HIGH SCHOOL PROSPECTS 2009

The Latest 2009 Rankings Released - 6/29/2008

The 2008 Perfect Game National Showcase is over. The 2008 USA Tournament of Stars is over. Many of the 2008 Area Code Tryouts are over. The 2008 Aflac All Americans have been selected. The big PG WWBA events are about to start and the first PGCrosschecker 2009 draft eligible player rankings have been updated.

The rankings include 700 high school players from the draft class of 2009. This list will change many times before next June’s MLB Draft. Many of these players will sign with top college programs this November. Some have already made verbal commitments to national power programs. There will be many new names pop up on the list over the year with the goal being to have as accurate a list as possible by next June.

Being nearly a full year away from next June we understand that many outstanding prospects are not yet on the pgcrosschecker list. If you feel someone very deserving should be listed feel free to contact Perfect Game with your suggestions. Email – pgstaff@perfectgame.org

Perfect Game can’t be everywhere, but we have the largest scouting department in baseball. Our network stretches from coast to coast and we can check things out very quickly. Remember our goal is to identify the best prospects in amateur baseball and we usually do it before anyone else has an idea who all the players are. In fact, you will notice that nearly all others who rank players will be mentioning these same players after this list is posted. This will happen despite those doing the other rankings not having seen most of the players. It happens that way every year. The most reliable and accurate reports and rankings start right here on www.pgcrosschecker.com Then that same information gets repeated over and over by those who follow. If information on players differs from what is posted on pgcrosschecker, it’s usually the wrong information. A nation full of the top college coaches already know that. That is why nearly all of them follow our information so closely. That is why they flock to PG events to see the identified players for themselves and to find those that haven’t been identified yet.

There’s a very good reason that 221 players on the 8 College World Series rosters this past year had attended Perfect Game events and became identified as top prospects. There’s a reason why over 1100 of the 1500 draft picks this June had attended Perfect Game events. People can say what they want, but they can’t deny the actual numbers! The results are what count in baseball and nobody is even remotely close to the Perfect Game results.

Perfect Game is not perfect! Mistakes are made on players at times. The fact is, there just isn’t anyone else that is better. The proof is in the numbers!

Do the rankings really mean much. That’s a matter of opinion, but usually up near the top things stay fairly stable with a little jockeying around taking place over the year. Here is a look back at the top 10 for the 08 class from a full year ago.

1 – Eric Hosmer 1B/P 6-4/210 L/L American Heritage HS Cooper City, FL
2 – Tim Beckham SS 6-2/191 R/R Griffin HS Griffin, GA
3 – Tim Melville RHP 6-5/205 R/R Holt HS Wentzville, MO
4 – Gerrit Cole RHP 6-3/190 R/R Orange Lutheran HS Santa Ana, CA
5 – Kyle Skipworth C 6-4/195 L/R Patriot HS Riverside, CA
6 - Ethan Martin 3B/P 6-3/200 R/R Stephens County HS Toccoa, GA
7 – Aaron Hicks – OF/P 6-1/160 S/R Wilson HS Long Beach, CA
8 – Harold Martinez SS/3B 6-3/185 R/R Braddock HS Miami, FL
9 – Brett DeVall LHP 6-4/220 R/L Niceville HS Niceville, FL
10 – Xavier Avery OF 6-0/185 L/L Cedar Grove HS Decatur, GA

Here is the order they were drafted in among all high school players

Tim Beckham 1^st rd, 1^st pick overall
Eric Hosmer 1^st rd, 3^rd pick overall
Kyle Skipworth 1^st rd, 6^th pick overall
Aaron Hicks 1^st rd, 14^th pick overall
Ethan Martin 1^st rd, 15^th pick overall
Gerrit Cole 1^st rd, 28^th pick overall
Brett DeVall 1^st rd Supp., 40^th pick overall
Xavier Avery 2^nd rd, 40^th pick overall
Tim Melville 4^th rd (really a first rd talent)
Harold Martinez, 19^th rd

Some might say we missed, but remember this came out one full year before the 2008 draft! We still think Melville is a first round talent and Martinez had a substandard final high school season. Everyone including us had Martinez among their first 10 ranked players. Of course, most had the others too because they follow our rankings closely. Even the competition trusts our information when they haven’t actually seen a player. Will 5 of the present top 10 ranked in the 2009 class be the first 5 high school players drafted next June? Will 7 of the 10 become first round picks next June? We will just have to wait and see!

Note: the above example is not the norm, in other seasons we have made several changes over a year’s time in the top 10 and especially the top 100 as well as the rest of the rankings. In fact at one time or another over the last year Hosmer, Beckham, Skipworth, Cole and Melville were all ranked #1 on the pgcrosschecker list.

OK, enough already, here it is the first comprehensive list of the year for the 2009 high school class. Stay tuned as this class sorts itself out over the next 11 months. The list will change and it will grow to over 2,000 of the nations best high school prospects for 2009.

Next up: The 2010 rankings will be released in late July, along with the 2011 list and of course the updated 2009 list. Also watch for rankings of the top College and Junior College prospects along with much more on pgcrosschecker.com.