This week on the MLBPipeline Podcast, host Tim McMaster and resident prospect gurus Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo discuss Hunter Greene's trip to visit the Twins, the 2007 Draft, players who could help their Draft stock with a good showing at the College Super Regionals and more. The following is a transcript of a segment from this week's episode of the Pipeline Podcast.
Tim McMaster: Back to the present. Back to the 2017 Draft. There's a lot of Top 50 guys as far as your list that are still playing baseball right now. That's always one of the fun things about the MLB Draft, is that with the College Super Regionals and World Series going on, these guys are playing baseball and also checking out what's going on with their futures.
:: 2017 MLB Draft coverage ::
When you look at your Top 50, all sorts of guys in Super Regionals coming up this weekend. Right at the top, Brendan McKay, Louisville; Kyle Wright and Jeren Kendall of Vanderbilt; Alex Faedo of Florida; Jake Burger, Oregon State, the No. 1 team in the country; Evan White at Kentucky; Alex Lange, LSU; you've got (Corbin) Martin at Texas A&M; (Evan) Skoug, TCU; (Brent) Rooker at Mississippi State. A lot of guys -- and there's more than that. But we have to cut that list off at some point.
Jim Callis: I want you to keep going, Tim.
McMaster: I ran out. They're gonna be on the field this weekend, playing in games. Either pitching, or getting key at-bats. Jonathan, can they help themselves at this point, or hurt themselves, with one last performance?
Jonathan Mayo: [Pause] I think it's limited.
Callis: That was a deep sigh there, Jonathan.
McMaster: He was thinking.
Mayo: It was more a contemplative breath. I'm choosing my words carefully. I'm not sure why.
I don't think it can have that much of an impact. Now, if you're a team and you're on the fence between a couple of guys, and one of the guys you're considering goes out and gives up 12 earned runs in 1/3 of an inning -- yeah, I think you can't help but have that be impactful. The guys making the decisions are human. But they have to try to rely on the track record and the stores of information they have on each guy, and not make a decision based on one poor game or outing or whatever it is.
In addition, there's a difference between -- if they perform poorly in their conference tournament, I think that has a larger impact. And even in a Regional, it has a larger impact. By the time they get to the Super Regional? The Super Regionals, they're scouted, but all the decision-makers are in their Draft rooms this weekend. So they're not going out to see these guys in person. They'll take the information, but I think the impact is limited as a result.
McMaster: Jim, I would think that maybe you could maybe hurt yourself more than you can help yourself? I mean, these guys are obviously highly-thought-of players, so if they go out and perform great, I would think teams just say, "Well, that's what we thought he would do."
Callis: Yeah, I agree with what Jonathan said. One of the bigger insults you can throw at a scout is to call him a "performance scout." But performances do matter a little -- J.B. Bukauskas of North Carolina may fall out of the top 10 now after not pitching well in the NCAA Regional last week. But the only real thing that's gonna change stuff drastically is if somebody got hurt, which obviously you don't want to see.
But like Jonathan said, you've done -- on the college guys, you probably have a four- or five-year track record on these guys, and on the high school guys, at least a couple of years. Your process, to me, it's not a good process if one bad game or even one good game sways years of data and observation. I think it's more you're monitoring guys to make sure you don't see some pitcher grab his elbow or something.
But I really doubt that, say, the Twins, who are picking 1-1, if they're picking between Wright and McKay -- and I think they like McKay more as a pitcher -- I don't think the Twins are gonna be tuned in to watch their two starts and be like, "Whoever pitches better that's the guy we're taking at 1-1." It's more interesting, but even if, let's say, Jeren Kendall -- who you guys know I'm a little higher on than the industry -- even if Jeren Kendall goes out and hits three home runs in a game, it's not gonna change much for anybody.