@PABaseball posted:Interesting, thought there would be more HSers. I wonder how many actually end up signing. Tough year for D2s and I would imagine becomes the norm moving forward.
The trend is towards taking college guys because front offices nowadays prefer floor and predictability over ceiling.
That is especially true for pitching where teams are very vary of HS pitchers but also HS catchers and even other hitters.
Teams are now less likely to take raw, toolsy HS hitters, they mostly take HS hitters with tools who already look quite polished against higher level pitching, if someone has some swing and miss they prefer to let him go to college and see if he can iron it out there.
10 or 15 years ago that was different, they would take a flyer on a raw toolsy HS hitter and see if they can develop him but the track record of those guys wasn't great.
I read some interview with one of the prospect guys (I think it was longenhagen) and he said basically in zone swing and miss is not accepted with HS draft prospects. It's ok if you whiff at a throat high FB or a slider in the dirt, that is something you can fix, but if you miss on pitches clearly in the zone, especially fastballs that would be almost like a death sentence as they expect you to not have contact issues at that level.
He also said Gallo was one of the few higher drafted HS guys who would swing and miss at fastballs in the zone at that level and still get drafted highly and while he had a very nice career so far his K issues have persisted his whole career.
Overall the trend seems to be again to look for more contact oriented guys, not slap hitters with no pop but great contact hitters who have some pop too, the prototype everyone wants is like an alex bregman who has a low K rate, single digit k-bb% and still be able to hit 25-30 homers as that type is seen as the safest floor with still a good ceiling.