Phillies draft Cal State Fullerton RHP Connor Seabold No. 83 overall
By John Town
The Phillies continued to raid the college ranks, taking Cal State Fullerton right-handed pitcher Connor Seabold with their third-round pick.
Three rounds of the draft have taken place and the Phillies have selected three college players. After taking Virginia outfielder Adam Haseley in the first round and Cal Poly right-handed pitcher Spencer Howard in the second, Philadelphia selected Cal State Fullerton righty Connor Seabold.
Seabold, who was Tom Eshelman’s teammate in college, was ranked the No. 188 overall draft prospect by MLB.com and No. 186 overall by Baseball America. For the second round in a row, Philadelphia selected a player that was ranked well below where they actually picked him.
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The slot value for the pick is $676.9K. The club believes both Haseley and Howard shouldn’t have any signability issues, so they may have some money to throw around in these later rounds.
In his junior season this year, Seabold logged 122.2 innings, posting a 3.01 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and 5.45 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He threw three complete games as the team’s Friday night starter.
Seabold was most impressive on the mound in his sophomore season. In 16 games, he gave up just nine walks, striking out 96. He finished the year with a 2.48 ERA and 0.96 WHIP.
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Seabold’s calling card in his control. According to BA, it is among the best in the class and one evaluator gave it an 80 grade on the 20-80 scale. His BB/9 was never above 1.75 in any of his college seasons and his highest was just 1.61 this year.
While Seabold’s control is a definite plus, if not better, his arsenal doesn’t have anything particularly dominant. His fastball ranges between 88 and 92 mph, but MLB.com said he was hitting 94 at the end of the season.
Seabold also has an average changeup to play off his fastball along with what BA and MLB.com both called a fringe-average breaking ball. However, his entire arsenal does get a slight boost thanks to Seabold’s ability to locate his pitches.
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I like this pick as I am a fan of high-control guys like Eshelman and Seabold. While their ceilings aren’t that high, they have enough control to get them to the majors as a back-end rotation arm.