Like interest in the draft and rankings of top
prospects at all levels of the game, including high school and college, there
has been a noticeable upsurge in interest in recent years at the summer college
league level.
The landscape once was populated by just a chosen few—the Alaska League, the
Cape Cod League, the Central Illinois Collegiate League, the Jayhawk League,
the now-defunct South Dakota-based Basin League to name the most prominent
ones—but there are now more than 25 such leagues up-and-running and competing
for the nation’s best college talent, and in some cases, elite high school
talent.
We’ve helped to fuel some of the national interest in summer ball with our
weekly Summer 16 rankings of the top summer-league teams, and we’ll unveil our
rankings of the top prospects that played in the various summer leagues over
the next few days. You can click on
Summer College League Rankings
to get a full rundown of the top prospects in each league, though you’ll need
an Insider-level subscription to see the full lists in each league. We’ll be
adding comprehensive scouting reports on each player over the next 2-3 weeks.
To be sure, college summer ball is a unique dynamic that ranges from the
prestigious and long-established Cape Cod League, to the Northwoods League that
is modeled after and operated like a true minor league, to any number of
‘ma-and-pop operations that operate on a shoestring at some of the more
primitive levels. In all, there are some 250 teams in the U.S. and Canada that
are loosely assembled yet operating under the summer college league umbrella.
As evidenced by 10 of the first 25 selections in this year’s draft that played
in the Cape Cod League in 2007, that league is head and shoulders the best
talent producer of all the nation’s summer leagues. There’s debate on which
leagues fall in line after the Cape—and club operators in each league believe
their league is No. 2, even No. 1 in some cases, depending who you are talking
to—and we won’t attempt to stir that nest by ranking the various leagues, but
we believe that nine summer leagues have made a case to rank in the next group
of candidates after the Cape. Accordingly, in our coverage of each league’s top
prospects, we’ve graded the leagues on a 1 to 4 scale, with 1 being the
highest. The Cape is the only ‘1’ on our league grading scale, while the others
listed below are graded a ‘2’.
The accompanying Top 10 list identifies the No. 1 prospect in the 10 leagues
we’ve highlighted. Interestingly, the top prospect in two of the leagues—the
Valley and West Coast Collegiate—are players that are much better known for his
skills on the football field, and it may be a stretch at this point to consider
them legitimate baseball prospects with probable NFL careers looming for both.
Riley Cooper (No. 1 in the Valley League) is a top-notch wide receiver for
reigning national champion Florida, while Jake Locker (No. 1 in the West Coast
Collegiate League) is a quarterback of considerable promise at Washington. Both
players have unmistakeable high-end baseball tools and put them on display this
summer, but it was apparent that they were considerably behind on the baseball
development curve.
|
| League |
No. 1 Prospect |
Pos. |
Summer Team |
College |
| Alaska |
Garrett Richards |
RHP |
Mat-Su Miners |
Oklahoma |
| California Collegiate |
*Kevin Keyes |
OF |
Santa Barbara Foresters |
Texas |
| Cape Cod |
Grant Green |
SS |
Chatham A’s |
Southern California |
| Coastal Plain |
*Deck McGuire |
RHP |
Peninsula Pilots |
Georgia Tech |
| Great Lakes |
*Tyler Wilson |
RHP |
Delaware Cows |
Virginia |
| New England Collegiate |
Devin Harris |
OF |
Sanford Mainers |
East Carolina |
| Northwoods |
Aaron Senne |
OF |
Rochester Honkers |
Minnesota |
| Texas Collegiate |
Del Howell |
LHP/OF |
McKinney Marshalls |
Alabama |
| Valley |
Riley Cooper |
OF |
New Market Rebels |
Florida |
| West Coast Collegiate |
Jake Locker |
OF |
Bellingham Bells |
Washington |
*Not eligible for 2009 draft
|
| --ALLAN SIMPSON |
|
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