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General  | Top Ten | 3/3/2009

SEC Rules The Roost

Allan Simpson
With an alignment of 12 Sun-Belt schools that have made college baseball a priority, the Southeastern Conference is the foremost conference in college baseball. In this decade, the conference has received 63 bids to the NCAA tournament (an average of 7.88 per year), far more than any other Division I conference. It generally has more players drafted each year, as well.

The 2009 season could prove to be one of the SEC’s best yet as 11 of the conference’s 12 schools are ranked in the top 50 of PG Crosschecker’s pre-season look at the nation’s Top 100 college teams. Not only that, but five-time College World Series champion Louisiana State has been installed as the No. 1 team. Mississippi is close behind at No. 5 and Georgia at No. 8.

Our top 100 ranking was posted today, and it coincides with our unveiling of a list of the nation’s Top 250 Prospects in the 2010 draft class—essentially college sophomores and high-school juniors.

With the timely release of both those lists, and SEC schools/prospects playing a prominent role on each, we thought we’d take a quick look at the 10 best prospects in the 2010 draft class that come from SEC schools. The players are noted below. For added measure, we’ve also included the top 10 prospects in the 2009 and 2011 draft classes—but the foremost talent appears to be in the 2010 class.

No matter what criteria is used to measure the relative strength of a conference, the might of the the SEC is readily apparent. Even Mississippi State, ranked dead-last in the SEC and No. 76 nationally, is a prominent baseball school with a rich history as it participated in the College World Series as recently as 2007 and suffered through its first losing season in some three decades a year ago. It’s safe to say that no other conference has a team predicted to bring up the rear that even remotely approaches the stature of Mississippi State.

In assembling the list of the nation’s top 100 college teams, one body of evidence that we made liberal use of was the sheer number of prospects on each team that were found on our priority list of prospects in the draft classes of 2009, 2010 and 2011. Such lists essentially include players who we have determined have a realistic chance of being selected in the first half (top 25 rounds) of the next three drafts—and we believe those lists speak loudly to the talent on each team’s roster.

No. 14 Vanderbilt led the way with 19 players, which led both the SEC and the nation. The Commodores were followed in their own conference by No. 1 LSU at 16, and No. 5 Mississippi and No. 20 Florida at 15. No. 28 Arkansas had 14, and every SEC team was in double figures with the exception of rebuilding Mississippi State.

On that basis, Vanderbilt and Florida probably should have factored higher in our Top 100 rankings but a disproportionate number of each team’s top prospects are mere freshmen—and less likely to make an impact in 2009 than more experienced juniors or seniors. But it would be a mistake to overlook Vanderbilt’s impressive freshman class, and we’ve already targeted righthanders Sonny Gray and Navery Moore, and shortstop Jason Esposito as first-rounders in 2011. Top-ranked LSU simply has more balance in all its classes, and is the only school with a player on each of the accompanying lists.

Normally, there are four conferences—the SEC, Atlantic Coast, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast—that rule college baseball, and it’s little surprise that 11 of 12 ACC teams, eight of 10 Big 12 teams and all 10 Pac-10 schools are represented in PG Crosschecker’s Top 100. Even Oregon, which resurrected its baseball program this year after being dormant for a quarter-century, cracked the top 100—though barely, at No. 98.

Pac-10 schools have produced 26 national titles through the years, and that conference has most often rivaled the SEC in recent years as the nation’s most talent-filled conference—if the total number of draft picks produced is the measuring stick. But this is not a particularly strong year by Pac-10 standards, and no Pac-10 team cracked the top 10 in PG Crosschecker’s Top 100. Arizona State, at No. 12, and Oregon State, at No. 14, came closest, but it’s quickly apparent that the talent at both schools is weighted more heavily in the freshmen (specifically in the case of ASU) and sophomore (specifically in the case of Oregon State) classes.

Both those schools have 18 players apiece—second only to Vanderbilt’s 19—on our priority list of prospects in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 draft classes. Oregon State, the 2006-07 national champion, has six sophomore pitchers alone that throw in the low- to high-90s and have the potential to be early-round picks a year from now. None of the six, however, has proven himself yet at the college level, with the exception of closer Kevin Rhoderick, who saved 12 games for the Beavers as a freshman.

The Big 12 may actually have more firepower than any conference in the country this year, the SEC included, as it has three teams ranked in the top seven—Texas A&M at No. 2, Texas at No. 4 and Baylor at No.7—and two more (No. 18 Oklahoma State, No. 19 Missouri) in the top 20. The anticipated loss of lefthander Andrew Oliver for up to 70 percent of the 2009 season, pending final resolution of a suspension levied by the NCAA, impacted Oklahoma State’s ranking. Had Oliver, ranked No. 10 overall in this year’s draft class, been available all season, the Cowboys might have been a fourth Big 12 team in the top 10. But the overall strength of the Big 12 is hurt by three teams that aren’t included among the nation’s top 80 teams.

The ACC, which hasn’t produced a College World Series champion since Wake Forest in 1955, has only one top 10 team, but it’s a formidable one as North Carolina, ranked No. 3, has finished second, second and third over the last three years in Omaha—and boasts a pitching staff that features righthanders Matt Harvey, the No. 1-ranked prospect in the 2010 draft class, and Alex White, this year’s No. 3.

But today’s focus is on the SEC, and here’s how we see the top 10 prospects in that conference in each of the next three draft classes:

Class of 2009 (Juniors)
Rank Player Pos. School Previously Drafted Projected Round '09
1. *Kentrail Davis OF Tennessee Rockies ’07 (14) 1st round
2. Mike Minor LHP Vanderbilt Rays ’06 (13) 1st round
3. Jared Mitchell OF Louisiana State Twins ’06 (10) 1st-2nd round
4. *D.J. LeMahieu SS Louisiana State Tigers ’07 (41) 1st-2nd round
5. *Brian Morgado LHP Tennessee Red Sox ’06 (34) 2nd-3rd round
6. Nick Hernandez LHP Tennessee Athletics ’06 (32) 2nd-4th round
7. Matt Den Dekker OF Florida Never drafted 2nd-4th round
8. Alex McRee LHP Georgia Rays ’06 (48) 2nd-4th round
9. #Scott Bittle RHP Mississippi Yankees ’08 (2) 2nd-5th round
10. Rich Poythress 1B/3B Georgia Never drafted 3rd-4th round
*Sophomore-eligible
#Senior
Class of 2010 (Sophomores)
Rank Player Pos. School Previously Drafted Projected Round '10
1. Drew Pomeranz LHP Mississippi Rangers ’07 (12) 1st round
2. Hunter Morris 1B Auburn Red Sox ’07 (2) 1st round
3. Kevin Patterson OF Auburn White Sox ’07 (24) 1st round
4. *Zack Cox 3B Arkansas Dodgers ’08 (20) 1st round
5. Anthony Ranaudo RHP Louisiana State Rangers ’07 (11) 1st round
6. Brett Eibner RHP/OF Arkansas Astros ’07 (4) 1st-2nd round
7. Justin Grimm RHP Georgia Red Sox ’07 (13) 1st-2nd round
8. Micah Gibbs C Louisiana State Never drafted 2nd-3rd round
9. Logan Darnell LHP Kentucky Never drafted 2nd-3rd round
10. Leon Landry OF Louisiana State Reds ’07 (36) 2nd-3rd round
*Will be Sophomore-eligible in 2010
Class of 2011 (Freshmen)
Rank Player Pos. School Previously Drafted Projected Round '11
1. Sonny Gray RHP Vanderbilt Cubs ’08 (27) 1st round
2. Jason Esposito SS Vanderbilt Royals ’08 (7) 1st round
3. Cecil Tanner RHP Georgia Braves ’08 (36) 1st round
4. Alex Meyer RHP Kentucky Red Sox ’08 (20) 1st round
5. Navery Moore RHP Vanderbilt Red Sox ’08 (26) 1st round
6. Nick Maronde RHP Florida Athletics ’08 (43) 1st-2nd round
7. Mikie Mahtook OF Louisiana State Marlins ’08 (39) 1st-2nd round
8. Anthony DeSclafani RHP Florida Red Sox ’08 (22) 1st-2nd round
9. Chase Davidson OF/1B Georgia Astros ’08 (3) 2nd-3rd round
10. Joe Loftus 3B Vanderbilt Twins ’08 (29) 2nd-3rd round
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