The Bard’s Take: 2017 MLB Draft - Hunter Greene

Name: Hunter Greene

Age: 17 (August 6, 1999)

Height: 6’ 4”

Weight: 210 lbs.

Position: RHP/SS

Affiliation: Notre Dame HS, Sherman Oaks, CA

Though Greene is currently a two-way player, teams taking him in the top-10 are looking at him as a starting pitcher.

Grades:

Fastball: 70 | Slider: 50 | Curve: 55 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 50 | Overall: 60

The Scouting Report:

Hunter Greene is making a name for himself in ways that few prospects his age have even dreamed of. As a shortstop, he is a first round talent, fast, athletic, good hands, great bat control, and showing advanced maturity at the plate, especially for someone so young, all to go along with 60-grade power. That said, as a pitcher, he has the stuff to be a generational player.

Greene’s best offering is by far his fastball. Greene is able to generate velocity with little effort. Coming into this year, his mechanics were a bit raw, but this is to be expected with someone having just turned 17 at the beginning of the school year. Over the season though, it appears that his delivery has been smoothed out some. He still has some inconsistencies with repeating his exact release point, and this is what is currently holding him back with regards to his control. At the end of April, in order to decrease the risk of injury and to limit the mileage on his arm (allowing for more innings later this year), Greene shut down pitching for the remainder of the season. Still, in only five starts, the flame-throwing righty threw 28 innings, striking out 43 and walking four. Four his career at Notre Dame, Greene managed to accumulate 121.1 innings and posted an eye-popping 1.62 ERA (HS using the seven-inning calculation).

He has seen the velocity top out at an astounding 102 mph (no, that is not a typo). Obviously, he is not throwing that hard with every pitch. Usually, he sits between 93-97. When keeping the velocity down towards the lower end of his range, it features very good armside action. At only 17, Greene is expected to still bulk up quite a bit, and many talent evaluators are excited that he could eventually work between 95-98 for his normal range, with plenty of triple-digit offerings scattered in throughout starts, even late in games.

At one point some scouts were worried that Greene would need to scrap his somewhat sloppy curve in favour of his slider, however; he has since then tightened up the action on his curve and it is not at worst an above average offering. He still is developing a feel for his changeup, but this is not surprising given the sort of success someone in his position is going to have with his fastball.

The Take:

There is essentially zero chance that Greene makes it to number seven for the Diamondbacks to select. Greene has a very real shot at being the first right-handed prep pitcher ever selected 1-1 in the draft. Even if the Minnesota Twins do pass on him, it is one of the worst-kept secrets in the community that Greene has been trying to angle himself for a slide to the #3 pick, as he wants very much to sign with the Padres. Of course, that requires both Minnesota and Cincinnati passing on him and then the Padres selecting him. With his talent though, it seems unlikely the Padres would pass on his potential, especially since he has already indicated a preference to play for them.

Chances of Arizona winding up with Greene: Zero