Hunt shooting for the stars in opening round
June 4, 2008
Hunt shooting for the stars in opening round- NOLA.com
2008
With Tulane eliminated from the NCAA Tournament, junior
pitcher Shooter Hunt won’t have a super regional game
to distract him from Thursday’s major league draft, in
which he’s projected as a high first-round pick.
But it’s a distraction he wouldn’t mind facing.
“The draft hasn’t really been on my mind all
season,” Hunt said Tuesday as Tulane returned from
Tallahassee, Fla., after its 16-7 loss to Florida State in
the Tallahassee Regional championship game the night before.
“I don’t think it would have been a big factor if
we’d won, because my goal all season has been to get to
Omaha and win the national championship, instead of worrying
about the draft.
“But it is kind of exciting to start thinking about
it right now.”
LSU junior first baseman Matt Clark will have to deal
with the draft and playing in a super regional. Clark is
projected to be the highest draft-eligible player for the
Tigers, who play UC Irvine in a super regional game at 5
p.m. Saturday at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge. He is
expected to be picked from the fifth to the 10th round.
“You can’t really ignore it,” said Clark,
who was a 24th-round pick last year when he played at
Fontana (Calif.) Community College. “But I’ve
still got a job to do here. Wherever you think you’re
going to go, you get picked there — and then you turn
around and focus on the task at hand.”
Seven LSU juniors could be picked Thursday, including
pitchers Ryan Verdugo, Jordan Brown and Blake Martin.
Teams are not allowed to contact players whose teams
still are in the tournament, other than to inform them that
they have been drafted. LSU Coach Paul Mainieri said
he’s glad that the Tigers’ opening game in the
super regional isn’t until Saturday, so that his
players can digest the information for a day or two.
“There’s no sticking our heads in the sand and
hope it goes away,” Mainieri said.
UNO is expected to lose two juniors — second baseman
Johnny Giavotella and pitcher Ryan O’Shea — in the
draft. Catcher/designated hitter Jeff Lanning is another
possibility.
Tulane junior outfielders Anthony Scelfo and Aja Barto
also could be selected, but possibly not high enough to
persuade them to leave school.
That won’t be the case with Hunt. He entered the
season as a projected high pick, and he hasn’t done
anything to diminish it this season, going 9-4 with a 2.68
ERA and 126 strikeouts in 100 2/3 innings.
Baseball America projects Hunt going to the Houston
Astros with the 10th pick in the first round. Tulane’s
previously highest drafted player was Michael Aubrey by the
Cleveland Indians at No. 11 in 2003.
Going that high would garner Hunt a seven-figure signing
bonus.
“I haven’t looked at the projections,”
Hunt said. “I really don’t want to know, because I
don’t want to get my expectations up. What’s
important to me is that I want to play ball and get to the
Major Leagues as fast as possible.”
Tulane Coach Rick Jones said Hunt has the tools to do
just that.
“This is guy that throws it 92-95 miles per hour and
has good velocity on his breaking ball as well,” Jones
said. “. . . We never let his pitch count get too high
this year, either, so his arm should be fresh.”
Along with its underclassmen, Tulane could lose two
highly regarded recruits — pitcher T.J. House from
Picayune, Miss., and pitcher/outfielder Ross Seaton from
Houston. Both signees are listed among Baseball
America’s top 200 prep prospects.
LSU has three highly rated signees — junior college
pitchers Ryan Chaffee from Chipola (Fla.) and John Michael
Redding of Florida College of Jacksonville, and shortstop
Austin Nola from Baton Rouge-Catholic — who likely will
go before the 10th round.
Pitcher Shane Reidie from Slidell, second baseman Drew
Cumberland, utility player Bo Didier and pitcher Chris
Matulis all could go in the later rounds.
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