carolina bullpen, though he did throw just four pitches on Thursday (all fastball in the 93-95 mph range). Benton’s second outing in Connecticut saw him go three innings of scoreless baseball as he helped bridge the gap from starter Alec Burleson to closer Ryan Ross and in the process showed an arsenal that’ll have him squarely on scout’s radar come next June. 

Standing with a prototypical pitcher’s build at 6-foot-4, 205-pounds, Benton certainly looks the part and he has the repertoire to correspond. His delivery with rather simple and though he lands closed and works across his front side some, his arm action is both fast and compact through the back which in turn allowed for plenty of strikes as he pounded the zone with heaters. The fastball sat in the 91-93 mph range for Benton, touching 94 early, but it was his ability to run the pitch on righthanded hitter’s hands that stood out as he did so with conviction and intent. 

Since he faced just one batter on Thursday and picked off another Benton wasn’t able to show his secondaries, both of which he put on display in the latest look and like his fastball, he lived around the plate with both of them. Of both the curveball and changeup it was the latter that proved to be the go-to. And while he does drop his release point some at release, Benton can create some hard and late fading life down in the zone in the mid-80s, exhibited the comfort to throw the pitch in a 3-2 count, and also showed the ability to run the pitch back over the outer black against righthanded bats. 

His curveball is a solid third pitch with tight rotation and sharper 11-to-5 life, giving the talented sophomore (and the No. 54 prospect on the preseason top 100 draft prospects for the 2019 class) the arsenal, body, and delivery to start at the next level while still projecting for more.


Bryant Packard, OF, East Carolina

It has been quite the sophomore season for slugger Bryant Packard as he entered the final weekend of the spring hitting .409 with a team-high 12 home runs, both numbers he continued to improve upon in Storrs. Not often do you find a physically built 6-foot-3, 210-pound left fielder/designated hitter batting leadoff, yet that’s exactly where Head Coach Cliff Godwin has his talented slugger as to get him as many at-bats as possible in any given game. And once again the strategy paid off for the Pirates as Packard collected at least two base hits in each of the three games (raised his average to .418) and tacked on another two home runs, giving him 14 on the season. 

A top-200 player in the final 2016 high school rankings, it’s worthy to note that both of Packard’s home runs came to the opposite field, as did his extra-base hits, as he showed comfort working to left similar in a way similar to how Oregon State’s Trevor Larnach did earlier in his career. That’s a scary thought for opposing pitchers to consider next spring because as Packard continues learning how to the pull the ball, he’ll become an even greater threat with loose, quick hands and obvious raw strength that plays to any part of the field. 

After a couple singles in game one and some swings-and-misses against UConn lefthander Mason Feole’s curveball, Packard hit everything hard thrown his way on Friday, especially in game two. He started the afternoon with a double down the left field line off an 88 mph fastball on the very first pitch of the game the proceeded to go deep for a two-run shot off a 77 mph slider which he followed with a hard barreled shot – 380-feet to the left-center field gap. The hits kept coming in game three as he broke up Chase Gardner’s perfect game with a double down the left field line then stayed back on a Tim Cate curveball that he put back up the middle at 102 mph off the bat. 

Packard has the bat speed and barrel whip to pull the ball and the results above aren’t from being late on the ball given the authority with which he drives the ball. And while it’s an offensive first profile, Packard showed well in left field where you could project him to stay as h moves well on his feet and shows playable arm strength as he exhibited on  a one-hop strike to the plate in game two to nail the runner at home plate.

Other East Carolina players added to the PG College Player Database:

• Jake Agnos
• Spencer Brickhouse
• Alec Burleson
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