With Major League Baseball postseason action in full swing, the first-round of the 2013 draft is now locked and loaded. Once again, Houston has the top pick, but the love ‘em or leave ‘em Pittsburgh Pirates have two of the the first 14 picks including the ninth overall selection.
The Bucs earned the number nine pick for failing to sign Stanford pitcher Mark Appel. The right hander decided to return to Stanford with dreams of winning a national championship. It will be interesting to see where he will be selected in the 2013 draft.
The Pirates will also have the 14th pick which they earned with their performance this season.
We are going to keep a close eye on this 2013 draft which could land college talent based on a mock draft we saw this week at Through the Fence which has the Bucs taking Bobby Wahl a right handed pitcher from Ole Miss.
With the 14th pick, Through the Fence has the Pirates taking Colin Moran who is a third basemen/first basemen out of The University of North Carolina. (You might recall the Bucs selected Jacob Stallings out of UNC this year. The big catcher performed well for State College this season.)
Wahl could rise quickly through the Bucs system. He fits the mold. He’s 6’-3” and 215 pounds. He throws right-handed and his heater can reach the upper 90s.
The slider looks good at times and his change has some late movement. He had 104 K/32 BB over 99 innings as a sophomore last season.
We like this video on Wahl after he scored the winning run as a pinch runner against No. 1 Florida after “not putting a helmet on since high school.”
Video of Wahl from the Cape Cod League is below. Notice the speed of the delivery with a runner on first.
Here is video of Colin Moran from the Cape Cod League where he lead all players in RBI with 42. Moran has a lot of bat movement prior to the pitch and if you watch the video you can see he can cover the outer half shown by his .314 average over 39 games. He had eight double, and six bombs.
It was this strike call on Moran that got UNC Coach Mike Fox suspended. Notice Moran’s reaction in such a big situation.
