A few 2011 draft prospect notes heading in to the weekend:
-Earlier in the week, I noted that there was good news and bad news for Anthony Rendon. Â The good news is that he could return to third base this weekend. Â The bad news is that he is losing protection in the lineup.
-A note on that protection. Â College Splits points out that Rendon has seen 28 plate appearances with runners in scoring position this year, and has walked eight times, with seven of those walks being intentional. Â It’s only going to be easier for pitchers to pitch around him with Jeremy Rathjen out.
-Walter Villa has a great article on Rendon at ESPN.
-As for Rendon’s competition, I looked at Gerrit Cole this week, specifically looking at the history of Top College Hitters vs Top College Pitchers in the draft.
-Keith Law mentioned that Cole looks like the new Stephen Strasburg.
-I’ll still be updating the Matt Purke tracker, and keeping track of him in the weekly rundowns, but honestly there’s no way I see that he will be a Pirate. Â Right now it looks like a two man race for the number one pick, between Rendon and Cole.
The schedule for Rendon and Cole this weekend:
FRIDAY
7:00 PM EST – UCLA (Cole) at Cal Poly
7:30 PM EST – Rice (Rendon) vs Louisiana Tech
SATURDAY
3:00 PM EST –Â Rice (Rendon) vs Louisiana Tech
SUNDAY
2:00 PM EST – Rice (Rendon) vs Louisiana Tech
People to follow on Twitter for updates:
Rendon: @Chronicle_Owls @FSH_Owls
Cole: @DBSports @RyeUCLAbaseball
And of course you can follow me @pirateprospects.
I was looking at some video of Cole throwing and he doesn’t look like he has a very clean delivery. It looked like he was going to throw his arm out.
Why don’t you see Purke anymore as a canidate???