Potential 2013 Twins Draft Pick: Chris Anderson

Minnesota's Mr. Baseball in 2010 (Tom Windle was a finalist) left home to play baseball at Jacksonville U. After being a two-way player as a freshman, Anderson moved into the rotation as a sophomore. Now in his junior year, Anderson has really taken off.

Despite only ranking as the preseason #7 Draft Prospect in the Atlantic Sun by Baseball America, Anderson probably has more early season helium than any other pitcher in the nation. While I'm not ready to put in him the discussion at #4, there is a buzz around him, both here at TwinsDaily and nationally. Anderson has put himself in the first-round discussion though and, being a local product, that is deserving of his own thread.

Personally, I consider Windle and Anderson to be on about the same tier. I think Anderson has some projection left, so he may climb. Windle is left-handed, so he has that going for him. Both should be in the discussion for the Twins 2nd round pick (as of today) if they're available.

3/24 EDIT: Anderson has helium and is in the top-half of the first round discussion. I'm guessing the Twins will send a few scouts to the JU/FGCU game on 5/3, though I know they've seen him already.

2/15 vs Radford - 7 IP, H, BB, 13 K, 2 HBP. 83 pitches/55 strikes. (No decision.)

2/22 vs Richmond - 7 IP, 4 H, 7 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 119/81. (Loss, 0-1.)

3/1 vs TCU - 9 IP, 7 H, 3 R, ER, BB, 13 K, 138/91. (Win, 1-1.)

3/8 vs UCF - 8 IP, 4 H, BB, 10 K, HBP, 108/74. (Win, 2-1.)

3/15 vs ECU - 7.2 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, WP, 112/69. (Win, 3-1)

3/22 vs USC Upstate - 8.1 IP, 8 H, BB, 10 K, WP, 9:6 FO:GO. (Win, 4-1)

3/28 vs Mercer - 6 IP, 11 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 10 K, 3:4 FO:GO. (Loss, 4-2)

4/5 vs Stetson - 6.2 IP, 6 H, 4 R, ER, BB, 5 K, WP, HBP. (Win, 5-2)

4.12 vs Kennesaw St - 4.1 IP, 9 H, 7 ER, 3 BB, 3 K, WP. (Loss, 5-3)

*This post will be updated throughout the season. Please link game stories or other related Anderson-themed posts below.

Baseball America had Chris Anderson's weekend game against UCF as the #1 Marquee Mound Showdown in the country yesterday. Chris pitched against another Top Prospect in Ben Lively (LHP).

 

BaseballAmerica.com: College: Weekend Preview: March 8-10

 

Chris is moving up like Kyle Zimmer did in last years draft. Zimmer became an eventual #5 pick in the first round by the Royals. Start counting him out - right now - as that second round option. He won't be there. I'd rather have a home town kid who probably always wanted to be a Twin, as opposed to an Appel who has shown to be money oriented and might jet for the west coast (free agency) as soon as his opportunity presents itself. Chris is our next Joe Mauer and has that Roger Clemens will to win on the mound. Not rushing to judgement with first round pick yet, but keep him in your radar................................................. maybeeee...........

Believe me, Anderson's been on my radar for a long time. And I hear most of what you're saying. I'm going to slightly disagree on a couple of points.

1) Kyle Zimmer wasn't completely off the draft radar before his junior season. BA had him as the 15th rated college player in last year's Prospect Handbook. A better comp would be Chris Stratton (who went 20th to the Giants), who wasn't as highly regarded before the season (both Stratton last year and Anderson this year missed the Top 100 College Prospects). Stratton needed to dominate the SEC (and LSU) to make the jump he did. The comp in that article is Matt Garza (who the Twins took 25th). I wouldn't put Anderson at that level yet. Could he continue to rise? Absolutely.

2) I'm hoping putting him in the same sentence as Joe Mauer and Roger Clemens was a joke.

I like Anderson, I do. And he's on my radar, he was on my Draft Board 1.0. I'm just not ready to hand him $4.5m (or call him a sure-fire first-rounder) after a phenomenal start to his junior season coming off a not-so-good (actually really bad) Cape Cod performance (and the Twins love Cape success). He'd be good value for the Twins in the 2nd round today.

There would be a definite savings if he went that high, though in my conversation with Sean Johnson he told me that the Twins would be less likely to do that because you could end up saving money without necessarily getting the guys you were saving for. They'll have a number of strategies in mind, who knows what they'll do.

Really? Keep what up? Have you checked his numbers in college? If not, they are here.

4.50 ERA, 88 IP, 40 BB, 69 K, 1.5 WHIP

 

in College. For me these are like 10th-15th round numbers. Maybe.

 

He is from Minnesota, whatever. Are you all glad that the Twins picked the kid from Puerto Rico (Berrios) over Rochester, MN's own Mitch Brown last season? I am.

The hype is over what he's done in 2013. Obviously he wasn't great before or he'd have been in the first round discussion already.

If the draft were held today, Keith Law projected on Twitter, Anderson would go in the 20ish range (similar to Stratton and Garza, who I compared him to).

With that being said, you can add him to the category that Boldt and Windle are in - probably won't be around for Round 2, but cross your fingers...

There were 237 people in attendance to see Anderson pick up his 3rd win (and the team's 6th) on Friday night. Game log updated above.

Anderson didn't have his best game statistically, only striking out 5. (He had averaged over a K/IP in each of his previous outings.) Anderson doesn't have a lot behind him, so he's going to rely on striking guys out - and as a result, throw more pitches. His 112 seems pretty tame after throwing nearly 140 two outings ago.

Anderson and Windle have posts because there had been a lot of discussion about them, mostly because they are local guys, yes. Partially, too, because they are pitchers and pitching once a week is easier to update than position guys.

Do Bryant and Frazier deserve threads based on the fact they could be top 4 picks? Probably. It's just not something I have the time to update after each game. I know you're big on Bryant and he's been a monster, feel free to start a thread.

A month and a half ago, Baseball America ranked Chris Anderson as the 7th best draft prospect in the Atlantic Sun. In fact, I believe he was listed as a RHP/1B. Obviously since that point, he's done a lot of things that have helped him improve his draft stock.

I think the thing that makes the draft so much fun is that we don't know exactly what teams look at... long-term past success? recent success? signability? the list goes on and on...

From what I've gathered the Twins want to draft the state of Minnesota without making "favor picks". I can't say with 100% certainty, but I would be shocked if the Twins reached far in an effort to bank money. In talking to a Twins scout last month, he flat-out told me that the Twins would be more likely to take a guy with a high price tag and shave later than save early to spend later. His reasoning was simple, you don't know who's going to be around later. I also think - from a PR standpoint - it would be a hard sell to make a savings pick.

As the draft approaches, I fully anticipate the Twins will start talking about "five names" they've narrowed on; they'll be the top 5 talents and the Twins will take one. They know they need pitching and that's the route they'll go, unless their top hitter available is viewed to be "head and shoulders" (the exact words they used about Buxton) better than their next pitcher.

Oh, I thought you were the only one making the threads. Once I get internet outside my phone I don't mind making a few threads/editing them for the forum.

Nah, feel free... the more information the better. The only thing I would ask is that you use the same format for the heading.