Many of the top prospects in the 2011 high-school draft class are attending Perfect Game’s inaugural two-day Junior Showcase in Minneapolis. The event is a carryover from PG’s National Showcase, which ran from Thursday to Sunday at the Metrodome, and highlighted some 250 of the top prep prospects in the 2010 class.
While many of the nation’s best rising juniors are participating in the Junior Showcase, one prominent player in that class who is notable by his absence is Nevada high-school phenom Bryce Harper, who gained national acclaim by appearing on the June 8 cover of Sports Illustrated. As the clear favorite to go No. 1 in the 2011 draft, he was anointed as “Baseball's Chosen One.”
For all the national notoriety that San Diego State righthander Stephen Strasburg, the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, earned this spring for being the “best pitching prospect in college baseball history,” none of that hype started two years before he was eligible to be drafted. With the extraordinarily-talented Harper, it has.
The SI story on Harper hinted that he might not wait until 2011 to be drafted, that he might (in concert with agent Scott Boras) explore options to accelerate his timetable and become eligible for the 2010 draft as a 17-year-old. That revelation came to pass Saturday when Harper’s father Ron indicated that his son would forego his final two years at Las Vegas High and enroll in August at the College of Southern Nevada, a prominent junior college in nearby Henderson, Nev. As a junior-college player, he would be eligible for the 2010 draft.
It amounts to an extraordinary, unprecedented move by a player who is so advanced in his baseball development that he would immediately be installed as the top prospect for next year’s draft—something that the woeful Washington Nationals have surely noted as they are very much on course to pick No. 1 again in 2010, after choosing Strasburg with the top pick this year.
Harper, a 6-foot-3, 205-pound, switch-hitting catcher, hit .626-14-55 and stole 36 bases for Las Vegas High this season. For a player his age, his combination of power, speed and defensive acumen is far beyond anything ever seen in a 16-year-old.
Though some of the details remain to be worked out, Harper reportedly signed the proper enrollment forms at CSN and his letter of intent to play baseball at the school. He plans to begin attending classes in August and would play for the Coyotes, the 2003 Junior College World Series champions, next season. Normally, he would have to have his GED (or high-school equivalency) test credentials in place before enrolling at a junior-college, but he’s indicated he is looking to satisfy those requirements by the fall.
“Bryce is always looking for his next challenge,” Harper’s father told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “He's going to pursue his education, too. He's going to get pushed academically and athletically. I don't see a problem with it. I think we've handled it the right way. I think it will be a great story.”
The minimum age to sign a professional baseball contract is 16—but that rule generally applies only to players in Latin America, where formal high-school baseball programs are uncommon. The other stipulation, and the one that is most applicable to U.S. players, is that they must have completed high school. Earning his GED would satisfy that requirement.
CSN coach Tim Chambers is a long-time friend of the Harper family, and helped to facilitate Bryce’s move to junior college two years ahead of schedule.
“That's the only way this works out,” Ron Harper said. “I've known Tim for about 25 years. Tim is going to take care of him. I couldn't send Bryce somewhere else. If I sent him across the country, I might second-guess myself and think I was crazy.”
Harper should have an even stronger supporting cast than normally could be expected as his older brother Bryan, a 6-foot-5 lefthander who was drafted in the 31st round by the Washington Nationals last year, will play for CSN in 2010. Bryan spent this spring at Cal State Northridge as a red-shirt freshman. The two brothers played together for a year in 2008 at Las Vegas High.
A 16-year-old baseball player taking the rare step to enroll in college early to advance his timetable for the draft/professional baseball is not without precedence. In fact, it occurred as recently as 2006, when southern California prep sensation Robert Stock passed up his final year at Agoura High to enroll early at USC.
Though his situation was slightly different from Harper’s as he passed up an opportunity to be drafted out of high school, and his motivation was to become eligible for the draft a year earlier than normal out of college, Stock was actually a month younger when he enrolled at USC than Harper would be when he enrolls in college.
Had Stock remained in high school for his senior year, scouts say he would have been a near slam-dunk first-rounder as either as pitcher or hitter. After three mostly underachieving seasons at USC, Stock was selected in the second round by the St. Louis Cardinals last week.