College Player Report Database
Previously Featured:
April 2 Notebook: Ryan Cusick
April 3 Notebook: William Fleming
April 4 Notebook: Rhett Lowder, Eric Adler, Camden Minacci, Hunter Furtado
Players Covered: Chris Lanzilli, Bobby Seymour, Shane Muntz, Lucas Costello, Michael Turconi, Brock Wilken
What Happened: Wake Forest lost two-of-three on the road at top-five ranked Louisville in a highly-contested ACC series. Louisville won handily on Friday night before eeking out a close victory on Saturday, while the Demon Deacons took Sunday by a big score to salvage a victory on the road. Wake Forest is now in the bottom half of the ACC and will have to improve on their current record in the second half of the season to hopefully get hot and secure a postseason bid.
Carrying Tool: Power, power, and more power. Wake Forest certainly has a type and presently it’s big, physical corner prospects with mammoth power. When you look at guys like Chris Lanzilli, Bobby Seymour, and Brock Wilken the majority of their offense comes from corner-only guys who have massive power and some swing-and-miss concerns. The lineup is deep with guys like Michael Ludowig and Cole McNamee, who would be more middle-of-the-order for other teams, hitting and showing power in the bottom of the lineup.
Concerns: Athleticism. Wake Forest has very few quick twitch, fast runner type of prospects as the majority of their offense comes from the long ball. A lot of their lineup are physical bruisers while they lack a lot of high contact guys who get on base and can wreak havoc from there. There needs to be a bit of an influx of speed and defense to be a truly well-rounded ball club here moving forward.
Best Player on the Field: Brock Wilken. True freshman Brock Wilken has not only been one of the best freshmen in college baseball, but one of the best players in the sport in general. Wilken has monstrous raw power with a precocious history of being able to both find the barrel of the bat and do so with authority. What most impressed about Wilken was his maturity at the plate and not taking many bad at-bats at all. Wilken looks like a budding superstar in the league and this weekend was only further proof of that.
Brock Wilken, 3B, 2023 Eligible
Star freshman
Brock Wilken has been the best hitter for this veteran Demon Deacons team and that was evident both by his presence in the three-hole and for his performance over the weekend. The right-handed slugger has massive physicality at a listed 6-foot-4, 225 pounds with an excellent combination of both strength and physical projection to potentially become a monster by the time he reaches maturity.
Wilken currently slots over at third base for the Deacs where he looks like he’ll be stationed for the next three years. He’ll be a corner guy at any level due to his size and lack of explosive twitch, but that really doesn’t matter all too much once we dive into the offensive profile. Presently he’s got good hands with an arm that projects out as solid-average long term. Come his draft year, he’ll have to prove he can handle third base at the pro level but he’s more than fine at present.
The calling card for Wilken is his immense power. Wilken has to be one of the strongest true freshmen in the country both in terms of impact exit velocity and how far he can drive the ball. It’s easy plus raw power, maybe even double-plus, and he generates a ton of carry to all parts of the field with ease. The right-hander has a pretty relaxed stance and set up, with a balanced lower half and the bat on his shoulder pre-load. The swing is fairly direct for someone of his length and he really knows how to create separation and explosion in the batter’s box. He follows through nicely on the stroke and has plenty of lift to turn those high exit velocities into long, no-doubt home runs.
Wilken has tons of bat speed and took a number of good at-bats, only getting overmatched once or twice over the weekend like against a high pitchability left-hander with a good changeup. Wilken looked in complete control against likely top-five round pick Michael Kirian on Friday night, where he laced two smoked singles to pull and worked a walk. The Florida native’s biggest swing, however, came on Sunday where he took an outer-half pitch and absolutely crushed it way out to the opposite field gap. The ball came off the bat at 107 mph and traveled over 400 feet and was an absolute no-doubter. He doesn’t expand the zone or swing and miss too often for it to be a problem, and that’s rare barrel control for someone of his size and power. Wilken is reminiscent of a young Alec Bohm in some respects, more in terms of profile and size, and there’s no doubting the power and how advanced the hit tool is for a prospect with that kind of juice. He’ll wreak havoc on the ACC for the next two and a half years and looks the part of a high pick in 2023.
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