2019 MLB Draft: Justin Slaten and Korey Lee Are Trending Up, While Brandon Michie is MIA

This past week was very busy. MLB pipeline expanded their prospect list to the top 100 and put out a 1st round mock draft. While a top 100 list pales in comparison to Baseball America and Fangraphs, what is impressive is that Pipeline goes into detail about all 100 prospects. Baseball America came out with an updated 1st round mock. Even Keith Law at ESPN put out a mock. All the details can be found in the links and info below.

Prospect lists:

Fangraphs Big Board 338

Baseball America Top 400

D1 Baseball (subscription) 150

MLB Pipeline Top 100

Mock drafts:

Baseball America (5/3) - Bryson Stott, SS & Brennan Malone, RHP (HS) - The only thing to change here is the 21st overall pick where they change it from JJ Goss to Brennan Malone.

24/7 Sports (4/12) - Matthew Allen, RHP (HS) & Braden Shewmake, SS

Fangraphs (4/23) - Hunter Bishop, OF

Perfect Game (4/24) - George Kirby, RHP & Josh Jung, 3B

MLB Pipeline (5/3) - Shea Langeliers, C & Logan Davidson, SS

ESPN-Subscription (5/6) - Hunter Bishop, OF & Brennan Malone, RHP (HS)

Also, here’s my spreadsheet that has stats (through 5/3) and some additional info. With that, let’s start discussing college prospects.

College player stock trending up

Luis Trevino, C, Abilene Christian - A senior catcher and one that likely isn’t a prospect. However, at the same time, Trevino has been hitting the cover off the ball all season. He’s hit everywhere he’s been and this season he’s shown quite a bit more power. Someone is likely to take a chance on him in the later rounds. He’s hitting .422 with 15 HR. As a catcher, he’s thrown out about 24 percent of runners and has committed just one error and two passed balls.

Korey Lee, C, California (Cal) - Teammate to Andrew Vaughn, and has been hitting cleanup most of the season. Lee has also been in the mix as their second best hitter too. On the season he’s hitting .325 with 11 HR. The negatives are that he does have swing and miss to his game. On the defensive side, Lee has thrown out 50% of runners, but has five errors and five passed balls.

Mason Studstill, RHP, Florida Gulf Coast - Originally drafted by the Indians in the 22nd round (2016), Studstill opted instead to go to Miami, but threw all of one inning. He then tranferred to a junior college where he didn’t find the success he wanted due to walking almost seven batters per nine innings. This season he found his mark. Studstill has a 0.98 WHIP and a very low .142 OBA. His walk rate is still high at 4.43 per 9, but the strikeout rate is at 11. Coming out of HS he had a fastball that sat in the low 90’s and paired it with a curve that showed potential.

Justin Slaten, RHP, New Mexico - The 6’4 righty throws low 90’s, bumping up to 95 and has a couple of quality secondaries in a change-up that flashes plus and a slider that can be above average at times. Slaten was coming off a dreadful Sophomore season, but has been good for most of the year. Control is still a big negative as he’s walking nearly five guys per nine, but he’s also striking out 11/9 (four games of 10+ K’s). His WHIP of 1.39 shows he has issues keeping guys off base, but but with his stuff he’s been able to work around it. Obviously he has things to work on, but there’s a solid foundation for a team to work with.

Pete Soporowski, LHP, Rider - As you can see in the video below, that Sopo has a pretty deceptive delivery that helps his fastball play up. He doesn’t throw very hard, but I really like the way he throws and competes. Overall, he’s been very consistent this season. He’s only had one bad game where he gave up nine runs, but every other game has been three earned runs or less. Not to mention that he’s walked just five batters all season! For a bonus, Sopo also had a 15 strikeout performance. I just have to wonder if his fastball could tick up out of the pen and how effective his deceptive arm could be in short spurts.

Tevin Murray, LHP, Rutgers - Murray shifted to full time starter this season and has had mostly good success despite a high walk rate (six walks per nine). Murray was throwing high 80’s coming out of HS, but I haven’t seen any reports on what he’s throwing now. The video below is from last year and seems to show some zip on that fastball. He’s also 6’6 so with his extension he wouldn’t need to throw mid 90’s for it to appear fast. Murray has been very hard to square up - 11 K/9, just two homers surrendered and a .194 OBA.

College player stock trending down

Brandon Michie, IF, Mercer - Michie has been a hitter I’ve been relatively high on for the past two seasons. He has a short compact swing and generates good power due to his bat speed. He’s been known to put up exit velos over 100 since high school. Unfortunately he ran into some issues staying healthy last year, but when he got on the field, all he did was hit and hit for power - 42% XBH%. This season he hasn’t played at all. There’s no news on why he hasn’t played but either injury or suspension. He’ll be 23 in August, so if he’s injured, coming back to school might not be a good option. At this point, I’m not sure he’d even get drafted, but with his hitting ability, I hope he gets a shot. Even if he goes undrafted, the Braves have had some success with undrafted guys like Brandon Beachy and Hayden Deal.

Hunter Wolfe, IF, TCU - Wolfe suffered an ankle injury early in the season, and since then he really went into the tank. The past couple of weeks he’s hit the ball better pushing his average back over .300, but his best trait is his speed and that’s been completely sapped due to the ankle injury. He had 41 steals last year, but just 11 this season. He’s also shown some gap power previously, but that’s been pretty much nonexistent this season too. It’s a shame as he was heading into this season with some positive momentum.

Ethan Skuija, RHP, CSU Bakersfield - CSU Bakersfield brought in three pitchers from the JUCO ranks in the hope of shoring up their staff and racking up some wins. While Darius Vines and Edgar Barclay have mostly been successful, Skuija has been the weakest one of the bunch. Carrying a 1.78 WHIP and a 5.58 ERA it’s easy to see why. All three pitchers throw low 90’s, but the difference is in the secondaries and overall control. You won’t be able to find success when you give up more hits than innings pitched and have a walk rate close to six per nine.

Will Matthiessen, RHP/DH, Stanford - Another two-way player as a pitcher/hitter. He’s more of a DH and the guy can hit. However, I’m not convinced he has a long term role as a pitcher. He’ll throw a cutter that’s high 80’s and a low 80’s slider. He’s a tall guy at 6’7 so if he happens to get drafted, it’ll at least be interesting to see if a team puts him at first base or tries him as a pitcher. He is hitting over .350 with eight homers while striking out less than 20% of the time.

Lastly, I’m done pulling my JUCO lists together and have some good information. I’ll start with pitchers and that should be out soon. This might be one of the better JUCO classes in awhile on the pitching side.

That’s it for this week. Let me know your thoughts on how some players performed this week on the diamond. How about the latest mock drafts?