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Posts posted by DirtySox
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Some Keith Law takes today on Brecht and Braden Montgomery.
https://theathletic.com/5316512/2024/03/05/mlb-draft-scouting-2024-braden-montgomery/
QuoteFor college opening weekend, I went to Charleston to check out Iowa right-hander Brody Brecht, who probably has the top velocity among college starters this year, having reached triple digits last spring for the Hawkeyes. Brecht was a two-sport player until this year, serving as a wide receiver at Iowa when not playing the national pastime, which earns some natural comps to another wide receiver/starting pitcher, Jeff Samardzija (who played both for Notre Dame before choosing pro baseball). Brecht was 96-99 mph the day I saw him with a slider that was anywhere from average to plus, best at 88-90 and slurvier at 86-87, throwing just a couple of changeups with good tumbling action.
His arm is incredibly fast, although its path is so long that his timing isn’t consistent pitch to pitch, which may be part of why he’s had some command and control issues. I love the big stride he takes towards the plate, and with his 6-foot-5 frame he gets solid extension out front. Against Seton Hall, he struck out 11 of 21 batters faced, walking six and hitting one. For two innings he was really wild, then for two innings he was utterly dominant, and then in his last inning of work he started to lose the zone again. He’s now at 33 strikeouts in 71 batters faced on the season (46 percent), and since that first outing he’s walked six batters total in two more starts, so he’s trending in the right direction. I don’t think he’s the top college starter in the class, but he has pretty high upside with the arm strength and athleticism. He’ll just take more time to get to his peak than the typical college starter.
QuoteBraden Montgomery was a first-round talent out of high school in 2021, a two-way player at the time with more pro potential as an outfielder, but he made it clear to teams that he intended to go to Stanford instead of signing. After a very strong sophomore season for the Cardinal last year, he announced the surprising decision to transfer to Texas A&M, where he’s off to a tremendous start for the Aggies.
Texas A&M was at Globe Life Field this past weekend for a four-team series that also featured TCU, USC, and Arizona State. Montgomery was the best prospect in the series and showed it with a monster home run on Sunday while batting right-handed. He’s a switch-hitter who has produced quite a bit more from the left side in his college career to date, but over the weekend he looked much better from the right side, with much faster hand acceleration and better contact quality. His left-handed swing is fine in itself, with a short path to the ball and excellent hip rotation, but his front foot opens up hard and it kept sliding forward, leaving him off-balance through contact more often than not. He didn’t have the same issue from the right side, where he’s also very rotational and hit that home run at 113 mph, a grand slam that put the Aggies up 7-0 in the second inning against ASU.
Montgomery can definitely hit a fastball, but he had particular trouble with changeups in this series, commensurate with his time at Stanford, where his highest whiff rates against any pitch types came against changeups, missing over 40 percent of the time he swung at pitches classified as changeups. He’s definitely hunting fastballs to drive, which is fine to a point, but he’s going to have to work on picking up changeups — and to a lesser extent all off-speed stuff — to hit even when he gets to Double A.
He’s a strong defender in right with a cannon of an arm, although he never got the chance to air it out in the two games I saw. He threw 14 innings as a pitcher for Stanford last year, with a 12.21 ERA (not a typo), and I’m hopeful that the Aggies will just let him hit, with only one inning pitched so far for him this year. There’s no reason to risk him getting hurt when his pro future is entirely as a position player. He’s got the upside to be a top-10 pick this year, in a weak draft class, although last year he would have been in the 21-30 range because there’s definitely some risk around the hit tool.
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Bob noted that Boston is checking in on Montgomery now.
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Woof.
Poor guy.
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This one streaming or on a webcast anywhere?
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Robert is back in the lineup if we want to find something else to worry about.
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It's just a completely uninteresting ball club. But that's not a surprise in a lost season.
Maybe we get some Colson/Ramos/Nastrini at some point, but until then I'll just watch the minor league affiliates.
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Crochet strikes out the side.
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Hartle then Burns today in a double header. About to start.
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2 hours ago, Timmy U said:
It's way to early to mock what should be a deep but not top-heavy draft to the Sox, but here are some guys who probably fall into the range for 1-5:
JJ Wetherholt, 2b
Travis Bazzana, 2b
Nick Kurtz, 1b
Charlie Condon, 1b
Jac Cagliamone,1b/rf, lhp
Vance Honeycutt, cf
Konnor Griffin, ss/cf
Seaver King, ss/cf
Braden Montgomery, of
Mike Sirota, ss,cf
Josh Hartle, lhp
PJ Morlando, 1b
Hagen Smith, lhp
Chase Burns, rhp
Brody Brecht, rhp
Tommy White, 1b/3b
I am out-out on Tommy White, and don't particularly want Kurtz, Condon, or Morlando because of the first base-only profile. Harold has me more curious about Caglianone and Brecht, but both are super high risk. I like Montgomery's pedigree as he was a top guy out of high school, and I like Konnor Griffin. Should anyone else be added to this follow group? And how do other people feel?
I feel like Caleb Bonemer could be a part of the mix with Griffin from a prep standpoint. Hard for us to assess high school guys though.
I think if Santucci keeps this up he could be another college arm to consider. He seems to be trending up. I might like him more than Hartle.
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On 2/25/2024 at 9:55 AM, Harold's Leg Lift said:
I really like this dude. He's not gonna blow up a radar gun or a rapsodo spreadsheet but he can really pitch. He has a smooth easy repeatable del w/a 4 pitch mix and plus command. It would be great but I don't think he gets to pick 43.
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Boy do I get the Brecht appeal, but I don't think I would have the balls to pop him at 5th overall. That slider though.
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Brecht's slider is just stupid. 3Ks in the first.
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Brody Brecht time.
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6 minutes ago, fathom said:
At this rate, he will be gone you’d have to think
I'm okay with that too. It's making the top of class much more interesting than what it was. A glut of uninteresting college 2B/1B types was what we were staring at a few months back.
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Hagen Smith good. I'm in.
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Hagen Smith about to start against Murray St. Game is on ESPN+. Let's see how he follows up that 17K outing.
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Brody Brecht going to be on an actual televised broadcast this Friday. Against Ole Miss. Should be on the SEC Network on ESPN+ I believe.
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Condon has 3 home runs in today's game. Dude is going off.
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2024 - MLB Draft Thread
in FutureSox Board
Posted · Edited by DirtySox
If we are throwing out names for comp picks/second rounders we like, I'm into these two so far. Strictly based on write-ups and one being an Iowa guy.