Here ya go

The expected exodus of USC baseball players to the pros officially began this year with Phil Disher, and continued with Mike Cisco.

Cisco, a junior pitcher, has signed with the Philadelphia Phillies, the club’s minor league office confirmed on Monday. Cisco was picked in the 36th round in last week’s Major League Baseball first-year player draft.

Link.

Cisco’s numbers the last 2 years

2008: 16 G (11 GS) – 71.0 IP – 4.82 ERA – 93 H – 14 BB – 40 K – 7 HR – .314 OPP AVG
2007: 16 G (14 GS) – 86.2 IP – 3.84 ERA – 88 H – 18 BB – 74 K – 7 HR – .261 OPP AVG

As you can see, he definitely had a better sophomore year, so hopefully the raw ability is there and he can become a middle reliever in the bigs, even though the odds are against him.

If you look at the top of the site, you’ll see a link called “2008 Draft Picks” where I’ve listed every pick the Phillies make. As guys sign, I will bold their name so we can track who has and who hasn’t signed by the August 15th deadline. If you come across an article talking about a player signing, please post it on that page so I can make the necessary updates. Thanks.

As promised, I wanted to digest the draft and then give some detailed observations and thoughts, and then solicit the opinions of everyone here, and we can try to form some sort of opinion of the draft. Of course, the overall worth of this draft will be determined in 4-5 years, and even then the picture might still be cloudy. But it never hurts to go on record with some initial thoughts, and its always fun to re-visit those thoughts down the road and see where I missed in a big way, and where I might have been right. I’m going to stop short of going off on long rants, I already covered Day 1 in somewhat lengthy detail, so this is more a look at Day 2, and then trying to figure out how to grade the draft. So, here we go…

Continue reading My analysis of the draft →

The Phillies picked their max number of players. Lots of guys in the 2nd day that aren’t signable, maybe they’ll take a run at a few guys. We also added a number of interesting guys, guys who could fit in as role players or relievers. I’ll try and post some thoughts later, or at some point this weekend. I have a lot of work to do on the site here, but I want to thank everyone for continuing to come back. We had over 25,000 hits in the last 2 days, and if you’ve just stumbled onto the site, I hope you continue to come back. Thanks again for all of the comments/feedback and discussion. The draft is one of the best times of the year. Now its time to sign these guys and add some new blood to the system.

I’ll use this thread to post brief bios and info on our next wave of picks.

226. Johnny Coy, 3B (Benson HS, MO)

Two of Missouri’s more interesting high school prospects have made bigger names in other sports. Outfielder Johnny Coy is an Arizona State basketball recruit. He’s athletic and has a lot of projectable power in his 6-foot-7, 190-pound frame, but he’s raw in all facets of the game. Coy is considered more signable than Kansas State football recruit Joe Kassanavoid, who may be done with baseball. Kassanvoid is a 6-foot-6, 210-pound righthander who can throw 90 mph with little effort.

256. Julio Rodriguez, RHP (Puerto Rico BB Academy HS)

Righthander Julio Rodriguez sat at 83-86 mph earlier in the year, but touched 90 in May and reportedly has been as high as 92, which has caught the attention of scouts. Throwing from an over-the-top arm slot, the 6-foot-4, 200-pound Rodriguez projects to have a plus fastball. Reports on the quality of his curveball are mixed. His changeup is a fringe-average pitch. Where Rodriguez goes in the draft depends on how many looks a team got on him and when those looks came.

Continue reading Phillies day 2 selections →