Originally Published at The Tenth Inning Stretch

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With the Twins having a severe need for pitching in the organization as well as six picks among the top 100, it is certain that more than one of those picks (and probably the second overall pick) will be used to draft a pitcher. To this respect, I am presenting profiles of the top 22 pitching prospects for the 2012 MLB draft.

I will be presenting these alphabetically, and at the end I will rank them. I will be doing about one a day and I will finish before the June 4th draft day. You can find all the profiles (in reverse alphabetical order) as they are presented here. I will start with RJ Alvarez and end with Kyle Zimmer. Each profile with contain a bit of background information and statistics, a mini scouting report and videos and photos.

Profile 3: Jake Barrett

Profile/Stats:

Jake Dalton Barrett is a junior at Arizona State University and a three-year player there. He is from Mesa, AZ and went to Desert Ridge High School. He is listed at 6'3" and 230 lbs. Was born on July 22, 1991 in Upland, California He throws Right handed. He was a third round selection (99th overall) of the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2009 Major League Baseball draft, but did not sign. In his freshman year he was a reliever and moved to the rotation in his sophomore season before returning to the pen this season as the closer. In his current season he appeared in 25 games, pitched 27 innings and is 1-4 (9 saves) with a 1.67 ERA, 7 BB and 32 strikeouts allowing a .181 opponent batting average. Last summer in the Cape Cod league he had a 1.62 ERA, 52 IP, striking out 41 and walking 13. His best collegiate season was in 2011 when he went 9-5 in 103 IP, walked 40 and struck out 109, allowing a .211 OBA.

Mini Scouting Report:

His fastball averages around 92-93 mph with occasional bursts at 96-97 with good movement at the lower speeds. It is a plus pitch but needs work with command. He has a plus slider in the mid 80s which can get up to 88 mph. He has an above average change up that sits in the low 80s. In high school he used to throw a slow curve and a splitter, which he abandoned. His delivery used to be fairly violent and used to fall off towards the first base side, but has been improved. Still is a maximum effort delivery. He reminds some people of Boof Bonser on the mound.

Videos/Photos:

Because of the difficulty in embedding videos here, please go to the original post to see 3 videos that show the evolution of Jake Barrett as a pitcher

Interesting to turn down a third round selection! Three years later and is he going to move up 40 spots? 50 spots?

That was interesting to me too. On the other hand, he got free College education, which might be the smart thing to do

Do the Twins know that he reminds people of Bonsor, and, if so, i wouldn't think that the Twins would want to take a chance on him given what happened with Boof Bonsor 1.