I have often said that this is the outing that got Rosin drafted where he was, fourth round, largely because of this regional Friday night outing at Cal State Fullerton. I’m not taking anything away from Rosin’s cumulative body of work as a college pitcher at Minnesota, but I know how the West Coast clubs scout, I have a feel for how they think, and I know how much weight this performance carried to a team like the Giants.

This was a look in which Rosin pounded away with his two-seam fastball, cut the plate in half, commanded above average, and threw his change-up. Out in pro ball this summer in the Northwest League, which I do know well (long story), he’s getting off his shoulder a little bit and learning to incorporate a harder slider as a much-needed third pitch to become a big league starter.

This outing was one of my favorite games from the pre-draft scouting trail in 2010, largely because Fullerton is an insanely difficult place to pitch for visiting teams, much less ones visiting from outside the Big West Conference. Fullerton is known for squeezing, fans that do their research, brisk beer sales, players that feed off it, and an all-around hard-nosed environment. There’s nothing wrong with it – I don’t mind – but you have to be able to recognize when a young player brings all his tools into a big game in a hostile environment.  Not many times do you see an amateur pitcher’s last outing serve as the precise stopping off point between amateur and pro ball. Sometimes they are better than they really are (at that stage) in that last look, and sometimes, they run out of gas and drop off. In this case, you got a guy at the end of one road and the start of another, pitching in a ballpark that often dead-ends.

Read Seth Rosin Update – NCAA Regional
Read May Seth Rosin Scouting Update
Read Seth Rosin Q&A
Watch Seth Rosin Video
Read Seth Rosin Scouting Report

It starts with hands. Find me a hitter with strong hands, forearms and grip and I’ll show you a guy who can create gunshots with wood. I don’t care if a guy stands on his head. If he hits a ball hard, I want him. It’s about where the hands are at point of contact. Healy is very grounded in this respect, a talent that should jump off the page.

For me, Healy remains a gunshot guy, and he is one with relative ease. The raw power I got in BP showed that. At this stage, all you want is a consistent stroke in game, which I think Healy showed. I saw him with metal this spring and I have always liked him more with wood. I think wood plays to his strength, which is in his ability to ring a bat and drive for power. Offensively, he continues to develop more polished and selective at-bats. 

He profiles, of course, as a corner infielder in the years to come. Defensively at first base in one look, he showed a backhand pick of a throw in the dirt, enough for me to see the soft hands. He generally stays low and bends his knees on ground balls. He’ll never be a big speed guy, but I think he ran slightly better than he did last summer. I got a 4.6 to first and there’s room to trim some of that down in the coming years. A two-way high school player who might get some innings up North, Healy isn’t a hack at third base, either. He’s not bad at this stage, and if you watch closely, you generally see him stay down on balls and get a decent first step. The arm strength will be enough though I think he’ll get a touch better as he learns more consistent arm extension. He has a pitcher’s arm action at third right now.

He’ll be a guy we follow on the site. Mainly, he’s local for us. But I also see the power coming in years ahead. Plus, having a sense of humor helps. And I like guys who can get balls out in the time it takes me write “get balls out.” 

Watch Ryon Healy Video

The first time I saw Landry, I didn’t see him. I heard him. I know a gunshot when I hear it. It was at Harwich in Summer 2009. Landry was fresh out of a car with his family. He was in the side cage out at that little field. And I heard the gunshot.

When I got BP, the gunshots didn’t go away. And in the game, first at-bat, gunshot base hit against Seth Rosin, then of Hyannis and Minnesota, now property of the San Francisco Giants. I followed Landry all the way through. Games, BPs, run times, everything. Man, I loved him. Leap ahead a year later.

I get Landry at UCLA. The first thing you see is he’s slimmed up. So you can really start to imagine a multi-tooled offensive oriented center field with plus athleticism. These guys, I mean, are GOLD. Off he goes to rookie ball with the Dodgers, where if anything, the SEC is better than the Pioneer League for the more advanced guys.

You can feed the monster a hit to see Landry’s stats, but feed us the hit and have a look at the video of him from the spring. Sometimes my eyes may trick me. But never doubt my ears or my conviction, taught to me by the one scout who signed three Hall of Famers and firmly believed to listen for the elusive sound of the gunshot.

Read Leon Landry Scouting Update
Watch more Leon Landry Video
Watch more Leon Landry Video
Watch more Leon Landry Video
Read Leon Landry Q&A
Watch more Leon Landry Video
Read Leon Landry Scouting Report

On a side note, Kingham is a funny kid. Nice guy. He became the second guy in the history of Beginnings (following Angelo Gumbs) to ask me to redo his shot. Kingham picked game face. I said, OK. But I reserve the right to harmlessly give him a hard time for it.

Baseball Beginnings: How have you developed from summer 2009 to summer 2010?
Kingham: I’ve gotten taller, stronger and leaned up a little bit. My velocity has jumped up a bunch. I think I’m just a better athlete than I was at this time last year. I’m about a half-inch or an inch taller now.

Baseball Beginnings: How tall are you now?
Kingham: 6-5, 225. I’m trying to get my body in shape. I think I was a little softer then.

Baseball Beginnings: Give us a velocity update on you now.
Kingham: Last summer, I think I hit 89. This spring, I was hitting 94-95 and pitching at 90-92.

Baseball Beginnings: Did you even hit 90 when I saw you and I still pegged you?
Kingham: I didn’t hit 90 at all. The very first time I hit 90 was after you saw me.

Baseball Beginnings: When did you sign with Oregon?
Kingham: November. Before the summer, I didn’t really have anybody talking to me.

Baseball Beginnings: Secondary stuff for you.
Kingham: Change all the way. The change is my best off-speed pitch. It’s a circle change, goes down-and-in against right-handers, has a little sink on it.

Baseball Beginnings: Did you have the confidence to throw it in high school against metal?
Kingham: Yeah, I did. I threw it a lot. My coach liked my curveball a lot more, but I thought my change is my out pitch. I like throwing my change more often because I feel like I can throw it better than a curveball.

Baseball Beginnings: What things specifically do you think you need to improve in the coming years?
Kingham: I think fastball command. I think I can put it where I want to, but I want to really be able to put it exactly where I want to. I want to be able to put a ball in a ball count and make a guy chase, make him think it’s a strike. I’d also want to improve movement and command and consistent velocity. Overall, I’d want to learn how to pitch a little bit better.

Baseball Beginnings: Start or close?
Kingham: Start. I like starting. I’ve always prided myself on being able to go out and give you seven.

Baseball Beginnings: So you’re part of the great right-handed pitching draft class of the Pirates.
Kingham: 25 right-handed pitchers.

Baseball Beginnings: Do you fit?
Kingham: I don’t know yet. I think I have a pretty good set-up in either case.

Watch Nick Kingham Video

If you’re an LSU fan, be excited, because this guy’s arm speed is better than your previous Friday night guy. All this and not a scout in the house. Oh, wait, except for me. At least somebody is making the effort to see players in person.

I felt Gausman’s arm speed was the best from a high school right-hander I had seen since Covey. Pitching with long, lean, lanky and loose strides, Gausman stayed very closed and compact in his delivery, found balance and extension, repeated his arm slot, and let his arm speed do the talking. He threw consecutive fastballs at 94 to start his four-inning look, followed by 93-93-93, on the black-93 for a groundball, 94-94-94, 81 change, 94, 96 in the dirt, 77 slider, 92, 93, 74 slider, 95, and then the pitch no scout was there to see, 97, with hard late life. It was in the dirt, but I didn’t care. I wanted to see the big arm again and I’d rather it miss in the ground than hang in the sky.

The pitch came up as 100 on the house scoreboard gun, but that would be an exaggeration. It was a clean 97 on a boxy Stalker.

Gausman fell into a habit of losing his release point with his fastball throughout the spring and early in the summer. He did a much better overall job of maintaining consistent delivery points and release points. In this look, he had a much more consistent combination of fastball power, life and command. His overall fastball command still needs to grade up to big league standards in coming years, but he was around the plate much more consistently in this look. He isn’t quite ready to cut the plate in half with the fastball just yet, but the first step for Gausman really had to be about re-establishing velocity. I felt he showed a strong combination of easy power and physical projection. Gausman needs to make sure he doesn’t get too bulky for his own good, because his strengths in the future will stem from the body speed and torque he generates from wiry features in his arms, legs, hips and especially fingers.

Gausman threw most of his hardest fastballs at 95-97 with late life, sometimes tail, and usually dive. He sold his change-up pretty well in this look as well, commanding at 75-80, a pitch he feels at ease with. Whatever he chooses for his breaking ball in the future won’t have been determined by this look, mainly because this was 90 percent fastballs for a reason. He would profile as a fastball-change-slider guy for me, as a starter, not a bullpen arm. Down the road, this is a three-plus pitch guy.

If the first step is to show the power is back, the next step is to show the pitch-ability comes with it. I felt this was a pretty positive step, but a good hitter can show him what happens when he leaves a fastball up in the zone.  Gausman wasn’t hit hard very often but he wasn’t immune to getting hurt by hard contact if he left the fastball in a bad place.

Pitching with confidence in his last inning, Gausman worked at 91-96, averaged 93, and bumped 95 and 96 on his last two pitches. Overall, you would have to grade it as a positive step forward. You have to seriously wonder how much the Dodgers will make a serious run at of buying him out of LSU, but you also have to wonder why they either didn’t send a guy or weren’t aware he was pitching.

Read Kevin Gausman Q&A
Read April 2010 Kevin Gausman Scouting Update
Read Kevin Gausman Scouting report
Watch Kevin Gausman Scouting Video

If you were around for BP, you got one ball pulled down the left-field line by the right-handed hitting Bryant, a clean shot well over and past the 330 mark. Good enough for me. I felt he was looser and more coordinated than when I saw him in Summer 2009 and felt his athletic actions were much smoother than they were in the summer. I also felt his hands and wrists are stronger, which is reflected in the quick, easy looseness from the BP swings. That’s why the power is there even if you don’t see it in a game on a given day – most guys don’t have what I would call “easy” power. Some raw power is generated by max-effort swings with multiple moving parts. I don’t like complexity in swings. I like loose and easy explosiveness with physical projection. I like effortless weight shifts, loading, keeping hands back, and throwing the head and bat speed. Bryant has a very simple swing that probably should keep him out of prolonged slumps throughout his career. He trusts his hands and his front side.

Bryant spent much of his BP focusing on right field, which is something guys don’t always get to do in showcase land, where I last saw him. As much as a showcase is made to be the real world, it’s not. Complete hitters use the entire field. The trick is how to bring it into the game.

I saw Bryant hit doubles to left and right field in this game, hard contact both times. The other thing I noticed was how much more confidence he has in his speed. Ultra-aggressive, he wants the extra base each time, either on his own hits or as a trailer. He’s wearing the dirt.

I saw him pop a ball up, then when it was dropped behind short, speed up and take second with a slide. One-dimensional sluggers aren’t supposed to do that. As Bryant discussed in his Q&A before the draft, that’s his ambition.

I also saw him beat out an infield hit. I’m throwing out the running time because Bryant’s aggressiveness took a bite out of his leg when he skinned his knee sliding home in the first inning. He played all nine, but the blood showed through the pants leg, he did a fine job concealing his wincing, but you could tell it was burning. It’s a step forward that he ran well enough to beat out an infield hit, but I didn’t grade that run time because I knew he wasn’t 100 percent at that moment. So it’s not fair to keep a grade on a guy when if in a game situation he’s not full strength. You can grade the effort, though, and you gotta give it to him for going hard in pain.

Playing third defensively, I thought Bryant had very soft hands. He bends his knees on ground balls and follows the ball in. His arm will be enough for third, though he got all of one routine chance in this game (and had to wait until the ninth) and there was no infield to get a full grade on the arm.

His actions defensively were also smoother than last summer, though I still don’t think I got an entirely clean read. He charged a ball, fielded with the bare hand, and made a wide throw across the body – wincing all the way. You can see the soft hands and infielder instincts. It’s a tough ball with or without a bleeding knee. My instincts would be that he will probably make this kind of play with more routine frequency in the coming years. Third base defense, generally, doesn’t come along overnight unless you were Brooks Robinson. It’s almost always a gradual improvement for most guys who become elite defenders at the position. He’s no hack at this stage – soft hands, gets down, smooth arm action, range and first step should continue to improve, arm strength. Very good foundations for someone who wants to play third base in the big leagues.

Then there’s the issue of the draft. I once knew a player who signed a baseball to his father shortly before the draft, inscribing to him that the circus was almost over. The circus is the draft. I asked Bryant what he learned from the circus, where he was a 20^th round pick by the Blue Jays, who got the label, much like Austin Wilson in Southern California, that his college commitment and 4.98 GPA made him a student more than a ballplayer.

“I learned that you have to believe in yourself and not worry about what anyone else says,” Bryant said. “If you read into all the critics and all the blogs, it just really affects you. You’re not going to perform the way you’re capable of, so I just stay out of it.”

I asked him how much he feels he has improved since last summer.

“Speed, glove, arm, bat, all of that. I think that I polished everything up this spring like I was trying to do,” he said. “Yesterday I went from first to third on a ball down the line and I thought I was flying. My arm feels a lot stronger. I don’t even have to throw as hard as I can, it just gets down to first on a line. I know I can play third because I believe in myself. Which is all that matters.”

UPDATE: As an added bonus, I got an additional look at Bryant two days later. With the knee dried up, he moved much better both out of the box and from left to right as he took ground balls before the game. With the Blue Jays scout that was stalking him two days before long gone, here’s what the Jays guy missed.

First at-bat, opposite field home run to right field. This was not a cheap shot — a clean shot over and past the 330 mark in right field. Bryant’s approach is obvious. He’s a big guy who pitchers don’t want to give into, so they go fastballs away. If you looked at Bryant’s long frame, it might not look like he has the physicality to do this. But the hands don’t lie. You could raise a barn off this guy’s front leg. He trusted his hands, threw the head, and drove the ball out.

It wasn’t the only hard hit ball to right field in this game for Bryant, but if you got the impression that he was shying away from pulling an inside pitch, he dispelled that in the ninth inning with a hard-hit double down the left field line. Again, not a scout in the house, except for me.

What I wanted was the running grade. 4.35 twice. With room to get better. Understand that most big leaguers with 30-home run power are 4.4 and 4.5 runners AT BEST.

More on Kris Bryant:
Read Kris Bryant Q&A
Watch Kris Bryant Video
Watch more Kris Bryant Video
Watch more Kris Bryant Video
Read Kris Bryant Scouting Report

Gausman fell to the Dodgers in the sixth round, who would need to buy him out of LSU, where he would very easily profile for the SEC and based on the look I had at LSU’s staff at the 2010 UCLA Regional, would have easily been the best pure life arm (and this includes Anthony Ranuado, who was uphill and max effort when I saw him).

The question has never been the arm. It’s a matter of consistency and confidence. Pitching this summer, we caught up to Gausman for our first Q&A with him to discuss the spring, the draft cycle, and where he hopes to go from here.

Baseball Beginnings: Give us an update on how your career has progressed from last summer until now.
Gausman: I’d say right now I’m finally to a point where I’m really healthy and where I was at last summer. I think playing basketball really kind of messed me up. I came out and I knew it would be three or four starts before I was feeling really good, but I came out and I was just too early. Pitching in Vegas, I had so many scouts there, I went out and tried to throw 100. I kind of threw my arm out for a few weeks. I didn’t have anything then. Then it took me a little while to get back where I was.

Really, I think I don’t see how they can say “he doesn’t have good secondary stuff.” Half the games that I won, sometimes I had to pretty much pitch with all secondary stuff because they were sitting dead-read fastball. That’s what a lot of guys did against me in high school. That’s the shot they have to hit me. I think it came down to a couple of scouts in one game, where I didn’t have the best secondary stuff, and all of a sudden they say it to someone who might have more people behind him, and pretty soon I’m back to only throwing fastballs to make them happy. The problem is you don’t get to where I was last summer being an only fastball pitcher.

Baseball Beginnings: Did you feel like the scouting process in the spring forced you to take away your strengths?
Gausman: A little bit. You don’t like it when you’re afraid to throw. Right now, I feel like my change-up is my best pitch. I think in high school in Colorado, the hardest fastball you’d see is 85-86 and that’s my change-up. I think that kind of scared me to throw it because some guys wouldn’t even notice that it was a change-up. Another huge difference is metal bats. I think with metal anyone can hit anyone. The worst hitter in the world can hit a home run if he makes contact.

Baseball Beginnings: What would you adjust to off spring into summer? It sounds like you got away from pitching with the fastball.
Gausman: I think I did a little bit. I think I listened too much to my pitching coach. I know that sounds bad, but you know I got away from it. I think I pitch my best when I mix in everything and get the hitters not knowing what to expect. I think I got away from that.

Read April 2010 Kevin Gausman Scouting Update
Read Kevin Gausman Scouting report
Watch Kevin Gausman Scouting Video

Some Yankee fans might have fainted when they took Southern California high school center fielder Angelo Gumbs in the second round. Drafted as a shortstop, Gumbs has been a career centerfielder. I have said many times on this site that Gumbs playing short looks like a caged bird. When I saw him play one more time before the draft, he was more relaxed and had started to get the hang of the more compact athletic actions at short. But that said, the vast majority of his innings have been in center field.

Having seen both Gumbs and first-rounder Cito Culver, for me, Culver is the more likely to profile as a shortstop/middle infielder while Gumbs can profile as a center fielder at the big league level.

We’ll have to see which player fits where for the Yankees. Raw arm strength, you’d have to go Gumbs, but I’ve seen Culver at 91 on the mound and he was just touching the surface. It is, of course, two different throws. Culver has the more wiry body; Gumbs the more muscular build. Culver is whippy; Gumbs is more agile when he has room to move.

Strength and centerfield range were always Gumbs’s strengths as an amateur. The guy has outfielder in his blood. You don’t wear Clemente’s number if you don’t want to be an impact defensive outfielder. It reminds me of the people who wanted to put Mays on the mound because of his arm. I understand amateur players are usually out of position – but the Yankees have it wrong. The guy is a natural center field defender. Think closing the gaps at the Area Codes. I saw him chase down balls that no other high school outfielder in the nation did. Did you?

That said, I have no doubt Gumbs can learn to play short – but developmentally, it makes no sense to take a guy who is a natural center fielder and move him off the position. The Yankees would be robbing Gumbs of his best pro tool right off the bat, breaking him down, and building him back up. It is a counterproductive baseball move. I’m not saying Gumbs couldn’t turn himself into a shortstop. I am saying that removing him from center is stripping him of his tool closest to the Major League level.

He’s going to have a muscular body type, so he won’t be that long, lean Austin Jackson body type the Yankees like in their center fielders. But guess what? Culver has the Jeter body, not Gumbs. Gumbs has the Chevez Clarke body. That reason alone is not enough, to me, to take him off center. Oh, but the Yankees love guys who look their way, and they have for decades.

Want another body comp for Gumbs? You got black and white photos hanging all over that joint, don’t you? Go look at photos of Mantle. Powerful body type, right? Gumbs. Center field. Gumbs is also playing with switch-hitting.

He’s athletic enough to play short, though he’ll need ground balls to soften his hands. If Stengel were around this wouldn’t be as difficult a question.  Stengel moved Mantle off short and put him in center. I’d put a 5 on Gumbs in CF right now and a 3 on him at SS. Your call, but I don’t get it. You can have a 5 SS or a 6 or 7 CF in the coming years. What’s harder to find?

The Yankees probably wouldn’t like me for saying this, but drafting him as a shortstop stinks of not seeing him enough doing what he is best at. High school games are not always the best tools to gauge a guy.

As a scout, I’m on the record for liking both picks, but I think making them both shortstops is a mistake. I would much rather have two high-upside high school kids than two stiff-armed college right-handers. But if you’re going to draft correctly, use them correctly. Draft not just for depth, draft for impact.

Think further down the road than A-ball and ask yourself how much defensive value the big club could potentially have with Culver at short and Gumbs in center. I see Gold Glove athletes. They would be best served on the same defense together.

The Yankees should think both guys will hit, or you don’t gamble that high. So if you think they’ll hit, you know they’ll run, think defense. You want them on the field at the same time.

Culver is an interesting case in his own right. I absolutely despised the comments saying scouts accused him of being a lazy player. Joe Cronin lives. Let’s put this in a historical context. People called Aaron a lazy player when he was young. It’s a tag for something else. It’s a tag for something else you should never use.

I saw Culver playing for his life in front of 300 scouts last summer. On the mound, he made a play that proved his athleticism and stuck with me. He was pitching. A ball was popped up behind the plate. Culver never broke stride from his follow-through. He accelerated, passed the catcher, and made the sprint from the front of the mound to the backstop. I’ve never seen a pitcher do that. Think of that play as a shortstop chasing down a popped-up bunt. Only an athlete can get a chance at getting a ball in no-man’s land. That’s not a lazy ballplayer.

Offensively, he was young and gaining strength when I saw him. The bat looked like it was swinging him. But just with his wrists, he was able to get good sound with wood. So you can see the projection. I didn’t see him play high school baseball, but I know the level of play was vastly below what his body speed allows him for. He wouldn’t be the first high school kid to be bored. Bored is not lazy. Aaron was said to be bored when the scout came to see him. Media pundits need to get rid of decades-old assumptions that they have any idea about what makes a player tick.

What makes each of these players tick, from the innings I have seen, is the drive to be excellent defenders and to develop offensively. Why shortchange your draft? Play them both at their respective strengths and reap the rewards. You’ll thank me several Gold Gloves from now.

Watch Cito Culver Video
Read Angelo Gumbs Scouting Update
Read Angelo Gumbs Q&A
Read Angelo Gumbs Scouting Report
Watch Angelo Gumbs Video
Read March Angelo Gumbs Scouting Update
Watch more Angelo Gumbs Video
Watch 2009 Angelo Gumbs Video
Read Angelo Gumbs: Best Athlete in 2010 Draft?

Maggi, listed at 6-0, 172, has average size, with long and thin legs. He doesn’t have big, strong and broad shoulders, but he has lanky limbs. In all likelihood he will need to get stronger as he progresses, and the frame should suggest at least modest physical projection. Maggi had a very handsy swing, but I’m not saying he’s a purely opposite field hitter who can’t drive the ball. On the contrary, he swings hard and finishes with both hands and shows a compact stroke. He generally repeats his swing each time I see him, occasionally there is an upper cut, and everyone with some pop has at least some upper cut. Sometimes there is a little wrap there.

Defensively, Maggi was agile and nimble, a glider with soft steps. I thought he was a little short to his right and thought he lacked the premium shortstop arm, but will make the routine throw accurately every time. I saw him get beaten against 97 fastballs from Gerrit Cole, but that’s more of a tip of the cap to Cole than it is bury the guy. I wanted more contact, but I wasn’t willing to write off Maggi for one Friday night. The reason? I saw him last summer with wood. He was comfortable. He was confident. He let his swing be itself. And he sprayed line drives.

In his spring BP, I liked Maggi. He went gap-to-gap and showed a hint of pull power. He’s a solid average runner in first base and base stealing times. He has soft hands and has the makings of a contact-oriented middle infielder with solid average speed, occasional pop, great athletic actions defensively, and enough arm to handle the routine. All of that, for me, would have been better than 15^th round. He has the makings of a blue-collar pro without the big flashy skills, but the instincts of a natural middle infielder with bat speed and contact abilities.

Baseball Beginnings had a chat with Gumbs for this exclusive Q&A. In the meantime, we’ll see if the Yankees can sign Gumbs, and if they get it done, what they do with him.

Baseball Beginnings: So confirm for me, they drafted you as a shortstop or as a center fielder?
Gumbs: They drafted me as a shortstop.

Baseball Beginnings: How do you feel about center versus short right now?
Gumbs: Right now, both center and short are the same. I’ve played out of position now.

Baseball Beginnings: Am I safe to say that you looked more comfortable at short when I saw you late in the high school season?
Gumbs: I feel more comfortable at short, yes, more than I did at the start of the year.

Baseball Beginnings: What adjustments did you make, what aspects did you get more familiar with?
Gumbs: Mainly the throws I got more comfortable with. I still have to do some adjusting to the angles. In high school, everything else came easy at short because I worked hard at it.

Baseball Beginnings: Did you start having fun with it?
Gumbs: I did start having fun with it. I started making the plays. Doing everything right is always fun. I worked on it and I think it showed.

Baseball Beginnings: Did you begin tailoring your athletic actions to the more compact and precise movements short would require?
Gumbs: Well, in the outfield, I’ve always gained speed as I keep running so I can be a little late on my jump and still get to a ball. Infield is more bang-bang. So that’s what I’ve got to learn.

Baseball Beginnings: Did you begin to develop better infield instincts?
Gumbs: Yes I did, especially later season. I used to take the wrong first step angle more often instead of opening up to the left and then deciding where to take the angle.

Baseball Beginnings: Can you see yourself as a professional shortstop now?
Gumbs: Yes. With professional help I think I can master the position and learn more about it.

Baseball Beginnings: Did you think your last high school year was a good step forward offensively?
Gumbs: Yes it was. I got off a slow start, but once the ball started rolling, I kept finding a way to get more hits in games. Even when I went 0-fer, I worked on the next game.

Baseball Beginnings: What kind of offensive growth do you think you showed this spring?
Gumbs: I kept working on learning to trust my hands, to work the count and everything. I did have 29 walks on the season. I was just being patient.

Baseball Beginnings: You sound as proud of 29 walks as anything I’ve ever heard you talk about offensively.
Gumbs: I think I broke the school record.

Baseball Beginnings: That’s 29 times you did not get yourself out.
Gumbs: I looked at it like 29 doubles and 29 triples, because every time I walked, I’d go to steal second and third.  I was always stealing when I got on.

Baseball Beginnings: Did you do a pre-draft workout for the Yankees?
Gumbs: No, I did not do a work out for them.

Baseball Beginnings: Were you aware they were on you?
Gumbs: When they came for the home visit they showed a lot of interest and they were one of the top three teams I thought were in it.

Baseball Beginnings: Who else was in?
Gumbs: The Angels and Toronto.

Baseball Beginnings: Did you work out for those clubs?
Gumbs: Yes.

Baseball Beginnings: Were you thinking Angels?
Gumbs: I was.

Baseball Beginnings: But they didn’t go local on position players. They didn’t in 2009 either.
Gumbs: I know. A lot of people were surprised.

Baseball Beginnings: Before we go, tell me the story of how your family found out you had been drafted.
Gumbs: All of my Puerto Rican side family is in New York. A guy got on the subway and said, ‘Second round pick, California, Angelo Gumbs.’ That’s how my Auntie found out. She called us right there. I think she got pretty excited.

Read Angelo Gumbs Scouting Update
Read Angelo Gumbs Q&A
Read Angelo Gumbs Scouting Report
Watch Angelo Gumbs Video
Read March Angelo Gumbs Scouting Update
Watch more Angelo Gumbs Video
Watch 2009 Angelo Gumbs Video
Read Angelo Gumbs: Best Athlete in 2010 Draft?