With all due respect to Razor Shines, it has to be Shooter Hunt (let me warn you now I’m going to enjoy this). The Tulane righty has been climbing up draft boards all spring, and is now projected to go somewhere in the middle of the first round. While Tulane is in the Conference-USA (not a powerhouse conference like the SEC), some good players have come through their system, most recently Micah Owings and Andy Cannizaro. Having just ditched the temporary confines of the Shrine on Airline for their brand spankin’ new home, Greer Field at Turchin Stadium, the Green Wave look confident and classy. Hey, they even serve beer! (In a totally unrelated aside, if you’ve never been to New Orleans, you are cheating yourself.)

I had a chance to see Shooter in person this past Friday (like most top-flight college aces, he starts the first game of each weekend series, on Fridays). Tulane was matched up last weekend against a good UCF team. It wasn’t a good night in terms of weather, and in fact, there were four (count ‘em) rain delays, though none was more than about 20 minutes long. As you can see, there were many scouts on hand. Heck, even ESPN.com prospect guru Keith Law was there. Well, I can assure that all the attention is with good reason. This saber-scouting report from late March should give you an idea of Mr. Hunt’s arsenal. I am no scout, but the very first thing I noticed about Shooter was the pop he got from the catcher’s mitt with every fastball, even in warm-ups. The readings on the speed guns were regularly in the 93-94 range, with a few touching higher. He didn’t flash his secondary offerings (a hard curveball and a straight change) very often, though they looked like they had potential when he did. The breaking ball in particular looked sharp, even if he had trouble commanding it.

Through seven innings (which was approximately three hours after the start of the game, due to two of the rain delays), Hunt had given up just two hits (a single and a double), struck out six and walked two. I thought for sure he would get the hook after seven innings, considering that Tulane had tallied a 5-0 lead by this point. Instead, the Green Wave trotted their stud back out to the mound, and he proceeded to hit a batter, yield a stolen base, give up a single, yield another stolen base, and finally give up a double. His final line, including the bad inning, was 7 IP, 2 R, 3 H, 6 K, 2 BB, 1 HBP. In all, he threw 109 pitches, and if he had been taken out after the seventh inning (they use a DH, so pitcher’s spot machinations need not apply), he would have had another great day and probably would have saved a bit of fatigue on his arm. The full play-by-play is here.

In this game, when he did get into trouble, it was primarily because of his command and control. If there’s anything keeping him from being a top-10 pick in June, it’s because he needs to cut down on his walks. Take a look at this start against Memphis from about two weeks ago. Despite striking out 12 in seven innings, he surrendered five walks and four runs. He also threw 117 pitches.

My feeling with Shooter Hunt, like a lot of pitchers entering the draft, is that he has an outstanding fastball–it’s got zip, tail, life, whatever else you want to call it–and that he needs to be able to throw his secondary pitches for strikes. Were he to somehow master all three of his pitches, look out. Until then, we’ll have to wait and see which team decides to take him. With so many high-quality college arms in this draft (in addition to Hunt, Brian Matusz, Aaron Crow, Tanner Scheppers, and Christian Friedrich could all go in the first round), it is tough to pin too much down. However, Jim Callis thinks it could be as high as the Reds with the seventh pick. In any event, it looks increasingly likely that Shooter Hunt will get a seven-figure bonus come June.

Here are some other photos I took.

The first of four rain delays

Preparing the pitch

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