2012 MLB Draft

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Originally posted by PGStaff:

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Regarding PGs rankings....I will say this, they are the best there is regarding amatuer baseball when it comes HS player rankings. With that being said, out of all of the states in the US, they have the least hold on the state of Texas. So when it comes to PG Texas rankings...just kind of use there rankings as rough guideline as to who to follow not necessarily there ranking. Take this for instance.....Texas is 4 times the size of florida, yet florida has probably 20 PG tournaments where texas has only 1 tournament. And even that tournament in Texas still does not have the top two programs participating in it from the state. PG does a terrific job, but when it comes to Florida rankings, I would take them to the bank.....Texas & Oklahoma not so much.

It seems like most of the posts in this forum are from people in the DFW area. I'm not from Texas, but I think it would be great if the entire state were more involved. There is great baseball all over the state. DFW and Houston are two of the biggest hotbeds in the entire country. There is a lot of talent all over the state. Everybody here knows that.

Anyway, about the earlier posts... Nobody is perfect, I know we aren’t anyway. We always hear a lot of disagreement with the rankings until after the draft. The draft almost always straightens things out. The top players aren’t always drafted, but that is due to things other than talent.

Whenever I see someone mention how we do things or what it is we don’t know… I always get curious and start checking things out. Obviously there is no way to check out how a future draft will go, so I usually check the most recent draft to see how that went.

So after reading this thread, I checked through last year (2011) draft to see the actual results. I checked the 2011 draft tracker at MLB.com. They have 42 Texas High School players listed from last year’s draft.

Here are the facts…

Of the 42 players, two players were actually from other states, both had attended PG events and both were in the rankings.

Of the 40 from the state of Texas…

36 had attended Perfect Game events and were all ranked

One of the other four was also ranked by PG.

Of those drafted in the first ten rounds, one player was not ranked by PG and he did not attend a PG event.

So in the entire state of Texas last year four of 40 drafted players did not attend a PG event. 2 of those 4 were seen by PG at other places and had reports in our database. 1 of those 2 was ranked by PG. The other 36 were both ranked and had attended a PG event.

If PG has 37 of 40 of this year’s draft identified from Texas and 36 of 40 have attended PG events… It’s not perfect, but I can live with it! Of course, we can always get better!

BTW… I don’t always know if a player is from DFW, Houston, or some other area… So it’s difficult to sort that out with any accuracy. And I doubt if we were any more accurate in Florida.

Nobody cares where the best players are from, they only want to know who they are. We might do more events in other places, but Texas is a top baseball state and we try hard to find out who the best players are. Sometimes things do get in the way, but that happens everywhere.

The comments here are very kind compared to some we get about the rankings. I might disagree with some of what has been said, but this thread has been polite and that is appreciated.

Thanks for bumping this! I just now saw where Jerry responded to me. Here are the facts i found .....I still stand by my statement in that PG is nowhere close to having a great hold on the state of Texas. Its just too big. Its almost twice the size of california, and I already used the florida analogy. California has two area code teams....texas needs two area code teams and probably 3 but thats a different topic. The area code scout running the Rangers team only picks 90 % position players from Houston area. Houston baseball is not better than DFW baseball, they are equal so i don't understand this....different topic though.

I wasn't taking a knock at PG at all, so i hope you didnt take it that way. In fact I was doing the opposite and trying to help PG in areas they are lacking in....Texas. I don't have time on my hands to go back through every single player from Texas in PG database. But I will say this, there are two things occuring regarding the state of Texas and PG.

There could be two things happening regarding the Texas Junior Class rankings each year.
1.) Junior Class PG rankings are way off in the state of TExas.
or 2.) The top players from the State of Texas are opting out of not attending the PG national showcase.

I went back and looked at the top 100 players drafted in the 2012 draft, and only looked at the kids from texas that were drafted. A whopping 9 out of 11 did not attend the PG National Showcase.

That tells me that the best players are either not getting invited, or they are opting out of going. I would venture that they are not getting invited because PG just doesnt have a good foothold of the state and don't really know the top players.

To be honest I just dont understand why kids still attend the PG national showcase anyways. I don't think it helps you, and the kids that didnt attend just prove it by being drafted in the top 100 picks. I don't think it can hurt you either though, but its definately not necessary to attend. The scouts from minnisota can not turn you in.... This is up for discussion.....fire away at me. Maybe i'm wrong, but someone is going to have to show me. The junior rankings in texas are not close until right before the draft.

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I went back and looked at the top 100 players drafted in the 2012 draft, and only looked at the kids from texas that were drafted. A whopping 9 out of 11 did not attend the PG National Showcase.

Just on account of pride and in defense of the many great Texas players that have attended the PG National over the years, guess I will reply.

First of all the PG National draws well over 300 scouts and college coaches every year. They come from coast to coast, even Texas. There are many scouting directors and crosscheckers and pretty much every big college program is there… Every year, whether in Minnesota, Florida or anywhere else.

Second, last year’s draft had something like 33, 1st and supp. 1st round picks that had attended the PG National. There is no other single showcase event that comes close. 20 of the first 30 picks had attended the PG National Showcase including 10 of the first 13 picks.

This year we feel that the vast majority of the best players in Texas were in fact in Minnesota at this year’s PG National.

Not sure what anyone is looking at, but here are some FACTS.

Here are some of this year’s draft picks of Texas kids that attended the 2011 PG National.
Hawkins, Courtney
OF Corpus Christi TX 1st rd White Sox
Aune, Austin
SS Argyle TX 2nd rd Yankees
Stankiewicz, Teddy
RHP Keller TX 2nd rd Mets
Thompson, Jake
RHP Rockwall TX 2nd rd Tigers
Williams, Billy (Nick)
OF La Marque TX 2nd rd Rangers
Dean, Austin
1B Spring TX 4th rd Marlins
Fairchild, Austin
LHP Deer Park TX 16th rd Royals
Hearn, Taylor
LHP Royse City TX 22nd rd Pirates
Hinojosa, Christopher (CJ)
MIF Spring TX 26th rd Astros
Johnson, Ben
OF Austin TX 34th rd Braves
Traver, Mitchell
RHP Navasota TX 39th rd Astros
Long, Grayson
RHP Baytown TX 39th rd Mariners

A few who did not attend… Steven Bean and Tyler Gonzales were pick 59 and 60. Both were ranked very high by PG. Gonzales #50 in the country, 6th in Texas and 17th best RHP in the country. PG had Bean #66 in the country, #9 in the state and #4 in the country at his position . Wyatt Mathisen went pick 69, PG ranking was #38 in the country, #5 in Texas.

Spencer Edwards I would consider a miss by PG. He went in the 2nd rd and we had him ranked #166 in the country and 19 in Texas, 13th best SS in the nation.

Here was PG top 15 from Texas 2012 class.
1 Courtney Hawkins

2 Billy (Nick) Williams

3 Austin Fairchild

4 Christopher (CJ) Hinojosa

5 Wyatt Mathisen

6 Tyler Gonzales

7 Mitchell Traver

8 Austin Aune

9 Steve Bean

10 Jake Thompson

11 Austin Dean

12 Jeremy Kivel

13 Teddy Stankiewicz

14 Ben Johnson

15 Austin Schotts


Perfect? No it never is! Pretty darn good? I think so, at least worth paying attention to.

I'm not arguing the great venue of the PG National Showcase at all. I think its awesome. I think its a great event and it does have all of the top talent from the US except texas needs work. At the PG national Showcase you had several kids throw 80mph, several kids barely throw 72mph from behind the plate. YOu know how many kids i could find in Texas that could do the same?! Some SS ran slower than christmas in the 60. Some Catchers popped close to a 2.1! No need to get defensive, I'm trying to turn whats good into great because yall are missing a bunch top draft pick talent. The goal should be turn PG into something better....right?!

I am not arguing anything at all. I acutally said PG is the best at hs rankings, all I said was they needed some work in Texas in the Jnr rankings.

The fact is that 9 out of 11 guys drafted in the top 100 picks from texas didnt attend the PG national showcase. I didnt make that number up. I don't think attending the PG Nationals Helps or Hurts you. Therefore why not attend i guess, but kids were getting drafted years before Nationals came about.

As far as your rankings go, again I'm not arguing the rankings 1 week before the 2012 draft. I'm arguing the rankings when they are juniors in HS when the PG national invites go out and just the jnr rankings in general.

For the record you can go back and look, I don't know if you keep rankings history, but you did not have Steve Bean, Wyatt Mathieson, Spencer Edwards ranked correctly when they were JNRs in HS when the PG National invites went out.

I've had the luctury of seeing pretty much every jnr in Texas play, and my top 50 would be 75% different than yours.

I'm not trying to stir any feathers up, all I said was take the junior rankings in Texas with a grain of salt to the other poster, because i garuntee you by this time next year 1 week before the draft it will be night and day. Sorry if i caused any problems, i was just reffereing to a poster question. For the record I think PG is great!

It is very true that the PG National is held a full year before those players are eligible for the draft. It is true that every player needs to be identified before that time. It is true that PG can always get better.

A full year before the draft these Texas players have participated in the PG National. BTW you mentioned the three without mentioning Hawkins, Aune, Stankiewitz, Thompson, Williams, Dean, etc. they were among the first HS players selected from Texas. Hawkins being #1 and they all were at the PG National. We always see new players as a whole year passes, from many different parts of the country.

Bean was at several PG events. He really came on strong over the last year and deserved to be ranked high. Edwards was only at one PG event, we knew he was good, but obviously he was even better than what we thought. Mathieson has also attended PG events but it was the Area Codes where we first realized how good he was. We knew early on, just not in time for the national.

We also need to keep in mind that Texas has not been well represented in the past several first rounds.

This year Texas players at the PG National… Maybe we will see some that are even better, but these guys don’t deserve to be called second rate by you.

Player Year Hometown St Pos MPH from position Pop time 60 yd Pitch Peak MPH other College commit
Banks, Nicholas
2013 Tomball TX OF 6.9 89 outstanding hitter Texas A&M
Barrera, Tres
2013 McAllen TX C 80 1.84 7.38 89 Texas
Biggio, Cavan
2013 Houston TX 3B 7 81 outstanding hitter Virginia
Buckner, Nicholas
2013 Pearland TX OF 6.77 91 Houston
Bushnell, Brett
2013 Wills Point
TX LHP 83 6'6" lefty
Clemens, Kacy
2013 Houston TX 1B DNP
Conn, Trevor
2013 Kingwood TX SS 88 7.63 86 outstanding hitter, 6-3/195
DeVries, Jacob
2013 Castroville TX LHP 88 6-3 lefty
Dunlap, Andrew
2013 Houston TX C 88 1.83 7.08 92 Big power
Ecker, Mark
2013 Helotes TX RHP 92 Texas A&M
Farish, Christopher
2013 Houston TX RHP 90
Gideon, Ronnie
2013 Hallsville TX 3B 88 7.25 outstanding hitter
Holloway, J.R.
2013 Austin TX RHP 92
Hunter Jr., Torii
2013 Prosper TX OF 82 6.6 bloodlines
Kelley, Andrew
2013 Spring TX RHP 89 6-8 RHP
McKinney, Billy
2013 Plano TX OF 6.91 outstanding hitter
Meisner, Casey
2013 Cypress TX RHP 91 6-7 RHP
Neuse, Sheldon
2013 Fort Worth TX SS 91 6.9 92
Palmeiro, Preston
2013 Colleyville TX 3B 7.39 outstanding hitter
Pena, Francisco
2013 Richmond TX RHP 90 6-4 RHP Sam Houston State
Pennington, Walker
2013 Houston TX OF 91 6.9
Phillips, Alex
2013 Nacogdoches TX RHP 89 6-3 RHP
Robertson, Kramer
2013 McGregor TX MIF 91 6.87 90 Louisiana State
Shane, Casey
2013 Burleson TX RHP 92 6-4 RHP
Sheppard, Darryn
2013 Sugar Land TX OF 86 6.83
Stewart, Kohl
2013 Tomball TX RHP just bullpen, mid 90s Texas A&M
Thompson, Sean
2013 Southlake TX RHP 90
Walker, Matt
2013 Aledo TX RHP 88 6-5 RHP
Welborn, Bryce
2013 The Woodlands TX RHP 93 Texas Tech
Williams, Eric
2013 Rowlett TX OF 97 6.85 Texas Tech
Williams, Daniel
2013 Round Rock TX OF 6.84 outstanding hitter

You keep saying you just want to help. Then PM me the names of all those players we are missing. We are extremely interested in getting it right. The recognition does help the players.

BTW, you can actually see every single thing, including the workouts and every game. Just go here…
http://www.ihigh.com/perfectgame/
Listen, I wasn’t born yesterday… If someone really cared about helping us get better they would get in touch with me. They wouldn’t double talk on a message board.

There were 15 school kids, all of them in the same class. Except for Benji, he was in Mr. Jones class. Each day Mrs. Smith served carrots to the children on the playground. All but one of them ate the carrots. Sally did not like carrots. But the kids played anyway and all was well in the class and with Benji. When they were young adults, all the children grew strong and healthy. Even Sally.



MUST HAVE BEEN THE CARROTS!