Tanner Scheppers injury update
A week ago, Fresno State ace
— and potential top 10 pick — Tanner Scheppers was scratched from his weekend start. The
Bulldogs tried to give him some extra rest and back
him up to Sunday, but ended up scratching him altogether. The reason given was shoulder tenderness. The word this week was that he’d be good to go for his planned Saturday start at Sacramento State.
It turns out that the right-hander’s injury is worse than originally thought. I’ve learned thatScheppers actually has a stress fracture in the shoulder and won’t be able to throw for six weeks, severely damaging his draft status.
In my first crack at projecting the first 10 picks, I had Scheppers going No. 10 overall to the Astros. Behind Aaron Crow, he was considered by many to be the next best college right-hander, perhaps along with Tulane’s Shooter Hunt. The chances of him still going that highly are now greatly minimized. Someone will surely take him with the hopes he’ll be completely healthy once the stress fracture heals, but obviously the risk involved should lower his value.
MLB.com Geeking on the Draft 
So how far do you see this dropping his draft stock? Do you think he falls out of the 1st completely?
Just stumbled across this thanks to MLBTradeRumors so I’ll check in from time to time to see what you got here. Thanks.
Gotta love MLBTR driving traffic my way! Thanks for stopping by.
I think it’ll depend on what people find out about the injury, honestly. Stress fractures heal, but when it’s in the shoulder, that has to lead one to wonder what caused it. If people think it’s something that isn’t systemic, then he’ll still get drafted fairly high. And I can see him going in the first round, in the latter stages, in any event. A team that has the resources to be patient if there’s prolonged injury issues might take a stab. Hey, the Yankees took Andrew Brackman knowing that he needed Tommy John surgery. Scheppers’s injury, as of right now, isn’t as serious as that and he’s a more advanced pitcher than Brackman was when healthy. The injury certainly knocked him out of the top 10 and probably will cost him a nice chunk of change in terms of bonus. But I don’t think it’ll really kill his chances of being a first-rounder… at least, not yet.
I got to see Shooter Hunt’s game tonight. The Owls tee’d off on him early, including a few hard hits out. He was pretty dominant after the 3rd inning, the Owls appeared to be sitting fastball early in the count and getting good swings at him. Ryan Berry looked very good, though a little wild the first couple innings.
Don’t know if you know your Rice guys, but any thoughts on Adam Zornes for this year? All Rice catchers are very good defensively and Zornes has some nice power (his HR tonight went quite a ways). How about Berry for next year?
Good blog, also found it through MLBTR!
Er, that picture isn’t of Scheppers. That’s Bonesteele. A up-n-comin’ soph that looks alot like Schep.
Any college catcher who has skills will get drafted pretty well. He’s not in the Posey/Castro/Paramore category, but he’ll go fairly early, I bet. I do have catching breakdown running on Monday and I did not include him. That’s more arbitrary than anything else, though. And don’t ask me about 2009 yet. I can barely keep up with this year!!
Without having seen the Hunt start, it sounds like he made some adjustments. I’ll have to talk to some people who were there (scout-wise) and see what went down. Thanks for the update. If others out there go and see some of the top talent and want to file “reports,” please do so — great stuff.
Oops, thanks for the heads up on the pic. There’ll be a new one up there shortly.
I’m pretty sure that’s him, he’s number 14. And I went to high school with em.
Now it’s right. Schep is #14. Bonesteele is #37. They’ve been mistaken before. Same height, similar features could be mistaken as brothers, Bones has a little thicker build.
Pirates got 2nd pick… wooohoo!
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