Nationals Arm Race

ESPN Insider only link, but Keith Law wrote up a scouting report on his visit to see Potomac visit Wilmington recently.

I won’t cut and paste his content in the spirit of ESPN’s insider paywall, but will summarize what he wrote, because I found it interesting.  He wrote up three guys:

• Juan Soto: great bat speed, 70 speed, lots of power.  Law’s concerns were with pitch recognition, which has yet to be exposed but may force some adjustment from Soto in higher levels.  But he described him as having “superstar tools.”
• Telmito Agustin: he’s hitting 180 points higher in Potomac this year versus last and Law took note.   Says he thinks Agustin’s adjustments and power will stick and we may have found gold for a prospect who signed for practically nothing and who barely registers on anyone’s prospect lists for the organization.
• Carter Kieboom: struggling in High-A as his stats show; Law wonders if he isn’t better suited for 2B or 3B (likely 3B because of his arm strength).

Law also talked about one player from Wilmington (Kansas City affilliate); that being local kid Khalil Lee (Flint Hill HS).  Lee was the 2nd prep player drafted out of the area in  2016 (Joe Rizzo of Oakton HS being the other): both guys are now at High-A in their 3rd pro years.

And, just after writing this post … the Nats have promoted Soto again.   He’s heading to AA Harrisburg to get some more challenge.  Wow; are we looking at a guy who needs to have Vladimir Guerrero Jr. level hype?

Always enjoy reading about our guys from a national scout.

 

 

2016’s version of this post.

Its Draft Day!

The 2017 MLB rule-4 (Amateur) draft starts  6/12/17 at 7pm.  The MLB Network will have full coverage of the first round of picks. This post is my dumping ground of draft coverage for 2017.

This post uses last year’s format, with links to use to see draft prospect rankings, links to help cover the draft (which I personally come back to time and time again), some blurbs on local players of interest, and then links to a bunch of mock drafts.

Draft Coverage so far at NAR for 2017:

• Local Draft prospects of note for 2017: namely, J.B. Bukauskas, Adam Haseley and Pavin Smith (see more below)
• Mock Draft Overview for 2017.  The same top 5 names seem to appear … and the Nats are more and more rumored towards a problem child.

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Draft Links of importance

• MLB.com Official 2017 Draft Central home page.
• MLB’s Awesome 2017 Draft Tracker; you can slice and dice the draft 10 different ways, search by schools and home states, etc.
• Official MLB 2017 Draft Order, including slot values for the first few rounds. Nats pick 25th, then 65th, then 103rd, then 133rd and 30 more each add’l round.
  
• Official Draft Bonus Pool totals for 2017.  Minnesota most with $14M, Nats have about $5.5M.
• MLB Draft Database for all past drafts.
• Baseball-Reference Draft Tools: links to their draft database plus some custom reports.
• MinorLeagueBall.com’s 2017 Player profile index; an index of their profiles of all the top-end draft prospects for this year.

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Here’s a slew of Draft Prospect rankings : these are NOT the same as mock drafts; these are independent rankings of the players without consideration to draft considerations.  Apologies in advance; many of these are insider/subscription.  Fork over the dollars and subscribe and support baseball coverage that you like!

(Pundits to track: D1Baseball, ESPN Law, MLBpipeline, MinorleagueBall, USAToday, BaseballAmerica, PerfectGame, Scout.com, MLBDraftReport, BeyondtheBoxScore)

• D1baseball early top 100 HS/Prep Draft Prospects 12/2/2016: Greene, Adell, Lewis, Rogers, Hall.  No DC/MD/VA players in their early top 100 list, but two UVA commits here (Andrew Papantonis, Devin Ortiz)
  
• D1Baseball early top 100 College Draft Prospects 12/9/16: Kendall, Wright, Faedo, Bukauskas, Houck.  Other players with local ties mentioned include Pavin Smith, Kevin Smith, Adam Haseley, Ernie Clement, Hunter Williams plus a few others who might be top-10 round picks.
• BaseballAmerica top 200 Draft Prospects 5/4/17: Greene, McKay, Wright, Gore, Lewis.
• BaseballAmerica Top 500 Draft Prospects 6/5/17: Greene, Wright, McKay, Gore, Lewis.  Filterable by State, which is awesome.
• Fangraphs/Eric Longenhagen 2017 Sortable top 50 Draft Board 5/23/17: Wright, Greene, Gore, Lewis, McKay.
• MLBPipeline (Jim Callis/Jonathan Mayo) top 100 Draft Prospects: 5/26/17: Greene, McKay, Wright, Lewis, Gore.
• MLBPipeline (Callis & Mayo): top 200 draft prospects dated 6/5/17: Greene, McKay, Wright, Gore, Lewis.
• MinorLeagueBall.com (Michael Cook) Top 151 Draft Prospects 5/15/17: Greene, McKay, Adell, Wright, Bukauskas.
• ESPN (Keith Law) Top 100 “Big Board” Draft prospect rankings 6/7/17: Greene, Wright, McKay, Gore, Lewis.

Notice how nearly EVERY list has Greene as the best prospect in this draft?  That’s pretty consistent view … but there’s no chance that Greene goes #1 overall.  So thanks to the perverse risks associated with drafting prep kids, yet again we will likely see the best prospect not getting taken #1 overall.  This seems to happen nearly every year since the Strasburg/Harper drafts.   In 2011, Gerrit Cole went 1-1 when Anthony Rendon should have been.  In 2012 i think the “right guy” went 1-1 (Carlos Correa).  Imagine the Astros right now had they taken Kris Bryant instead of Mark Appel (who didn’t sign and who has yet to matriculate to the majors) in 2013 1-1 overall.  Brady Aiken 1-1 overall in 2014 was defensible at the time … but Carlos Rodon was the presumed 1-1 heading into the spring season.   I don’t think anyone disputes the Dansby Swanson 1-1 pick in 2015 (it was a weak class), but few think that Mickey Moniak was the best prospect in the 2016 class (most had it as Jason Groome or Riley Pint;  Groome fell to 12th thanks to some off-the-field stuff and is now hurt while Pint is struggling in low-A).  So its good to be the 2nd team picking this year.

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Now, some news about College Players with local ties who are serious draft candidates (meaning first couple of rounds projected or present on top 100 draft ranking lists).  Note that I’ve got a far, far larger list of local players that I’ll follow-up on after the draft; these are just the significant/top 10 round types.

• J.B. Bukauskas: has had a fantastic junior season and has become perhaps the 2nd best collegiate pitcher this class.  Still undersized … but there are some 6’0″ guys with success in the majors right now.
• Adam Haseley: has rocketed up draft boards by being perhaps the 2nd best two way player in college baseball.  Upper 1st round talent.
• Pavin Smith: 1B only but a sweet, solid bat.  Upper 1st round talent.

At this point, all three of these players are projecting in the first half of the first round; no other local player seems close.  There’s a slew of other local college kids mentioned in the BA top 200, which means they’re all likely 5th-8th round material.

Local Prep players of note who are serious draft candidates: none this year.  Unlike last year, where Joe Rizzo and Khalil Lee both were top 5 round picks, there’s nobody anywhere in the DC/MD/VA landscape that is threatening to be a top-end prep pick (at least as far as I can tell right now).

Nats Re-Draft players of interest: these are guys who the Nats have previously drafted but who did not sign.  Using the Nats Draft Tracker as a guide, here’s some prep guys we drafted generally in 2014 who are now rising college juniors and are bigger names in this draft:

• Stuart Fairchild, OF from Wake Forest: we drafted him in the 38th round in 2014; he’s now perhaps projected mid 2nd round.
• Evan Skoug, C from TCU: we drafted him in the 34th round in 2014; now he’s perhaps projected as a 3rd rounder.
• Tommy Doyle, RHP from Flint Hill HS/UVA: we drafted him in the 35th round in 2014, probably as a hat-tip to a local kid more than a possible signee.  He’s projected as a 6th rounder after a decent career at UVA coverting to relief.
• Quinn Brodey, RHP from Stanford: we drafted him in the 37th round in 2016; now he’s perhaps a 6th-7th rounder projected.
• Morgan Cooper: RHP from UTexas; we drafted him in the 34th round last  year in 2016: he chose to stay in school to build value and now is projected as a 5th-6th rounder.
• Tristan Clarke and Cory Voss: two Juco draftees from 2016 who are draft eligible for 2017.  Clarke started for UNO and put up solid numbers, albeit in the weaker Southland conference.  Voss only played part-time at UofA and isn’t a draft prospect.
• Other Prep draftees in 2014 not mentioned here who are not draft prospects:
  • Elliot Cary was a part-time player hitting .219 for Oregon State this year
  • Clay Casey appears to have transferred yet again, playing 2017 for Delta State and slugging his way to a 17-homer season.
  • Jon Little slashed.267/.351/.420 his junior year, starting in the OF.
  • John Henry Styles has had just one appearance this entire season, and he failed to retire a batter.

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Mock Drafts

See separate Mock Draft post.

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Happy New Year!  Here’s a quick list of posts recapping the most “significant’ events month over month.

• January: Drew Storen for Ben Revere; a trade that seems to work on both sides: In the end, not so much.  Revere lost his job and was non-tendered, Storen had a 6.21 ERA for Toronto before getting flipped to Seattle.
• February: Spring Training 2016 NRI discussion: a review of all the Non Roster Invitees to 2016’s spring training; one eventually made the team (Chris Heisey).
• March: Local HS draft-prospects to keep an eye in for the 2016 draft: 2016 was a banner year for local prep players, with two high-end picks from the Northern Virginia Area (Joe Rizzo and Khalil Lee), a 4th rounder out of the Richmond area (Brenan Hanifee), a 12th rounder from West Potomac who I had never heard of prior to his drafting (Jamie Sara), a 17th rounder from Maryland who I’m surprised wasn’t drafted earlier (Tyler Blohm), plus the expected slew of 30th+ round picks.  2017 isn’t looking nearly as promising.
• April: Nats Prospects: Where to see them in 2016: I’ll do this again in 2017 … but its going to be a significantly different list of prospects after all the trades we’ve done.
• May: Strasburg Extension Shocker! Pretty much the highest-risk thing that this management team has done.  Bigger than the Werth signing, more risky than the Scherzer signing.
• June: “Those guys can kiss my *ss!”  Still makes me laugh.  Too bad we didn’t get to meet the Cubs in the NLCS.
• July: Thou shalt not overreact to a blown save... .  And of course they did, flipping two lefty arms for a couple  months of Mark Melancon.
• August: Do the Nats have a LOOGY problem?  Mike Rizzo certainly thought so, trading future Hall of Famer Max Schrock for Marc Rzepczynski for the stretch run.
• September: Strasburg Flexor Mass; what’s plan B for the playoffs?  Plan Be turned out to be a shaky Joe Ross, but that wasn’t the reason we lost the NLDS.  At least Strasburg wasn’t badly hurt.
• October: NLDS Game 5 via my “live texting” Made possibly by virtue of my texting back and forth late into the night with a buddy; it was a telling revisiting of the Game 5 meltdown.
• November: Rule 5 protection analysis for 2016: the team ends up protecting 5 players, including future Hall of Famer and NAR lightening rod Matt Skole.
• December: Huge Over-Pay for Eaton : the biggest trade of the Rizzo era goes down and its a large price to pay, but it also illustrates the modern economics of the game, where a cost controlled player is expensive to acquire.

Happy New Year!   January will have a couple of “clear the draft posts” articles about awards season, some HoF stuff probably since I just can’t resist, then I hope to get into the pitching staff reviews so that I can make 2017 staff predictions.  That’s the near-term plan!

Todd

This is post #5 of High School Tourney coverage for 2016.  Here’s the schedule:

• #1: DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff.  Covers: MD regional kickoffs, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.
• #2: Maryland State Champs, Northern VA District Champs crowned   Covers: MD state finals, VA district tourneys, VA regional brackets, DC regular season results.
• #3: Virginia Regional Results.   Covers: VA regional results, State brackets, and summarizes DC and MD.
• #4: Virginia State Champions crowned.  Covers: VA state tourneys, recaps MD, DC, Private School results.
• #5: List of all the final Player of the Year links that I’ve been collecting plus all the final ranking of teams from both local and national outlets (this post).

In this post, we will publish all the various Teams of the Year, players of the year and other individual accolades.  I’ve been publishing these as i found them in prior posts, but here they’re all listed as best as I can find them.

Lists in Red are pending results; I’ll update this post as the results come in even post publishing.

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Individual Player Accolades 

Gatorade announced their player of the year awards on 5/24/16.  (Link to all Gatorade/USA Today players of the year per state)

• Maryland: Spalding’s Tyler Blohm won the Maryland award.  17th round pick by Baltimore, committed to Maryland.
• Washington DC: St. John’s Cam Remalia (by way of Waldorf, MD) won the DC award.  Committed to Coastal Carolina.
• Virginia: Flint Hill’s Khalil Lee won the Virginia award.  3rd round draft pick and Kansas City signee.

• Washington Post All-Met teams: Jake Agnos is the 2016 All-Met Player of the year.  In two seasons for Battlefield, he was 18-0 with a 0.60 ERA and 265 strikeouts in 134 1/3rds innings.
• (Also, here’s a fantastic list of all All-Met teams in all sports going back to 1991 that I’m spinning into a “where are they now” post to be done sometime in the future)
• Virginia All 6-A North Regional team: Jake Agnos, LHP Battlefield (ECU commit) is the Pitcher of the year, Jared DiCesare, Chantilly (George Mason commit) is the Player of the year.
• Virginia All 6-A South Regional team: Fox Semones, SS/RHP Hylton (James Madison commit) is the Player of the Year.
• Virginia All 5-A North Regional team: Alex Smith C from Mountain View (Navy commit) is Player of the year.
• Virginia All 5-A South Regional team: Michael Blanchard, RHP Nansemond River (Old Dominion) is player of the year
• Virginia All 4-A East Region team: Grey Lyttle, 3b/OF from Hanover (High Point) is 4A East player of the year.
• Virginia All 4-A West Region team: Brendon Doyle, OF from Kettle Run (VMI) is 4A West player of the year.
• Virginia All 3-A East Region team: Noah Murdock, RHP from Colonial Heights (Virginia commit) and Nationals 38th round draft pick,  is the player of the year
• Virginia All 3-A West Region team: Drew Calohan, RHP from Rustberg HS is 3A West Player of the year.   Ferrum commit.
• Virginia 2-A and 1-A All-Regional teams: pending; not sure if they’re even done.
• VHSL All-State Teams:
  • 6A VHSL All State Team: Jake Agnos, LHP Battlefield is the 6A Player of the Year.  Committed to East Carolina.
  • 5A VHSL All State Team: Michael Blanchard, RHP from Nansemond River, is the 5A player of the year.  Committed to ODU.
  • 4A VHSL All State Team: Grey Lyttle, 3b/OF from Hanover is 4A player of the year.  Committed to High Point.
  • 3A VHSL All State Team: Drew Calohan, RHP from Rustberg HS is 3A player of the year.   Committed to Ferrum.
  • 2A VHSL All State Team: Matt Pinson, RHP from Maggie Walker (Richmond) is the 2A player of the year as a *junior*.
  • 1A VHSL All State Team: Bryson Booher, RHP from Ft. Chiswell (SW of Roanoke) is the 1A player of the year.   Committed to Concord University.
• VISAA’s All-State teams, Division I, Division II and Division III.  Khalil Lee (Flint  Hill) is the Division 1 player of the year.  Harry Brown (Greenbrier Christian) is Division II player of the year.  Andrew Lowe (Southampton Academy) is Division III player of the year.
• VHSCA (Virginia High School Coaches Association) All-State Teams: all pending for 2016: I gave up waiting for them and published.
• Maryland MIAA All-State teams: No POTY’s announced.  The “A” team is dominated by players from Spalding and Calvert Hall, and includes Tyler Blohm.  The “B” team is dominated by the two best B teams: Boy’s Latin and Annapolis Area Christian.
• Prep Baseball Report VA/DC All-State Team; published 7/1/16: Jake Agnos is their player of the year.
• NovaBaseballMagazine’s “Nova Nine” for 2016:  Jake Agnos is their player of the year.
• NovaBaseballMagazine’s alternative “Nova Nine” lists.
• NovaBaseballMagazine’s selection panel (made of coaches and staff) has selected All conference teams for all the Northern Virginia-based conferences; click on the “Standings” link from their home page, navigate down to the division in question, and you’ll get the final 2016 conference standings, then the results of the conference tournament, and the all conference team.  I’m not sure if these are “official” all-district teams or if these are NBM’s staff selections.
• All Loudoun-County Team: announced 6/29/16.  Will Schroeder, RHP/SS for Loudoun County HS named POTY … as a sophomore.
• Free Lance Star All-Fredericksburg 2016: announced 6/30/16. Alex Smith C from Mountain View (Navy commit) is Player of the year.

• American Family Insurance All-USA Baseball Teams: Riley Pint, P from Kansas and 4th overall pick was POTY.   Tyler Blohm was 2nd team.  Nolan Jones (UVA commit) also 2nd teamer but likely signs after getting drafted in the 2nd round.
• American Family Insurance All-State Baseball Teams: released 6/30/16.
  • Virginia: Flint Hill’s Khalil Lee won the Virginia award.  3rd round draft pick and Kansas City signee.
  • Washington DC:  St. John’s Cam Remalia (by way of Waldorf, MD) is POTY.  Committed Coastal Carolina.
  • Maryland: Spalding’s Tyler Blohm won the Maryland award.  Committed to Maryland.
• Louisville Slugger High School All-Americans: announced on or about 6/17/16.  Zack Hess (Liberty Christian), Joe Rizzo (Oakton), Khalil Lee (Flint Hill) all first teamers.  Harold Cortijo (a junior!) from Riverdale Baptist 2nd team. 
• American Baseball Coaches Association/ABCA/Rawlings High School All-Americans: released 6/23/16.  Khalil Lee 2nd team all-american.
• ABCA/Rawlings High School 2016 All Region Team for the Mid-Atlantic: familiar names Khalil Lee, Joe Rizzo, and Tyler Blohm on the all-Region 2 team.
• USA Today All-Americans: not sure if they do their own or if the multiple “American Family Insurance” teams are the official USA Today Teams.
• Baseball America All-Americans: released 6/21/16.  No Local players named, to the chagrin of Jake Agnos proponents.
• The Baltimore Sun’s All-Metro Team released 6/17/16.  Tyler Blohm the player of the year.
• Richmond Times-Dispatch All-Metro team: Grey Lyttle, 3b/OF from Hanover POTY.
• (the 2016 Richmond Times-Dispatch All-Metro team link also has prior POTYs dating to 1993).
• Virginian Pilot All-Tidewater team: Michael Blanchard, RHP Nansemond River (Old Dominion) is player of the year.  Second Team link here.
• (and here’s a list of the All-Tidewater players of the year since 1993 for fun)

If you know of *any* all-anyone team in a publication or official site that i’m missing, please let me know.

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Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists: Updated for the final rankings.

• Washington Post All Met Sports Final Area top-10 ranking: Riverdale Baptist, Spalding, St. Johns DC, Chantilly, Battlefield top 5.  Madison, who was consensus #1 for practically the entire season, doesn’t even make the top 10 after its early Regional loss.
• NovaBaseballMagazine.com Final Rankings of all NoVA teams dated 6/13/16: Chantilly, Battlefield, Kettle Run, Mountain View, Hylton.
• PrepBaseballReport Final VA State-Wide Power25 Rankings: Hanover, Greenbrier Christian, Liberty Christian Academy, Chantilly, Nansemond River.
• Baltimore Sun Top-10 Poll Archives: Final 5/23/16 ranking.  Perennial power Spalding has been at the top for a good chunk of the season.  Spalding, Chesapeake AA, Severna Park 1-2-3.
• The Virginian Pilot Top-10 for Hampton Roads area: Final 5/31/16 poll: Private school powerhouse Greenbrier Christian, Grassfield and First Colonial 1-2-3.
• Richmond times-Dispatch Richmond-Area top-10: 6/14/16 Final poll: 4-A state champ Hanover, Collegiate, Mills Godwin 1-2-3.
• MaxPreps All-Virginia Rankings: 6/13/16 so basically Final Virginia rankings: Hanover, Grassfield, Liberty Christian Academy, Chantilly, Paul VI.
• USA Today’s National High School Super 25 (“Expert”) Rankings 6/22/16 Final rankings: Hanover rises to #8, Spalding rises to #13, and Chantilly gets in at #23.
• USA Today’s National “Computer” Rankings 6/22/16: Assuming Final at this point: Hanover at an astounding #4, no other local teams ranked.
• USA Today’s Super 25 North East & Mid Atlantic Regional Rankings 6/22/16 Final: Hanover & Spalding 1-2 in the region.  Also includes Chantilly at #5, Riverdale Baptist #7.
• Baseball America Top 50: dated 6/16/16: Chantilly finishes #28, Riverdale Baptist #39.  Final?
• MaxPreps “Excellent 25” ranking: 6/13/16: Hanover #21.  Final?
• MaxPreps “Excellent 50” rankings: 6/13/16: Hanover #21 and no other local teams mentioned.  Final?
• MaxPreps Computer Rankings 6/27/16: Hanover #5.  You have to scroll pages to find the next local teams (ranked in the 75-100 range). Final?

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect.  These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going.  So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition.  In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

• Washington Post’s AllMetSports section with standings and schedule results.
• NovaBaseballMagazine: great coverage of Prep baseball in NorthernVirginia, far better than what the WP does
• PrepBaseballReport.com: Great HS coverage for DC/VA.
• The Baltimore Sun’s high school page has information on some of the programs outside the DC area mentioned in the Maryland section
• InsideNova.com‘s coverage of high school sports, but has put limits on the number of stories you can read.
• Richmond Times-Dispatch has a HS scoreboard.
• Hampton Roads Pilot (Hampton Roads) has scores for teams in the Chesapeake/Norfolk/Va Beach area.

Local Newspaper Coverage, including links to many local papers covering smaller jurisdictions.

• The Connection family of newspapers has a sports section that is rarely updated, but it does do some coverage.
• Nvdaily.com (Strasburg) has some results for some of the teams in the smaller conferences/outskirts of DC, generally in the Strasburg area.
• WinchesterStar (Winchester) has results for Winchester teams but its pay-only.
• The Daily Progress (Culpeper local paper) also has some scores for schools in its areas.
• Fauquier Times (Fauquier) has some local sports news.
• VivaLoudoun tracks the Loudoun/Ashburn/Leesburg teams.
• The Loudoun Times also covers Leesburg-area teams.
• LoCosports blog, with tons of Loudoun county Coverage
• Fredericksburg.com has some local coverage of Fredericksburg and Woodbridge teams.
• The Lynchburg News & Advance for Lynchburg-based sports.
• The Virginia Gazette for Williamsburg local stuff.

Non-newspaper Links for Local and National Prep Baseball Coverage

• VHSL’s and MPSSAA home pages for updates on VA and MD respectively.
• DCIAA‘s website, which barely has a schedule but will eventually print results and playoff brackets
• PerfectGame: perfectgame.org is the best place to find HS prospect information.
• MaxPreps DC/VA specific coverage.
• Prep Baseball Report: DC/VA specific coverage
• Prep Baseball Report’s Database of College commitments for VA players (with pulldowns for other states and other grad  years).
• Dynamic Baseball: good prep coverage on the east coast.

Good Twitter accounts to follow:

• https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below).  Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.
• https://twitter.com/PBRVirginiaDC: Prep Baseball Report VA/DC coverage
• https://twitter.com/NVBaseballMag: NoVa Baseball Magazine
• https://twitter.com/NoVAHSBB
• https://twitter.com/DynamicBaseball

The MLB rule-4 (Amateur) draft starts tonight, 6/9/16 at 7pm.  The MLB Network will have full coverage of the first round of picks. This post is my dumping ground of draft coverage for 2016.

This post uses last year’s format, with links to use to see draft prospect rankings, links to help cover the draft (which I personally come back to time and time again), some blurbs on local players of interest, and then links to a bunch of mock drafts.

Draft Coverage so far at NAR for 2016:

• Here’s the big post on all marquee DC/MD/VA prep players ahead of the 2016 season (only guys who are “significant” draft prospects are mentioned here).
• Here’s the same for DC/MD/VA tied College players
• After the draft happens, I’ll review both of the above posts and list who actually got picked and who’s going to school.

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Draft Links of importance

• MLB.com Official 2016 Draft Central home page.
• MLB’s Awesome 2016 Draft Tracker; you can slice and dice the draft 10 different ways, search by schools and home states, etc.
• Official MLB 2016 Draft Order. Per my “evolving draft order” xls online, The Nats forfeited what would have been the #16 pick and now their first two picks are #28 and #29.  After that, they pick 58th, 94th, 124th and then +30 picks there after per round.
  
• Official Draft Bonus Pool totals for 2016.  Reds and Phillies have the most ($13M+).  Nats have $7.6M
• MLB Draft Database for all past databases.
• Fangraphs Sortable Draft Board; a great new tool Fangraphs has that lets you slice and dice their top draft board.
• Baseball-Reference Draft Tools: links to their draft database plus some custom reports.
• Baseball America’s 2016 Draft Order

Here’s a slew of Draft Prospect rankings : these are NOT the same as mock drafts; see further down for those.  You’re going to see the same locally tied names on nearly all of these lists; they’re all individually profiled further below.

• D1baseball HS top 100 players with commitments for 2016 (most of it behind a pay-wall).  UVA stands to lose three significant recruits being ranked in their top 100 right now.
  
• D1Baseball.com’s Top 150 Draft Prospects (mostly behind a pay-wall): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
  
• ESPN/Keith Law‘s May 2016 Top 100 Draft Prospects (ESPN insider): Ray, Groome, Perez, Moniak, Puk.
  
• ESPN/Keith Law‘s June “Draft Big Board” (insider only): Ray, Groome, Perez, Puk, Moniak
• Law’s last minute updated Big Board:
• ESPN/Jim Bowden‘s “Big Board” (insider only): Groome, Senzel, Moniak, Perez, Lewis
• MLBpipeline’s top 100 draft prospects: Groome, Pint, Ray, Lewis, Puk
• MLBpipeline’s top 200 draft prospects: same as above
• Minorleagueball.com’s 151 Draft prospects (by unknown author “cookiedabookie”): Lewis, Groome, Puk, Pint, Rutherford
• USAToday/Frankie Piliere‘s top 30 Draft Prospects: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
• BeyondtheBoxScore.com/Carl Triano‘s Stat-based top Draft Prospect Rankings
• Baseball America’s top 500 draft prospects: Puk, Pint, Groome, Lewis, Moniak
• Baseball Prospectus/Chris Crawford Top 50 draft prospects (Premium content)
• PerfectGame.org’s Top 100 Prospects: Groome, Pint, Ray, Rutherford, Puk (full list premium content)
• Scout.com’s Jeff Ellis draft prospect Rankings: Part 1 (1-51) and Part 2 (52-102): Rutherford, Senzel, Moniak, Groome, Ray
• Ellis’ final Prospect rankings: Rutherford, Senzel, Moniak, Groome, Ray
• MLBDraftReport’s Top 500 Draft Ranking; not doing a big master list, instead he’s doing per-position rankings

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Now, some news about College Players with local ties who are serious draft candidates (meaning first couple of rounds projected or present on top 100 draft ranking lists).  Note that I’ve got a far, far larger list of local players that I’ll follow-up on after the draft; these are just the significant/top 10 round types.

• Connor Jones, UVA RHP via Great Bridge; at this point perhaps the 2nd or 3rd best college pitching prospect thanks to fall-offs from a number of other candidates.  Probably a mid-1st rounder, though some pundits (Keith Law) have him rated far lower.
• Buddy Reed, OF from Florida via Finksburg, MD (NW of Baltimore).  Probably a late first rounder or sandwich pick, perhaps lower.
• Matt Thaiss, UVA C who has shot up the rankings; now projected as early 2nd rounder.  Keith Law likes him as a late 1st rounder.
• Mike Shawaryn: RHP for Maryland; stock has really fallen this season; now perhaps just a 4th rounder.  A late season push improved his draft status somewhat.
• Andrew Knizner, C from NC State by way of Glen Allen, VA: gritty ballplayer who has played his way into perhaps 5th round discussions.
• Errol Robinson, SS from Ole Miss by way of Maryland; struggled badly this season, dropping his stock from early 2nd round projections; no idea where he’s project to go now.

Local Prep players of note who are serious draft candidates:

• Joe Rizzo, INF for Oakton HS.  Remains the highest ranked local draft prospect, projecting as anywhere between a mid-1st rounder and an early 2nd rounder.  South Carolina commit.  MLBpipeline.com’s write-up profiles his draft prospects the best.
• Khalil Lee LHP/OF for Flint Hill.  Some have him 2nd-3rd round, others have him projected 4th-5th.  Part of the confusion is where to play him; he was an undersized speedy CF candidate… then suddenly flashed low 90s off the mound as a lefty starter this year.  Liberty commit.
• Zack Hess, 1B/OF from Liberty Christian Academy (Lynchburg).  3rd round projection.  LSU commit.
• Noah Murdock, a RHP from Colonial Heights (Richmond).  4th round projection by rank, UVA commit.
• Garrett Stallings, RHP from Grassfield HS.  Not generally listed but may be rising, Tennessee commit.

Re-draft players of interest to Nats fans:  these are re-drafts that have come back up.  See the Draft Tracker for underclassmen draftees from last year and/or Prep draftees from 2013 who are now draft eligible again.

• Garrett Hampson, SS from Long Beach State.  Nats 2013 26th round pick, now projecting as a 5th or 6th rounder.
• Reid Humphreys, RHP/OF two-way player from Mississippi State.  Nats 2013 36th rounder, now projecting as a 4th/5th rounder.
• Shaun Anderson, RHP from Florida.  Nats 2013 40th rounder, now projecting as a late 3rd rounder.
• John Reeves, C from Rice.  Nats 2015 20th rounder who started 56 games for the CWS-bound Rice team and hit above .300; looks like a good choice to return to school.
• Alec Rash, RHP from Missouri: Nats 23rd round pick in 2015.  Quit baseball altogether last fall to pursue collegiate basketball.
• Blake Smith, RHP from WVA: Nats 24th round pick in 2015: posted a 2.20 ERA as West Virginia’s closer for the season with 8 saves and 25 appearances.
• Mack Lemieux, LHP from Jupiter HS and then Palm Beach State CC.  Nats 14th round pick in 2015.

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Mock Drafts

Every year I say i’ll stay away from the Mock Draft links … and every year I come back.  Here’s a running collection.  DCProSports.com has a master list of Mock drafts at this link that has many more than I’ve got listed below.

• Fangraphs/Scott Moore‘s Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Lewis, Puk, Pint.
• BaseballAmerica/Hudson Belinsky‘s Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Pint, Puk, Perez.
• BaseballAmerica/Hudson Belinsky‘s Mock #2: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Ray.
• BaseballAmerica/John Manuel Mock #1: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Groome.
• BaseballAmerica/John Manual BA Mock #4: Moniak, Puk, Ray, Lewis, Pint
• Manual Mock #5: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
• ESPN/Keith Law Mock #1 (Insider only): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
• ESPN/Keith Law Mock #2 (Insider only): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Moniak, Perez.
• ESPN/Keith Law Mock #3: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray
• ESPN/Keith Law Final Mock: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
• D1baseball.com/Frankie Piliere Mock #1: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
• D1baseball.com/Frankie Piliere Mock #2: Puk, Lewis, Ray, Groome, Perez
• MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis Mock #1: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Moniak, Ray.
• MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis  Mock #2: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Moniak, Perez.
• MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis Final Mock: Moniak, Senzel, Ray, Puk, Collins
• MLBPipeline.com/Jonathan Mayo Mock #1: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Groome, Perez.
• MLBPipeline.com/Jonathan Mayo Final Mock: Moniak, Senzel, Ray, Puk, Rutherford
• MinorLeagueBall Mock #1 Part one and Part two: Lewis, Puk, Groome, Rutherford, Moniak
• Scout.com/Taylor Ward Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Rutherford, Lewis, Ray
• Scout.com/Taylor Ward Mock #2: Puk, Ray, Lewis, Groome, Rutherford.
  
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #1: Groome, Hansen, Puk, Moniak, Pint
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #2: Senzel, Perez, Ray, Groome, Rutherford
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #3: Garrett, Groome, Rutherford, Senzel, Perez
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #4: Puk, Perez, Ray, Moniak, Rutherford
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #5: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Rutherford
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis final Mock: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
• NatsGM.com/Ryan Sullivan‘s Mock #1: Puck, Senzel, Lewis, Groome, Perez
• Si.com/Chris Crawford‘s Last minute Mock Draft: Puk. Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray
• Baseball Prospectus; have not seen any mock drafts from BP this year.
  
• PerfectGame.org Mock Drafts are Insider/Premium only; this link is to their 2016 Draft Coverage home page.
  

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Todd Boss’ Mock draft?  Based on my vast level of expertise (sarcasm) and the thousands of man hours i’ve put in scouting players in person and cultivating industry sources (also sarcasm), and instead reading the tea leaves of the gazillion other mock drafts, I’ll take this as my initial guess for the top 5: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Moniak

The only thing that gives me pause is this: Puk *stunk* in the regional.  4 and a third, 5 hits and 5 runs given up to UConn.  Sorry; if you’re going to go 1-1 you need to do an outing like 7ip, 4hits, 10ks, 0 walks in your swan song.  I wonder if that was enough to have Philly move to a different pick.  And Perez just got popped for failing a drug test, instantly removing him from top-5 consideration.  So, given Puk’s stinker most of the last minute mocks have Philly off of Puk and doing Moniak as an under-slot deal.  And I can’t disagree.  So my final mock will be: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray

And this top 5 means that Groome and Pint (who I think are the two best talents in this draft) fall to teams outside the top 5 and they’re going to be absolutely ecstatic.

ACTUAL DRAFT Results: Moniak, Senzel, Anderson (??), Pint and Ray.  Just like everyone predicted.

Who are the Nats going to take at #28 and #29?

No frigging idea.  Lots of these Mock drafts attempt to guess, to put some names with the Nats down that far.  But consider the 2011 draft.  Everyone had Anthony Rendon going 1-1.  Suddenly he slips and the Nats grab him at #6 in a total gift.  The point is this: we have no idea how even the top 5 picks will go, so predicting what’s going to happen at pick #6 is folly, let alone #28.  Nats will take BPA, probably will mix up a safer pick (aka college arm) with a riskier pick (aka a high school bat) and go back to back $2M bonus slots.  I also like the running theory that the nats will get the Scott Boras special and “package” two Boras clients together at 28/29 and basically split the bonus pools.  Names often mentioned here include Kyle Funkhauser and the prep pitcher/basketball player Matt Manning.  One would be an over draft, one would be a steal if he gets here.  We’ll see.

 

It has been a rainy spring season for local baseball teams, but the district tournament season is upon us.  Here’s the first of four posts we’ll do covering the High School baseball tournaments in the DC/MD/VA area.  Here’s the rough schedule of posting and what we’ll cover:

• #1: DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff (this post).  Covers: MD regional kickoffs, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.  Usually publishes the week before Memorial day tournament finals.
• #2: Maryland State Champs, Northern VA District Champs crowned.  Covers: MD state finals, VA district tourneys, VA regional brackets, DC regular season results.  Usually publishes after the Memorial Day weekend tournaments finish up.
  #3: Virginia Regional Results, DC Tourneys.  Covers: VA regional results, State brackets, DC tourney results.  Usually publishes the first week of June.
  #4: Final Prep Baseball Update: Virginia State Champions crowned.  Covers: VA state tourneys, recaps MD, DC, Private School results.  Publishes mid-June once the Va state tourney wraps up.

Northern Virginia

Virginal district tournaments get started last weekend and most are scheduled to finish this week.  The VHSL site has some district brackets already published.  NovaBaseballMagazine has done a great job keeping up conference results and has links to the conference tournaments under its “Standings” links.  Here’s a preview of the district tournaments for local conferences with the leading contenders.

The top four teams from each district tourney form the 16-team regional brackets, to be published later on once all the divisions are finalized.

• 6-A Conference 5/Concorde: Chantilly and Westfield are the 1/2 seeds; the other four teams in the district all are hovering around .500 for the year, including Oakton despite having a nationally-known recruit in Joe Rizzo.
• 6-A Conference 6/Liberty: Madison and McLean are the 1/2 seeds as they were last year; Madison lost only one game locally this year and should cruise to the district title.
• 6-A Conference 7/Potomac: West Springfield and Lake Braddock are the 1/2 seeds, with Annandale hovering.
• 6-A Conference 8/ Cedar Run: Battlefield the clear dominant team in this small district and is the #1 seed in the tournament.

Previews: Its hard not to squint and predict a regional semi finals of Chantilly, Madison, West Springfield and Battlefield at this point; the question becomes when does Battlefield throw its unbeatable ace Jake Agnos.  If Battlefield can get to a regional final with Agnos on the hill, watch out.

In the 5-A division:

• 5-A Conference 13/Capitol: Marshall is the clear #1 and the clear 5-A regional favorite, with just one loss all year.
• 5-A Conference 14: Tuscarora, Stone Bridge and Briar Woods all stand at 5-2 in the district with one game remaining to play to jockey for seedings.
• 5-A Conference 15: Mountain View and Potomac seem like the teams to beat again.
• 5-A Conference 16: Halifax, Patrick Henry-Ashland are perennial favorites but this conference is not well covered by DC-area outlets.

Previews: Marshall seems like the team to beat; perennial power Stone Bridge lost its coach Sam Plank and some of its stars to rival new school Riverside, which is currently in Division 3-A while it grows into a 5-A/6-A size.

There are some DC-local teams in the 4th and smaller divisions (mostly in Loudoun County).  We’ll go through them once their brackets are made available on VHSL.  The best 4-A team out there is probably Loudoun Valley, currently in the WP top 10, and Kettle Run is also putting together a great season.

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Maryland

At this point, the Maryland State tournament is underway, with the play-in/round of 32 games played on 5/14/16.   Brackets here at the MPSAA website and direct links to the four State-wide brackets are linked directly below.  Schedule: Regional quarters are on 5/16, semis 5/18 and regional finals 5/20.  State Semis are 5/24 and the state finals are 5/27.

• Maryland 4-A: Both finalists from 2015 are  “district” #1 seeds in this year’s draw (Severna Park and Gaithersburg); they’ll meet in the State Semis this year if form holds.  2014 state-finalist Sherwood is also a “district” #1 seed and sits on the other side of the bracket with the likes of Dulaney, Parksdale and Bowie.
• Maryland 3-A: Looks like new blood in this year’s tourney: last year’s champ did not make Regionals, and 2014’s champ Reservoir is set to take on last year’s finalist Mt. Hebron in the first round.  Chesapeake and River Hill look like early favorites.
• Maryland 2-A: Two-time defending 2-A champ Southern has their work cut out for them to three-peat.  Newly promoted Sparrows Point, 2014 finalist Parkside and last year’s runner’s up Eastern Tech also in the field.
• Maryland 1-A:  (mostly smaller schools outside the DC area): Last year’s champ is in the field but is not a favorite to advance even out of its own district.

We usually discount the quality of Maryland public school baseball teams versus their Virginia counter parts … but I can’t help if a team like Gaithersburg isn’t better than the likes of Madison or Chantilly this year.

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DC

• DCIAA: the regular season runs through 5/17.  The District tournament quarters are on 5/19, semis 5/23 and the finals on 5/25.   Wilson may finally have some competition, as School Without Walls (SWW) was undefeated mid-way through conference play.
• DCSAA: the 2016 tournament, if it will occur, has yet to be scheduled.  It does not look like it has actually been held since 2013.

Remember, there’s not usually much suspense in who is winning the DCIAA; Wilson has not lost to a DCIAA opponent in more than 20  years.

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Private Leagues: WCAC/MAC/IAC and VISAA/Maryland Private

• MIAA: No playoff brackets yet, but Spalding looks once again like the class of the MIAA Class A.  Standings here.
• There’s a 2016 Maryland Private School Tournament scheduled for 5/30 at UMD; it should have some of the better private schools from Maryland, including the non-affiliated but perennial powerhouse Riverdale Baptist.  Details coming later.
• VISAA: The VISAA playoff brackets were just announced: #1 seeds by the three classes were Paul VI, Greenbriar Christian and Southampton Academy.  Other local teams playing include Flint Hill, O’Connell, and the Potomac School in McLean.  Quarters 5/16, Semis 5/10 and finals 5/21/16.
• WCAC: The WCAC is midway through its tournament; with semis and finals being held this week.  St. Johns won the regular season but the four top teams all advanced to the semis.
• MAC: Flint Hill once again cruised to a regular season title.
  
• IAC: no news yet on this smaller private DC-area conference.
• PVAC: no news yet on this smaller private DC-area conference.

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My master list of links used to cover HS Baseball:

Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists:

• Washington Post All Met Sports Area top-10 ranking: Madison has maintained #1 ranking all year.
• NovaBaseballMagazine.com Rankings: Madison and Chantilly have dominated the rankings all year.
• PrepBaseballReport maintains a VA State-Wide Power25 Rankings: Madison, Greenbrier Christian, Hanover leading the way.
• Baltimore Sun Top-10 Poll Archives: Perennial power Spalding has been at the top for a good chunk of the season.
• The Virginian Pilot Top-10 for Hampton Roads area: Private school powerhouse Greenbrier Christian and one-loss First Colonial have led the way most of the year.
• Richmond times-Dispatch Richmond-Area top-10: perennial 4-A power Hanover leads the way.
• Baseball America’s National High School Rankings 5/3/16: no local teams in the top 25: Madison was in the pre-season list but quickly dropped out with its early season tourney losses.
• USA Today High School Experts top 25 for 5/10/16: Hanover and Spalding come in at #22 and #23 respectively.
• MaxPreps “Excellent 50” ranking for 5/3/16: Madison started #11; now there are no local teams listed.

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect.  These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going.  So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition.  In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

• Washington Post’s AllMetSports section with standings and schedule results.
• The Baltimore Sun’s high school page has information on some of the programs outside the DC area mentioned in the Maryland section
• InsideNova.com‘s coverage of high school sports, but has put limits on the number of stories you can read.
• Richmond Times-Dispatch has a HS scoreboard.
• Hampton Roads Pilot (Hampton Roads) has scores for teams in the Chesapeake/Norfolk/Va Beach area.
• NovaBaseballMagazine: great coverage of Prep baseball in NorthernVirginia (thanks to Joe Antonellis for the heads up on this great new resource).

Local Newspaper Coverage, including links to many local papers covering smaller jurisdictions.

• The Connection family of newspapers has a sports section that is rarely updated, but it does do some coverage.
• Nvdaily.com (Strasburg) has some results for some of the teams in the smaller conferences/outskirts of DC, generally in the Strasburg area.
• WinchesterStar (Winchester) has results for Winchester teams but its pay-only.
• The Daily Progress (Culpeper local paper) also has some scores for schools in its areas.
• Fauquier Times (Fauquier) has some local sports news.
• VivaLoudoun tracks the Loudoun/Ashburn/Leesburg teams.
• The Loudoun Times also covers Leesburg-area teams.
• LoCosports blog, with tons of Loudoun county Coverage
• Fredericksburg.com has some local coverage of Fredericksburg and Woodbridge teams.
• The Lynchburg News & Advance for Lynchburg-based sports.
• The Virginia Gazette for Williamsburg local stuff.

Non-newspaper Links for Local and National Prep Baseball Coverage

• VHSL’s and MPSSAA home pages for updates on VA and MD respectively.
• DCIAA‘s website, which barely has a schedule but will eventually print results and playoff brackets
• PerfectGame: perfectgame.org is the best place to find HS prospect information.
• MaxPreps DC/VA specific coverage.
• Prep Baseball Report: DC/VA specific coverage (thanks again to Joe Antonellis for this link)
• Dynamic Baseball: good prep coverage on the east coast.

Good Twitter accounts to follow:

• https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below).  Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.
• https://twitter.com/PBRVirginiaDC: Prep Baseball Report VA/DC coverage
• https://twitter.com/NVBaseballMag: NoVa Baseball Magazine
• https://twitter.com/NoVAHSBB
• https://twitter.com/DynamicBaseball

For the fourth year running (here’s 2013’s wrap-up, 2014’s wrap-up, and 2015’s wrap-up), we’re going to keep an eye on “local” draft prospects leading up to the 2016 amateur draft.  By “local” I essentially mean anyone who hails from the DC/MD/VA areas plus anyone who is playing their college ball in the DC/MD/VA area.  Because of the amount of text on the prep players I have this year, i’ve split the post up into Prep and college players.  This post is months in the making, starting in May of 2015 when the various all-Area teams are announced and underclassmen are listed.

The players are more or less listed in the rough order of their likely drafting: there’s 3-4 significant draft names to keep an eye one in particular (Rizzo, Lee, Agnos and Hess).  Read on.

(Post-publishing update: i’ve added in details/corrected errors per feedback and comments; thanks for all the updates!)

Here’s a list of DC/MD/VA Local Prep players who will be rising Seniors in 2016 worth mentioning.  I’ve tried to organize these players in the order of their significance as a prospect, which (fairly or not) i’ve driven mostly from their participation in tourneys and showcases.

• Joe Rizzo, INF for Oakton HS.  Evoshield Canes Main Roster, early commit to South Carolina.  2015 All-Met, 6-A North Region player of the year as a junior.  VHSL All Virginia 6-A player of the year.  Hit an astounding .606 for Oakton as a junior.  At PG National.  Invited to the PG All-American game.  At WWBA 2015 with Evoshield.  Written up by Jonathan Mayo/mlb.com after his East Coast Pro game performance.  At Area Code games.  Rizzo looking like one of the better DC-area draft prospects we’ve had in years.  D1baseball top 100 hs draft prospects.
• Khalil Lee, LHP/OF for Paul VI Flint Hill (via Centreville).  VISAA Division I all-state in 2015, early commit to Liberty.  2015 summer team: Richmond Braves.  At PG National.  Invited to the PG All-American game.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  Also mentioned in Mayo’s piece post after East Coast Pro.  At Area Code games.  At WWBA 2015 with Evoshield.  D1baseball top 100 hs draft prospects.
• Jake Agnos, LHP from Battlefield HS.  2nd team All-Met 2015.  All Virginia 6-A in 2015.  Famous for his 21-K playoff performance in  in 2015 district tournament and his astounding 48 strikeouts in 21 playoff innings in 2015 against the region’s two best teams.  Committed to ECU.  Playing for Stars Showcase Red 17U.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.  Agnos picked right back up where he left off last spring, no-hitting a good Hylton team in the opener, striking out 17.
• Matt Mervis, RHP from Georgetown Prep.  2nd team All-Met 2015.  Early commit to Duke.  Playing for Chandler World.  At PG National, at USA Baseball’s Tournament of Stars.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  At Prep 60 in Chicago.  #1 ranked player in Maryland per Prep Baseball.
• Tyler Blohm, LHP from Spalding  in Maryland.  2015 All-Met HM.  Baltimore All-Metro 2015.  Three-time MIAA all-state player as a junior. Early commit to Maryland.  Evoshield Canes Main Roster for 2015.  At PG National.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
• Jack Cunningham, RHP/OF for Paul VI (via South Riding).  2015 All-Met, runner up WCAC player of the year.  VISAA Division I all-state in 2015.  Playing for Stars Showcase Red 17U.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  Committed to Boston College.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
• Anthony Felitti, LHP Gaithersburg HS.  10-0 with a 0.85 ERA as a junior, started and won 4-A title game.  2015 All-Met.  Playing for Mid-Atlantic Red Sox.  Early commit to UVA but has apparently signed with GMU.  Prep Baseball’s #2 Maryland prep player.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
• John Callahan, SS from Stone Bridge.  2015 All-Met, 2015 All 5-A North region. All Virginia 5-A.  GMU commit.  Diamond Elite for 2015.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
• Carter Sears, C from Spalding.  2015 2nd-team all-Metro Baltimore.  Committed to JMU per perfectgame.org.
• Adam Schauer, RHP from St. Albans School in Washington DC.  A complete unknown until he popped up on an Area Code games roster.  Committed to Swathmore College per perfectgame.org
• Matt Favero, LHP from Madison.  2nd team All-Met 2015.  All 6-A North Region.  2nd team all-State 6-A.  Playing for Stars Showcase Red/Blue 17U.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  Committed to BYU.
• Pete Nielsen, SS from Madison.  2nd team All-Met 2015, 2nd team All 6-A North Region.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  Committed to BYU.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
• Rafi Vazquez, RHP/OF from O’Connell.  2nd team All-Met 2015.  VISAA Division I all-state in 2015.  Early commit to Coastal Carolina. Evoshield regional team.  WWBA 2015 with 17-U Evoshield.  AllMetSports 2016 player to watch.
• Brett Norwood, DH from Chantilly.  2nd team All-Met 2015, All 6-A North region in 2015.  Little known about Norwood, who doesn’t have a perfectgame.org profile.
• Eli Quiceno, C from Stone Bridge.  Starter for Stone Bridge’s two straight 5-A championship teams.  Playing for Diamond Elite.  Committed to Gannon University in Pennsylvania.
• Nick Neville, SS from Lake Braddock IMG Academy in Florida (hails from Fairfax).  Little local recognition but got written up at the 17u WWBA event thanks to his speed and power.  Playing for Diamond Elite.  Moved to Florida for his Sr. year to play for IMG and is now committed to Notre Dame (h/t Joe Antonellis).
• Elliott Zoellner, RHP from St. Marys (Annapolis).  Little local recognition but got written up at the 17u WWBA event thanks to his speed and power.  Playing for Evoshield North team.  WWBA 2015 with 17-U Evoshield.  Prep Baseball’s #3 ranked Maryland prep.  Committed to UMaryland per perfectgame.org.
• Justin Ager, RHP for Loudoun Valley HS.  Committed to Yale, playing for Chandler World at 17u WWBA event.
• Carter Bach, LHP/1B, OF for Centreville HS in Clifton, VA.  At WWBA 2015 with Stars Marucci Prime.  Committed to Wake Forest.
• Steve Johel, RHP from Marshall HS, Vienna VA.  Committed to Coastal Carolina.
• Jared DiCesare from Chantilly HS, Playing for Oriole’s Scout team summer of 2015.  Committed to GMU.  6-A North 2016 player of the year.
• Logan Driscoll from Lake Braddock, Playing for Stars Baseball-Prime summer of 2015.  Also committed to GMU.
• Trey Alderman from Forest Park HS (Manassas): Played for Stars summer of 2015, committed to Radford
• Cam Remalia from St. Johns in DC (by way of Waldorf): Named 2016 Gatorade POTY for DC. Committed to Coastal Carolina.
• Fox Semones, RHP from Hylton, committed to JMU.  Nice WP feature on him post Hylton’s 6-A South victory.  Probably not a draft prospect but mentioned here.
• Brendon Doyle, OF from Kettle Run, committed to VMI.  2016 4A West Region player of the year.
• Alex Smith, C from Mountain View.  Committed to Navy.  2015 5-A North region player of the year.

 

Here’s a list of extended DC/MD/VA Prep players (outside DC Area) on the radar.

• Zack Hess, 1B/OF from Liberty Christian Academy (Lynchburg).  VISAA Division I player of the year as a junior in 2015, early commit to Virginia Tech but now committed to LSU (thanks commenter joemktg).  Playing for the Dirtbags (NC) summer of 2015.  At PG National.  Showed 93-95 at WWBA 17u tournament.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  At the Area Code games 2015.  Will be at the 2016 National HS Invitational in March.  D1baseball top 100 hs draft prospects.  Nearly threw a no-hitter at the NHSI.
• Brenan Hanifee, RHP from Turner Ashby.  ECU commit, little known about him until he became a 4th round pick in 2016.
• Garrett Stallings, RHP from Grassfield HS (Chesapeake).  Evoshield Canes main roster, early commit to Tennessee.  At PG National.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  Area Code games 2015.  At WWBA 2015 with Evoshield, getting the Win in the championship game.  All 6-A south region 2016.
• Michael Bienlien, RHP from Great Bridge (Chesapeake).  Evoshield Canes main roster, early commit to South Carolina but now committed to NC State (thanks commenter joemktg).  At PG National.  At East Coast Pro 2015, at WWBA 2015.
• Noah Murdock, a big (6’7″) RHP from Colonial Heights (Richmond).  All 3-A East Region 2015, early UVA commit.  VA Cardinals for summer 2015.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
• Cayman Richardson, SS from Hanover in Mechanicsville (NE Richmond suburb).  VA Cardinals for summer 2015, early UVA commit.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
• Vinnie Pasquantino, a 1B from James River HS (Richmond); VA Cardinals for summer 2015, written up during WWBA 17u tourney.  Committed to ODU.  At East Coast Pro 2015.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
• Robert “Bobby” Nicholson: P/Inf from St. Anne’s Belfield HS (Charlottesville), early commit to UVA.  USA Baseball’s Tournament of Stars.  Playing for Chandler World.  Written up during 17u WWBA event.
• Justin Sorokowski, 3B/OF from Lee-Davis HS in Mechanicsville (NE Richmond suburb).  VA Cardinals for summer 2015, early Florida State commit.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
• Derek Bjorlo, utility from Nandua HS (Onancock, on the Delmarva peninsula), Evoshield American for 2015, committed to Coastal Carolina.  At WWBA 2015 with the main Evoshield team.
• Hayden Moore, RHP from Hanover HS, Evoshield regional roster for 2015, early commit to VCU.
• Jalen Harrison, OF from St. Anne’s Belfield HS (Charlottesville), early commit to UVA.  Evoshield American for 2015.
• Forrest Smith, C from Maggie Walker (Richmond), early commit to William & Mary.  Evoshield American for 2015.
• John Fitzgerald, 3B from Gilman (Baltimore).  All-MIAA and all-Metro Baltimore 2015.  No PG profile.
• William Strong, 1B from Patrick Henry (Ashland/Richmond).  All 5-A North Region 2015.  Playing for Evoshield Canes.  Committed to Florence-Darlington Technical College per PG.
• Matthew Nickles, 3B from Colonial Forge (Stafford).  All Virginia 6-A South in 2015; Committed to Randolph-Macon per Joe Antonellis.  All 6-A south region 2016.
• Paul Movizzo, 1B/OF from Cox HS (Virginia Beach).  2nd-team all Virginia 6-A in 2015.
• Corey Klak, LHP from Western Branch HS (Chesapeake).  VA Cardinals for summer 2015, written up during WWBA 17u tourney.  Also committed to ODU.  All 6-A south region 2016.
• Banks Northington, 1B/OF from Charlottesville HS, playing for Chandler World at WWBA 17u.  Committed per PBR to Gettysburg college.
• Bryce Runey, C from Riverbend HS in Spotsylvania, VA.  At WWBA 2015 with Evoshield.  Committed to Mary Washington per PG.
• Harry Brown, C/1B, 3B from Greenbrier Christian Academy in Virginia Beach, VA.  WWBA 2015 with Richmond Braves, committed to JMU.  2016 VISAA Division II player of the year.
• Andre Lipcius & Luc Lipcius: from Lafayette HS in Williamsburg, VA.  Early commits to Tennessee, WWBA 2015 with Richmond Braves.
• Kyle Battle, Glen Allen OF, early commit to ODU.  In Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
• Kent Klyman, LHP from Jamestown HS in Williamsburg.  NC State commit.  Lots of velocity, no PG presence.
• Andrew Webb, C Forest Park.  6-A south All-Region 2016.
• Christian Hague, 1B/RHP Cosby.   6-A south All-Region 2016.
• Dwight Riddick, 2B Grassfield.  6-A south All-Region 2016.  Committed to Norfolk State
• Logan Barker, 2B Colonial Forge.  6-A south All-Region 2016.  Committed to Marshall
• Chase Counts, SS Ocean Lakes.   6-A south All-Region 2016.  Committed to Hampton-Sydney

Coincidentally, PrepBaseballReport.com keeps a database of commitments at this link here for VA players; pulldowns by class and state.

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I suspect more than a few of these guys will get drafted and forgo college, but if not, here’s a quick look at the commits by college (with the caveat that lots of these are “very early” and probably change).  I’ve got the college in rough order of their national significance.

• Florida State: Sorokowski
• South Carolina: Rizzo
• LSU: Hess
• UVA: Murdock, Richardson, Nicholson, Harrison
• ECU: Agnos
• Coastal Carolina: Vazquez, Johel, Bjorlo, Remalia
• UMaryland: Blohm, Zoellner
• NC State: Bienlien, Klyman
• VCU: Moore
• Duke: Mervis
• Wake Forest: Bach
• Tennessee: Stallings, Lipcius, Lipcius
• Boston College: Cunningham
• Notre Dame: Neville
• Liberty: Lee
• ODU: Pasquantino, Klak, Battle
• George Mason: Felitti, Callahan, DiCesare, Driscoll
• William & Mary: Smith
• BYU: Favero, Nielsen
• JMU: Sears, Brown, Semones
• Radford: Alderman
• VMI: Doyle
• Navy: Smith
• Randolph-Macon: Nickles
• Mary Washington: Runey
• Yale: Ager
• Swathmore: Schauer
• Florence-Darlington Technical College: Strong
• Norfolk State: Riddick
• Hampton Sydney: Counts
• Gannon: Quiceno
• Gettysburg: Northington
• Undecided/Unknown: Norwood, Fitzgerald, Movizzo

 

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Sources used to kick off this post (which I started the day after the 2015 draft and update through out the 2015 spring awards season and the 2015 summer baseball showcase season):

National pre-season lists

• USAToday Pre-Season Prep all Americans 2016: nobody local but a huge number of names you’re going to hear in the 1st round in June.

2015/16 National tourneys/Showcase events:

• MLB.com’s 2016 “On the Clock” summer schedule for next year’s draft class.
• Perfect Game National Showcase player roster, Mid June 2015 Ft. Myers FL.
• USA Baseball Tournament of Stars roster, Mid June 2015 Cary NC.
• USA Baseball U18 provisional roster end June 2015 (no local players on the National team, but its a who’s-who of upper-end 2016 draft prospects out of HS)
• Perfect Game WWBA 17U championships, July 3-10, Emerson GA.
• 17U Perfect Game World Series, July 17-22 in AZ.
• East Coast Pro Showcase Rosters (End of July); Tampa, FL.
• Area Code Games, Aug 2015 Long Beach, CA.
• Under Armour All-America Game, Chicago mid August
• Perfect Game All-American Classic, San Diego mid August
• WWBA World Championships in Jupiter, FL end of October 2015; Evoshield rosters from this event.  Stars Roster from this event, Richmond Braves roster from this event, Virginia Cardinals roster from this event.
• Several “Breakthrough Series” events throughout the country (Cincinnati, Florida, Compton)
• Super 60 Feb 2016 in Chicago.

Local Baseball links

• Evoshield Canes’ 2015 summer 17U roster, full of 2016 graduating class players from one of the best traveling teams in the nation, locally based.
• Demarini Stars’ Class of 2016 roster signings
• Virginia Cardinals 17U class of 2016 roster (with college commitments)
• Richmond Braves rosters
• WP’s 2015 All-Met announcement, identifying all underclassmen.
• The Baltimore Sun’s 2015 All-Metro Baseball Team.
• All 2015 6-A North and 6-A South region teams, identifying underclassmen.
• All 5-A North and All 5-A South
• All 4-A East and 4-A West teams
• All 3-A East and 3-A West teams
• UVA’s 2015 baseball roster and 2015 stats, noting 2015 Sophomore starters
• Maryland’s 2015 Baseball roster, noting 2015 Sophomore starters
• VISAA’s 2015 All-State players, identifying key underclassmen.
• VHSL 2015 All-State Teams: for all 6 divisions.  Lots of underclassmen noted.
• Maryland 2015 All-District and All-State teams:
• Richmond 2015 All-Metro team
• 2016 CAA pre-season coaches poll w/ pre-season all-conference team
• Baltimore Sun’s 2016 Players to Watch list.
• Richmond Times/Dispatch’s 2016 pre-season watch list.
• AllMetSports 2016 baseball preview (though by the time that published, all the guys they noted were already here).

 

 

Here’s a quick recap of the year in stories on this blog, to tie a bow on 2015.  From each month, I’ve grabbed a couple of the more interesting or unique posts I did, with thoughts and follow-on.

(Here’s 2014’s review and  2013’s review as well, to see how far we have or have not evolved…)

Jan 2015:

• Holy Cow Scherzer! Nats make a statement by signing Scherzer for $210M; he does not disappoint with 2 no-hitters in his first season.  We’ll conveniently forget his 6+ ERA during crunch time when the team was caught and surpassed in the standings by the eventual NL champion Mets.
• Like the Janssen signing: Yeah; this one didn’t work out as well.

Feb 2015

• Nationals Prospect Ranks historically: I reference this post more for one of my better accomplishments lately; turning all my historical prospect rankings into one big XLS.  Here is that XLS in Google Drive, updated for the latest prospect rankings list I could find (BA’s year-end top 10 for the system).
• Qualifying Offers: Are they working? (2015 edition): Answer: doesn’t seem so.  And so far in this off-season, we’re seeing similar results.

Mar 2015

• Brady Aiken has TJ surgery, shakes up draft boards: Aiken eventually goes 17th overall and loses millions versus where he was drafted the year prior.  Hope he can come back from such an early TJ surgery.
• Nats Outfield … what happens next?  Big discussion once it became clear that both Span and Werth were not making the 2015 opening day lineup healthy.

Apr 2015

• Forensicane’s campaign finally fulfilled; Rafael Martin called up & Cedeno axed: the title speaks for itself.  Martin didn’t pitch much but certainly impressed with his debut.  Cedeno’s DFA seemed deserved at the time, but he pitched very well for Tampa after catching on there.
• Cole up … why not Roark?: My prophetic post predicting Cole’s meltdown in Atlanta … of course I couldn’t predict the Dan Uggla homer and 13-12 game, which I immediately put into …
• Greatest (and worst) ever Nats games & Events; updated for 2014 events and April 2015 Atlanta game: I’ll be re-doing this post soon for all the stuff that happened the rest of 2015 and the weird off-season the team has had.

May 2015

• 2015 CWS Field of 64 announced; teams and analysis: one of many CWS posts, culminating in UVA winning in Omaha in late June.
• DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: 2015 post-season: May is Prep HS tournament time.  June has a ton of College and College World Series posts.  I know I don’t get a lot of comments on my HS and College coverage, but I enjoy following both and try to keep interest in local baseball alive.  FWIW, the area may very well have a first round pick in 2016 in Oakton HS’ Joe Rizzo.  More to come in February when I start up Prep baseball 2016 posts.

June 2015

• First Look: Nats top 10 draftees from 2015 Rule-4 Draft: The culmination of the pre-draft work for the Nats; digging in and looking at who we’ll be following from a-far for the next few years.
• 2015 Draft Results: local player interest draft results. This post is the end result of months and months of work, digging into players with local ties in order to follow and eventually publish where they’re going.
• Is Ross making the Nats re-think their future rotation strategy?  Yes, I think its safe to say he did.  Is Turner/Ross for Souza/Ott the best trade Rizzo has ever done?

July 2015

• State of the Nats at the halfway point 2015: Where I was noticing that our offense was holding on by a thread but that we’d still win the division by 10 games.  Yeah.  Didn’t think the Mets would find the second coming of Babe Ruth in Yoenis Cespedes and they would catch fire they way they did.
• Nats 2015 Draft Wrap-up: Nice wrap-up of the whole draft class.
• Papelbon for Pivetta: good trade, bad karma? Another prophetic blog post title, eh?

Aug 2015

• The Nats post-All Star game gauntlet of opposing Starting Pitchers: It was tough, and the team didn’t do very well against them.  They went 6-10 to open the 2nd half and went from 2 games up to 2 games back … and never made it up.
• Its make or break time; even more so than a week ago.  Arbitrary endpoints, ranting about the Papelbon trade, ranting about the manager.  Just a regular post about the 2015 Nats.
• Why exactly did the Nats call up Turner?? A question I keep asking to this day.

Sept 2015

• The Definition of Insanity… is apparently to keep watching the Nats play the Mets in September.
• I said “Call me when they Sweep Atlanta” … 115 comments on this post from the viewers, the season high by a lot.

Oct 2015

• GM for a day (or an off-season): what do you do to this team for 2016? A fun post to write.  Some of it has even come true!
• Rotation Reviews of your 2015 Playoff Teams & WC Picks: One of the reasons the October post output is way up; I did a bunch of prediction picks.  None of which were right of course.
• Chase Utley gets away with yet another dirty play; time to change the rules: F*ck Chase Utley, I hate that guy.
• 2015 Season Statistical Review of all Nats 2015 draft picks: A new feature I stumbled across that I’ll now make sure I find the time to do every year.
• Welcome Bud Black: haha; i wish I could un-post 🙂

Nov 2015

• My 2015 End-of-Season Awards Predictions: Only missed one BBWAA award this year.
• Three take the QO; but some still rolling the dice: First time for everything.  Murphy’s QO ends up costing the Nats their 17th overall pick.

Dec 2015

• Operation Bullpen Makeover Status Report: So far, so good.  Lots of new faces.
• Nationals/MLB Pitching Staff Year in Review; 2015: First in a series that is still being written as we speak.
• Murphy Signing: I guess I’m ok with it: A ringing endorsement!

 

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Total posts for 2015 (including this one): 115.  That’s down from 130 posts in 2014 and down significantly from 2013 (237 posts).  Wow, how in the heck did I do 237 posts in 2013.  That’s nearly a post for every weekday, all year.  Including this post, i’ve published 923 total since the inception of the blog.  When I hit 1000 i’ll do some cool retrospective or something.  Should happen midway through 2016.

923 posts; that’s a lot of writing.  I once calculated that a typical novel is between 90,000 and 100,000 words.  Well, most of my posts are between 1000 and 2500 words … so that means I’m writing about a book every 50 posts.  I’m in the wrong profession.  Of course, i’m not sure who would ever read a book about some random IT guy’s musings about his local baseball team.  🙂

I feel like we have a solid group always commenting, no trolls.  Very grateful for everyone who stops by and everyone who comments.  I wonder how we can get more readers; should I do more publishing on twitter when I post?  Probably.  Now that natsinsider.com is gone, we may struggle to get the word out since Mark was my primary feeder site.

We generally have 20-30 comments on each post, which is cool.  High comments on posts were 70 on a “Ladson Inbox”post in January 2015 and an astonishing 115 comments on the August “call me when we sweep Atlanta” post.

Happy New Year and thanks for reading in 2015.

Here’s our final post on High School baseball for 2015 in the area.  We previously posted updates on:

• DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: Start of the 2015 post-season, which covered MD regionals, VA district brackets, Private school tourney results.
• Maryland State Champs, Northern VA District Champs crowned, which covered, as the title suggests, MD state finals, VA district tourneys, VA regional brackets, DC regular season results
• Virginia Regional Results, DC Tourneys which mostly covered the Virginia Baseball Regional tournaments.

In this post, we will cover the various Player/Teams of the year that have been released, Virginia State tournaments and re-cap MD, DC and private schools.

All the Virginia state tourneys ran the weekend of 6/12/15 to 6/13/15.  All Virginia state brackets available from this link at VHSL.org.

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Player of the Year Awards

Before we get to the Virginia playoff results, some player of the year and all-area teams have been announced.

Gatorade announced their State player of the year awards:

• Maryland: Chopticon’s Ljay Newsome, who pitched the game of his life in the Maryland 3-A championship, won the award in Maryland.  He has yet to declare for a college but was drafted (26th round by Seattle).
• Washington DC: St. John’s A.J. Lee won the award for the 2nd consecutive year.  Committed to Maryland.
• Virginia: The Steward School (Richmond)’s Nic Enright won the award in Virginia.   He’s committed to Virginia Tech.

Louisville Slugger All-Americans announced; Ljay Newsome and A.J. Lee were named to the first team All-American.

Locally, some local player of the year awards:

• The Washington Post’s 2015 All-Met announcement, with mostly familiar names that we’ve discussed in this blog this spring.  A.J. Lee was your All-Met player of the year.  Cody Morris named to his third straight All-Met team despite his Tommy John surgery.
• The Baltimore Sun’s 2015 All-Metro Baseball Team.  Player of the year is Truman Thomas of Southern (2-time defending Maryland 2-A champ).  Ironically Morris was only Baltimore 2nd team.
• Richmond 2015 All-Metro team: pending
• Tidewater area
• All 2015 6-A North region teams via InsideNova.com.  6-A North player of the year was Oakton’s Joe Rizzo, a *junior* who hit over .600 for the season.  He’s an early commit to South Carolina.
• All 2015 6-A South Region team: co-players of the year Bodie Sheehan, First Colonial, a Lefty committed to William & Mary and Nathan Eaton, Thomas Dale, a SS/RHP committed to VMI.
• All 5-A North: Marshall HS C Mitch Blackstone (Cornell commit) named the 5-A player of the year (he was also all-Met).
• All 5-A South: pending
• All 4-A North and 4-A south teams: pending
• All 3-A East: Loudoun Valley’s Jack DeGroat (Liberty) the regional player of the year.
• VHSL All-State Teams: pending
• VISAA’s 2015 All-State teams, Division I, II and III
• Maryland MIAA All-State teams: pending.

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6-A State Finals: held at Robinson and Lake Braddock HS in Northern Virginia (which are odd-choices; Robinson and Lake Braddock’s fields aren’t exactly the nicest available fields in the area.  Nor do they have the largest stands.  But, those are the two biggest high schools around, so perhaps that’s why they were selected.  Of course, in previous years Fairfax HS was frequently used, with its ridiculously short LF porch, so maybe Robinson’s larger field is better.  Most people believe Madison has one of the nicest HS fields in the area … but it rarely gets selected as a host for some reason when the cycle for hosting comes back to NoVa).

• 6-A North: Winner Madison (Vienna) (22-5) , runner-up Chantilly (20-6)
• 6-A South: Winner Western Branch (Chesapeake) (22-3), runner-up First Colonial (Virginia Beach) (21-4)

6-A State Semis Results: Madison pecked away at First Colonial and ended up breezing to a 7-2 victory in the first semi.  Madison’s senior ace Brian Eckert (Radford commit) pitched 6+ innings of one run ball in his final appearance for the Warhawks.  In the nightcap, Chantilly got revenge from last year’s state final and pounded the defending 6-A champ Western Branch 8-3 to make the 6-A state final a rematch of the regional title game and an all-northern Virginia affair.

6-A State Final: In the state final, Madison’s junior lefty Matt Favero started the game … and he finished it.  Madison jumped ahead 3-0 but Favero got knocked out in the 4th after giving up 5 hits and 5 unearned runs.  Madison clawed their way back though, tying the game in the 6th and then loading the bases in the bottom of the 7th with no outs.  There, Favero came up and got the walk-off hit (twitter link to video of the hit) to clinch Madison’s 4th state title (2015, 2002, 1971 and 1968).  Kudos to Chantilly; two straight state finals; their coach (Kevin Ford) deserves his coach of the year accolades.

Madison’s feat is all the more impressive when looking at their lineup; outside of their ace lefty Eckert and one position player, the rest of their starting lineup in the state tournament are underclassmen.  They could be quite dominant in 2016.

6-A State champ: Madison (Vienna) with a 24-5 record on the season.

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5-A State Finals: held at Robinson and Lake Braddock HS in Northern Virginia

• 5-A North: Winner Stone Bridge (Ashburn) (21-5), runner-up Marshall (McLean) (21-5)
• 5-A South: Winner Hickory (Chesapeake) (22-3), runner-up Freeman (NW Richmond) (19-6)

Stone Bridge plays at 3pm at Lake Braddock, Marshall at 7pm.

5-A State Semis Results: As with the 6-A tournament, the 5-A final will be an all-Northern Virginia affair as both local teams won.  Stone Bridge’s Brett Kreyer threw a one-hitter as Stone Bridge beat Freeman 6-0 in one semi.  Marshall took advantage of an ill-timed error that would have ended an inning and a rally and eventually beat the defending champ’s Hickory 7-4.

5-A State Final: In the state final, Stone Bridge fulfilled its “ewing theory” credentials by getting further without J.B. Bukauskas than they ever did with him, handling Marshall 9-4 for its first state title.

5-A State champ: Stone Bridge with a 23-5 record on the season.

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4-A State Finals: held at Liberty University in Lynchburg.

• 4-A North: Winner Jefferson Forest (Forest/Lynchburg) (19-7), Fauquier (Warrenton) (19-6), runner-up (by fft after the fact)
• 4-A South: Winner Glen Allen (N. Richmond) (21-3), runner-up Hanover (N. Richmond)  (18-5)

4-A State Semis Results: Glen Allen took out Fauquier in the first state semi final 6-4, facing the Warrenton team after they had to forfeit their 4-A north final victory and settle for second place.  In the other semi, Jefferson Forest outlasted two-time defending state champion Hanover 4-3 in extra innings.

4-A State Final: In the final, Glen Allen scored four early and was never threatened, beating Jefferson Forest 9-3.

4-A State champ: Glen Allen (N. Richmond) with a 23-3 record on the season.

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3-A State Finals: held at Liberty University in Lynchburg.

• 3-A East: Winner Loudoun Valley (Purcelville) (22-2), Runner-up Lafayette (Williamsburg) (18-6-1) (note: these teams were declared co-champs; the positions must have been determined by a coin-flip).
• 3-A West: Winner Monticello (Charlottesville), runner-up Rustberg (outside of Lynchburg)

3-A State Semis Results: In the first semi, Loudoun Valley upended Rustberg 6-0 with Liberty commit Jack DeGroat throwing a complete game 2-hitter with 17 strikeouts.  On the other side, Lafayette destroyed Monticello 11-0 to setup the state final that should have been the regional final.

3-A State Final: In the state final, Lafayette hit a solo homer for the winning run in the top of the 7th before closing out Purcellville’s Loudoun Valley 5-4 for Lafayette’s first ever state baseball title.

3-A State champ: Lafayette (Williamsburg) with a 20-6-1 record on the season.

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Smaller Classifications: held in Salem and at Radford University.

• 2-A match-ups: Strasburg (corner of I-66 & I-81) (25-1) vs Lebanon (SW corner of Virginia), Virginia High (Bristow) (24-2) vs Maggie Walker (Downtown Richmond).  In the semis, Virginia High ended Maggie Walter’s season 8-3, and Lebanon ended Strasburg’s excellent season 8-2.  In the 2-A West rematch for the state title, Virginia High bashed their way to a 16-8 victory to repeat as Virginia 2-A champs..
• 1-A match-ups: Honaker (SW corner of Virginia) v Lancaster (King George peninsula), William Campbell (Gladys south of Lynchburg) vs Radford.  In the semis, the two 1-A east teams advanced for a rematch, wherein William Campbell turned the tables on Lancaster, winning the 1-A title 16-4.

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Recent Virginia HS champs:  Before 2014, we just covered AAA, which now is split between 4-A, 5-A and 6-A divisions.

2014: see this post for 2014’s state tournament wrap up for all 6 divisions.

• In 6-A, Western Branch d Chantilly 6-4.  McLean and Cosby were state semifinalists.
• In 5-A, Hickory d Freeman 6-4.  Stone Bridge and the surprising Freedom-South Riding semi finalists.
• In 4-A, Hanover d Millbrook 7-1.
• In the smaller classifications, Loudoun Valley (Purcellville) won 3-A, Virginia High (Bristol) won 2-A and Northumberland (Heathesville, on the King George peninsula) won 1-A.

2013 AAA: Hanover d Great Bridge. Hanover’s super-junior Derek Casey (now at UVA) outlasts Great Bridge and their 1st round talent Connor Jones (now UVA’s Friday starter after spurning a likely late 1st round draft position).  Lake Braddock and Oakton beaten in the semis.

2012 AAA: Lake Braddock d Kellam 4-0. Lake Braddock lost to West Springfield in the regional title game but then blitzed to a state championship.

2011 AAA: Great Bridge d South County in the state final, giving the powerful South County its first and only loss on the season after starting the season 28-0.  Lake Braddock was the regional finalist and lost to Great Bridge in the state quarters.

2010 AAA: West Springfield d Woodbridge in the final, giving Woodbridge its only loss on the year. WT Woodson regional finalist.

Complete history of Virginia HS Champions: from VHSL’s website.  Covers all sports and has results for a century.

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Maryland Recap

See previous post for MD state final wrap-ups.  Brackets here at the MPSAA website.

A quick list of past Maryland State champions by division:

• 4-A: 2015: Gaithersburg beat Severna Park 5-3.  2014: Chesapeake beat Sherwood 2-0.  2013: South River defeated Catonsville 6-0.  2012: Northwest.  2011: Westminster.  2010: Sherwood
• 3-A: 2015: Chopticon beat Mt. Hebron 1-0.  2014: Reservoir beat North Harford 2-0.  2013: Bel Air defeated La Plata 3-2.  2012: Bennett.  2011: Bennett.  2010: C. Milton Wright.
• 2-A: 2015: Southern beat Eastern Tech 6-1.  2014: Southern beat Parkside 3-2.  2013 : Catoctin defeated North Caroline, 4-2.  2012: Williamsport.  2011: North Caroline.  2010: North Hagerstown.
• 1-A: 2015: Brunswick beat McDonough 4-0.  2014: Smithsburg beat Sparrows Point 9-0.  2013: Cambridge/South Dorchester defeated Allegany, 15-0.  2012: Mountain Ridge.  2011:  St. Michaels.  2010: St. Michaels.

The Maryland public high school seasons are now complete.

 

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DC Public Schools/DCIAA/DCSAA Recaps

• DCIAA: Wilson won its 23rd consecutive DCIAA regular season title, extending its city league winning streak in the process.  DCIAA tournament supposedly ran through 6/3/15, though I cannot find any evidence that it occurred.  Perhaps it has been replaced in total by the DCSAA tourney.
  
• DCSAA:  In the DCSAA final, Gonzaga beat St. Albans 2-1 at Nats Park on a controversial interference call that turned a tag-out at the plate into the decisive run.

 

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Private Leagues: WCAC/MAC/IAC and VISAA/Maryland Private

• MIAA: Class A: Spalding beat Calvert Hill.  Class B: St. Mary’s-Annapolis.  Class C: St. John’s Catholic Prep repeated.
• VISAA: Liberty Christian repeated as the VISAA Division 1 champ.  Greenbriar Christian took the Division 2 title and the Southampton Academy took the Division 3 title among smaller Virginia private schools.
• WCAC: St. Johns (DC) topped DeMatha in a 3-game series to win the WCAC for the 2nd year in a row.  (Not the same St. Johns as who won MIAA).
• IAC: Georgetown Prep beat Landon to win the IAC, avenging their loss in the finals last year.
• PVAC: Sandy Spring Friends defeated Jewish Day school for the inaugural title in this fledgling league.
• MAC:  the Potomac school beat St. James (who upset #1 seed and defending champ Flint Hill) in the final.
• Maryland Private School Tournament: DeMatha beat Riverdale Baptist.

All local area Private schools’ seasons are now complete.

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Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists:

• Washington Post All Met Sports Final Baseball top 10: Updated/finalized 6/17/15 at the end of the spring prep season.  Madison 1, Gaithersburg 2.  If I had ranked them, I likely would have gone Madison 1, Gaithersburg 2, Spalding 3, Stone Bridge 4, Chopticon 5, Chantilly 6, Loudoun Valley 7, St. Johns 8, Oakton 9 and Marshall 10.  Battlefield HM.  I was pretty close.
• Baltimore Sun Final Rankings page : dated 5/25/15: They also have Spalding #1, then Calvert Hall, St. Marys, 4-A finalist Severna Park and then 3-A finalist Mt. Hebron.  Reservoir 6th.
• Hampton Roads Baseball top 10 page: dated 5/19/15: Western Branch #1, then Grassfield, Hickory and First Colonial.  Needs updating.
• Baseball America’s High School top 50 (Final ranking 6/17/15): Madison #24 in final poll, Stone Bridge #42.
• USA Today High School top 25 (most recent ranking 6/17/15): Madison at #36, Liberty Christian #43, Spalding #44 and Western Branch #49.
• MaxPreps top 25/top 50 lists, which has a hand-picked and a computer/power ranking list.  6/15/15 rankings.  No DC/MD/VA teams in MaxPrep’s “Excellent 50.”  Highest ranked teams in the extended rankings are Liberty Christian at #71, Chopticon at #95.  Madison is in the #400s, making one question these rankings slightly.

Resources:

• Washington Post’s AllMetSports section with standings and schedule results.
• InsideNova.com‘s coverage of high school sports, but has put limits on the number of stories you can read.
• Richmond Times-Dispatch has a HS scoreboard.
• Hampton Roads Pilot (Hampton Roads) has scores for teams in the Chesapeake/Norfolk/Va Beach area.
• The Baltimore Sun’s high school page has information on some of the programs outside the DC area mentioned in the Maryland section
• The Connection family of newspapers has a sports section that is rarely updated, but it does do some coverage.
• Nvdaily.com (Strasburg) has some results for some of the teams in the smaller conferences/outskirts of DC, generally in the Strasburg area.
• WinchesterStar (Winchester) has results for Winchester teams but its pay-only.
• The Daily Progress (Culpeper local paper) also has some scores for schools in its areas.
• Fauquier Times (Fauquier) has some local sports news.
• VivaLoudoun tracks the Loudoun/Ashburn/Leesburg teams.
• The Loudoun Times also covers Leesburg-area teams.
• LoCosports blog, with tons of Loudoun county Coverage
• Fredericksburg.com has some local coverage of Fredericksburg and Woodbridge teams.
• The Lynchburg News & Advance for Lynchburg-based sports.
• The Virginia Gazette for Williamsburg local stuff.
• I use perfectgame.org to look up high-end HS prospects.
• VHSL’s and MPSSAA home pages for playoff brackets and updates for VA and MD respectively.
• MaxPreps DC/VA specific coverage.