2011 Draft Eligibles: Goldpanners of Fairbanks

Cabral, Meaux and Newman lead a class of likely Goldpanner draft picks.

Ryan Cabral could be a nice pick-up for a pro team
in the 2011 MLB draft.

The Goldpanners have an interesting list of draft eligible players this year. I think that 2010 was a stronger year in the top-prospect department than 2009; however, most of the more recent season's big name Goldpanners seem to be juniors. The result is a lot of players who will probably get drafted in 2011, and definitely beyond, but it's difficult for me to find an upper tier of players who I can predict will be drafted in, say, the first ten rounds or so in the upcoming spring. Regardless, I'll go out on a limb and suggest a few possibilities:

Ryan Cabral: Cabral is one guy who not only stood out to me, but as a senior won't be pushed down to the middle of the pack due to a lack of signability. Cabral moved from the pen to the starting rotation when he came up to Alaska and really took advantage of his lively fastball with pro-caliber velocity to pick apart the ABL's batters. He went 5-0 with a 2.47 ERA overall, and was the Panners' workhorse as he pitched consistently well over a team-best 54.2 IP. His efforts landed him a first-team All-ABL selection.

Jesse Meaux: Meaux was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 44th round as a junior last year. Obviously he made what should turn out to be a smart choice and went back to school instead of signing, as I imagine that re-entering the draft as a senior will only increase his draft stock. The rightie Meaux is a bit of a soft thrower, but he's got great control and does a good job of locating his pitches. His hard work paid off this last spring as he moved from the mid-week starter job into the weekend mix.

Reflections/Photo Post: Panners @ Miners, 6/16/2010

Goldpanners C Austin Wooldridge has major league arm
strength when throwing to second.

The Mat-Su Miners fans had a nice cold one in this match-up, and I'm not talking about beer (though there was plenty of that going around, I'm sure). The night's battle with the visiting Goldpanners of Fairbanks was a long, chilly contest. The cloud cover has been continuous throughout the week, and as the game went on the wind began to blow out to right field and the rain started sprinkling. The 50 or so fans who stuck it out were all huddled together under blankets and sleeping bags, trying to block out the cold glacial breeze. Nonetheless, we got in a solid ballgame. And I got a few good pics and some good looks at some good players.

Tonight my stopwatch fingers were most successful with the catchers, timing their throws down to second. Both starting catchers really impressed me with their raw arm strength. Austin Wooldridge (Panners) and Kevin Whitehead (Miners) were both continuously throwing down to second in the neighbordhood of 1.9-2.0 seconds, glove-to-glove, which are solid major-league times. Kevin Roundtree came in for the Panners a later in the game; I only got one time on him but his throws in general didn't look as strong. That being said, he was hitting the target really nice, including a sweet throw out of DeBiassi in the seventh.

Kyle Brule got the start for the Goldpanners tonight. He started off strong and looked like he was hitting the catcher's glove exactly where it was set up. He was really making the mitt pop too, bringing a hard fastball. Things kind of unwound for him, though, about the time that Miners' DH David Lyon tagged him for a homer over the right field wall, and that was pretty much it. I really like what I saw when he was cruising early on, I guess the Miners might have just rattled his cage a bit.