Bats-Throws:                L-R
Height/Weight:             6-0/240
Hometown:                   North Fort Myers, Fla.
College Commitment:  Florida
Birthdate:                     Nov. 17, 1992

SCOUTING PROFILE: Vogelbach is possibly the most-unique player in the 2011 high-school class, which has resulted in a wide variety of scouting opinions on his potential worth as a draft pick. Of course, some of the reasons for his uniqueness—perhaps upwards of 40 pounds of it—no longer exists, thanks to a strenuous off-season workout regimen that scouts say has noticeably transformed Vogelbach’s physique from the 288 pounds that he packed on his 6-foot frame at the East Coast Pro Showcase last August. No matter what his weight, Vogelbach may be the most-feared high-school hitter in the country. He hits balls hard as a matter of routine, and the newer, slighter model was hitting at a robust .479-14-41 clip through his first 25 games this spring for Bishop Verot High, a traditional baseball power in Fort Myers. Vogelbach is enormously strong, and along with his loose, easy wrists generates outstanding bat speed from the left side of the plate. Another factor that makes Vogelbach unique in the scouting community is that it is almost easier to break down his mental approach to hitting, rather than his physical approach, especially after granting him his raw strength and bat speed. The young man eats, sleeps and breathes swinging a bat, and is an exceptionally-confident hitter who doesn’t believe that any pitcher should ever get him out. Like oversized slugger Prince Fielder, Vogelbach is such a ferocious hitter that almost everyone in the park will stop and watch his at-bats. Scouts at East Coast Pro will remember the game when Vogelbach, already a rare 0-for-3 at the plate, hit a towering fly ball to right field that was caught on the warning track. Predictably, his teammates strained to the far edge of the dugout to watch Vogelbach’s massive drive, along with the subsequent wringing of his hands and contorting of his face in frustration as he ambled back to the dugout from rounding first base. A quarter-inch difference in contact and that ball would have travelled an easy 450 feet, but he wasn’t at all happy about his near-miss. As another burly lefthanded hitter from Florida, Vogelbach has understandably been compared to Fielder, the seventh overall pick in the 2002 draft. Yet as advanced as Vogelbach is presently, Fielder was stronger at the same age coming out of a Melbourne, Fla., high school, and hit the ball harder. Additionally, he was more athletic than Vogelbach is and had those unmistakeable major-league bloodlines. But the comparison to Fielder is a valid one—perhaps the most valid “Prince” comparison of the last decade. Any scout today, when asked about Vogelbach and the draft, automatically answers “American League,” before saying anything else, perhaps forgetting that Fielder himself is a National League all-star. The two teams that appear to have shown the most interest in Vogelbach, according to one veteran Florida scout, are the two teams that train in his back yard, Boston and Minnesota, while another scout firmly believes that Tampa Bay and its multitude of compensation-round drafts picks fits Vogelbach’s profile perfectly.

Projected Draft Position: Compensation/Second Round

--DAVID RAWNSLEY

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