PERFECT GAME CROSSCHECKER'S TOP TEN LIST WEEK 39: 10/13/08 - 10/19/08 BAYLOR, OLE MISS PRIMED TO WIN BY ALLAN SIMPSON
Thursday October 16, 2008

The first pitch of the 2009 Division I college baseball season isn’t scheduled to be thrown until Feb. 20—more than four months from now—but anticipation is already building as nearly 300 D-I teams are grinding through six weeks of fall practice with the goal of setting rosters, establishing starting lineups and fielding the best teams possible by the opening bell.

Though only eight teams will find their way to Omaha in June, you can bet that a lot more than eight have national-championship aspirations and firmly believe they are legitimate College World Series contenders.

It takes talent to do so more than anything else, and some teams clearly have more talent than others. PG Crosschecker has been assembling extensive follow lists this fall of all the top college prospects in the 2009 draft class, and it is becoming clear which teams have the goods to seriously contend, and which don’t.

Many of the traditional national powers will be in the title chase. But two not-so-obvious contenders to keep a close eye on are Baylor and Mississippi. Though the Bears have lost at least 26 games in each of the last three years and have gone just 36-45 overall in Big 12 Conference play over that period, and Ole Miss hasn’t made a trip to Omaha since 1972, both schools are loaded with draftable talent and should be serious College World Series contenders in 2009.

We normally break down our follow lists into four groups, with candidates for the first three rounds placed in Group I, candidates for Rounds 4-10 placed in Group II and candidates for Rounds 11-25 placed in Group III.

Baylor’s impact on the 2009 draft—and, by extension, the 2009 college season—could be profound as it has four Group I players, including projected first-round righthanders Kendal Volz and Craig Fritsch, and four more players in Group II. No other college has as much impact talent.

Ole Miss, meanwhile, may not make quite the same splash as Baylor in the early rounds of the 2009 draft, but its impact could be even more profound as we list 14 Rebels players in our top three draft groupings. No other college team has the same depth of premium, draft-ready talent.

Of course, a lot can change between now and next year’s draft—and even between fall practice and the spring season—as the best draft-eligible prospects surge or slide. Many of the players drawing the most support from scouts will even be outperformed by overachieving college players who have little professional upside, so there is always a risk in placing too much stock in the college teams that may have the best pro-level talent.

Our list of potential 2009 national-championship contenders also does not take into account the impact that freshmen and sophomores, who are not eligible for the 2009 draft, might have.

A case in point is 2006-07 CWS champion Oregon State, which has a modest total of seven players on its roster whom PG Crosschecker projects will be drafted in the top 25 rounds next June. But the real strength of the Beavers roster may lie in its sophomore class as OSU has six pitchers alone that we are projecting will be drafted in the top five rounds in 2010.

Perennial power Texas also won’t make an impact statement in the 2007 draft, but the Longhorns could be in the chase until the end of the 2007 college season as they have at least four players who are targeted to be drafted in the first or second rounds in 2010.

Despite its potential pitfalls, the list of teams with the greatest volume of premium, draftable talent generally is a pretty accurate indicator which teams will be at or near the top of the various national college polls that will begin appearing in December.

PG Crosschecker’s own ranking of the Top 100 college teams will be unveiled in January. In the meantime, PG Crosschecker premium-level subscribers can see all our 2009 college player rankings by simply accessing our exclusive, in-depth 2009 state-by-state follow lists.

The accompanying top 10 list highlights the D-I colleges that have the most players ranked in our three priority groupings for next year’s draft (along with the number of players in Group I), and we’ve identified each team’s top projected 2009 draft pick.

Rank	Team	Total	Group I	Projected Top draft Pick (Projected Round)
1.	Mississippi	14	3	Scott Bittle, rhp (2nd)
2.	Oklahoma	13	1	Garrett Richards, rhp (2nd-4th)
3.	Florida	12	2	Matt den Dekker, of (2nd-3rd)
	Georgia	12	1	Rich Poythress, 3b (2nd-4th)
	Vanderbilt	12	1	Mike Minor, lhp (1st)
6.	Arkansas	10	0	Dallas Keuchel, lhp (4th-8th)
	Baylor	10	4	Kendal Volz, rhp (1st)
	Kentucky	10	0	Chris Rusin, lhp (3rd-5th)
	Tennessee	10	3	Kentrail Davis, of (1st)
	Texas A&M	10	1	Alex Wilson, rhp (1st-4th)

THE JUNIOR COLLEGE FACTOR BY ALLAN SIMPSON
Thursday October 13, 2008

Since the advent of the baseball draft in 1965, junior-college players have been the draft’s great wild card. Special rules have always been in place for junior college players that have never been afforded to the typical college or high school player.

It was designed that way from the beginning as Major League Baseball was fearful that the very premise of a draft might be challenged on legal grounds—even if baseball was the last of the four major team sports at the time to implement a draft. There was particular concern that baseball, by instituting a draft, might ultimately jeopardize its special standing within the judicial system—namely, its sacred anti-trust exemption status that bestowed favorable treatment on baseball in 1922.

A draft, it was reasoned, would restrict a player’s ability to shop his talent in an open marketplace, and MLB was afraid that the courts would interpret that as restraint of trade—especially since many of the drafted players would not be 18, or of legal age.

The NFL, which instituted a draft in 1936, had no such issues at the time as all players were of college age and had the option of signing with the NFL, the American Football League and even the Canadian Football League. Baseball players had no such options, and MLB’s way of addressing the issue was to conduct two drafts a year—and make all junior-college players eligible in every draft.

Even as issues surrounding the legality of the draft have long since died away and the draft rules that affect junior-college players have been modified through the years—notably the abolishment of the January draft in 1987, the corresponding implementation of the draft-and-follow rule and its subsequent abolishment 20 years later—the preferred status of junior-college players in the draft remains. They still remain eligible in every draft.

Though phasing out of the draft-and-follow rule has led to the drafting of fewer junior-college players (or high school players who were earmarked to attend junior college) in the last couple of years, the level of premium talent in the junior colleges remains high. We’re posting an overall list of the top 500 prospects for the 2009 draft this week elsewhere on the PG Crosschecker website, and it will be liberally sprinkled throughout with junior-college talent. We’re also providing a raw list of the top 50 junior college prospects.

As befitting the often wild-card nature of junior-college players, the list of top prospects is a mixed bag of four-year college transfers, players that were non-qualifiers out of high school, players that elected to go the junior-college route to keep their draft options open on an annual basis.

Okaloosa-Walton (Fla.) JC freshman righthander Daniel Webb is the nation’s top-ranked junior college player. Heavily scouted out of a Kentucky high school last spring, Webb slipped to the 12th round of the draft in June because of a concern that he was a near-lock to attend the University of Kentucky. Not only did the Arizona Diamondbacks not sign Webb, but it turned out that he didn’t have the grades to enroll at Kentucky anyway—and he subsequently enrolled in junior college. As the No. 41-ranked player on our master list of the top prospects for the 2009 draft, Webb projects as a supplemental first-rounder or early second-round pick.

Righthander Ryan Weber, the No. 2-ranked player on the accompanying list of the top 10 prospects in this year’s junior-college crop, has followed an almost-identical career path as Webb—to a point of being drafted in the same 12th round in June, just two picks apart. A premium University of Florida recruit, Webb had second thoughts about enrolling at a four-year school, where he wouldn’t have been eligible for the draft again until 2011, and instead is attending St. Petersburg JC, a national junior-college power located in his hometown.

The next three players on the list, Blinn (Texas) righthander Kendal Korbal, Central Arizona lefthander Kevin Gelinas and San Jacinto (Texas) righthander Jake Cowan, are all sophomores who transferred to junior colleges after spending their freshmen seasons at four-year schools. Korbal attended Arkansas, while Gelinas was at Pepperdine and Cowan at Virginia.

The performance of the players this fall could shake up the order by the time fall practice ends, but here’s how we see the top 10 junior-college prospects for the 2009 draft (all are pitchers, coincidentally):

Rank	Player	Pos.	Class	School	Previously Drafted
1.	Daniel Webb	RHP	Fr.	Okaloosa-Walton (Fla.)	Diamondbacks ’08 (12)
2.	Ryan Weber	RHP	Fr.	St. Petersburg (Fla.)	Phillies ’08 (12)
3.	Kendal Korbal	RHP	So.	Blinn (Texas)	Never drafted
4.	Kevin Gelinas	LHP	So.	Central Arizona	Never drafted
5.	Jake Cowan	RHP	So.	San Jacinto (Texas)	Red Sox ’07 (14)
6.	Jason Townsend	RHP	So.	Chipola (Fla.)	Never drafted
7.	Brett Bruening	RHP	So.	Grayson County (Texas)	Cardinals ’08 (30)
8.	Brett Wallach	RHP	So.	Orange Coast (Calif.)	Never drafted
9.	Chad Bell	LHP	So.	Walters State (Tenn.)	Indians ’08 (37)
10.	Bradin Hagens	RHP	So.	Merced (Calif.)	Royals ’08 (37)