Imagine for a moment that you are wearing Konnor Griffin’s size 13 baseball spikes. Imagine this:
You won’t be 19 until next April, and you’ve just graduated from Jackson Prep. You’re the ultimate five-tool professional baseball prospect. That is, you can hit medium and you can hit powerful. You can field very well at several positions. You can throw, both off the mound and in the field. And, brother, can you ever run.
Yes, and in four days your future will change radically. Sunday is Major League Draft Day. You are listed as one of the top 10 professional baseball prospects in the United States and the No. 1 high school prospect, period.
You’re just over 6’3” tall and weigh a sleek 210 pounds. You’ve already signed a letter of intent to play college baseball at one of the best programs in the country, LSU. But your name could be called early in Sunday night’s draft, and if it is, you’ll be offered millions and millions of dollars to go somewhere and play the game you love.
The Cleveland Guardians, who have the No. 1 overall pick and sent a team of eight scouts to watch you in March, are said to be extremely interested. Most, if not all, major league teams are. In February, as Prep prepared for its first game of the season, there were 52 professional scouts around the batting cage to watch you hit. Fifty-two. There are only 30 major league teams. Do the math.
So tell me. Are you nervous? Do you sleep well? Do you sleep at all? I know I wouldn’t be.
Here’s what the real Konnor Griffin, one of the most mature and polite teenagers imaginable, said earlier this week when asked that question: “I sleep well. This is a matter of years and it represents a lot of hard work. It’s just a great opportunity that’s in front of me, whether it’s going to LSU or going somewhere and playing pro ball. I have no idea, but I’m ready to find out. I’m ready.”
That interview was on Monday. On Tuesday, Konnor and his father, Belhaven softball coach Kevin Griffin, flew to Los Angeles where he will appear on ESPN’s Espys Awards Thursday night as the national high school baseball player of the year. On Sunday, he, his family, friends and Jackson Prep teammates and coaches will gather at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Museum for the invitation-only MLB Draft.
“It’s out of my hands now. I’ve done what I can do,” Konnor Griffin said. “We’ll see.”
We will. Trying to guess where Konnor Griffin or anyone else will be picked in the baseball draft is a fool’s errand. There are so many factors involved. Major league teams that need more immediate help would be more likely to select a proven college player, three or four years older and probably more ready for the professional baseball grind. In recent years, the percentage of early draft picks has indeed been much higher than that of kids fresh out of high school. Last year, five of the top seven draft picks and 11 of the top 15 draft picks were college players.
There’s also the money factor. There has been — and continues to be — a lot of negotiating behind the scenes. Major League teams want to know what it takes to sign a player before they draft him. The Griffins are leaving the negotiations to Joey Devine of Excel Sports Management in North Carolina.
LSU’s Paul Skenes, a pitcher, was the first pick last year, signed for $9.2 million. He is 5-0 with a 2.12 earned run average for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The first high school player taken was Max Clark of Franklin, Ind. He was the third pick in the draft by the Detroit Tigers, signed for $7.7 million, and currently plays for the Tigers’ Class A team in Lakeland, Fla.
Ask 10 professional scouts and you might get 10 different answers about where Griffin might go in the draft. Ask Mark DeRosa, a former Major League player, former Team USA manager and current MLB Network announcer, and you’ll get this: “The Cleveland Guardians are making a mistake if they don’t take Konnor Griffin with the first pick.”
DeRosa, who has watched Griffin train and play and spent some time with him off the field, believes Griffin not only has the physical skills but also the mental makeup to succeed at the major league level. Not every expert has such high regard for Griffin. The only gripe scouts seem to have is the level of competition Griffin has faced in Mississippi high school baseball. That’s a sore point for the Griffins.
“That really touches my heart,” Konnor said. “Our Jackson Prep team could have played any high school team in the country. We played against really good teams and really good players. There’s good baseball in Mississippi. Plus, I’ve traveled all over the world and played against some of the best players in international competition.”
Kevin Griffin said, “It’s a tired act when people downplay the quality of baseball in Mississippi. Just look at the players who came here and what they did.”
Let’s do that. How about Austin Riley of Southaven, the two-time All-Star third baseman for the Atlanta Braves who was drafted late in the first round of the 2015 draft? Riley might be the closest comparison to Konnor Griffin in 2015. Like Griffin, Riley was a tall, rangy prospect with a frame that had room for muscle. He hit .271 with 20 home runs in his first full season of professional baseball with Class A Rome in 2016. Three years later, he made his major league debut. He’s hit 146 home runs for the Braves and is a reincarnation of Brooks Robinson at third base. He hit 37 home runs last year, 38 the year before. As good as he was in 2015 and as great as he’s become, Riley couldn’t come close to Griffin. It remains to be seen whether Griffin can hit with Riley’s power.
“Just being compared to someone like Austin Riley is a dream come true for me,” Griffin said.
The comparisons started early. Kevin Griffin says the first time he realized his son had special baseball skills was when Konnor was 12. “He hit, like, 58 home runs that summer,” Kevin Griffin said. “He made plays that you just don’t see 12-year-olds make.”
Konnor’s 12th year on the planet was also the first time Jay Powell, the Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer and former Big League star, saw him play. “We were in Oxford and he was playing in a tournament with 12-year-olds,” Powell said. “They were playing on a high school field with a temporary fence and Konnor hit one not only over the temporary fence but over the high school fence in center field. It went at least 370 feet. That’s when I knew he was special.”
We haven’t even gotten to his pitching yet. Griffin is in the mid-to-high 90s with a devastating slider. He was 10-0 with a 0.72 earned run average and 107 strikeouts in 67 innings.
“He would be a first-round pitcher even if he didn’t hit and get in the field as well as he does,” Powell said.
Powell was teammates with Major League players such as Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones and Todd Helton, and says matter-of-factly, “Konnor Griffin is the best athlete I’ve ever known.”
For Prep this spring, Griffin hit .559 with nine home runs. He stole 85 bases in 86 attempts. There’s seemingly nothing he can’t do on a baseball field, but he says he’d rather be an everyday player, probably shortstop or center fielder, than pitch full-time.
So we started this column by asking readers to put their feet in Konnor Griffin’s shoes. Now try Kevin Griffin’s sneakers.
Your son clearly has all the talent in the world. But he’s only 18 years old. Next month, he could be on the other side of the continent playing minor league baseball in a small town that he and you have never heard of. Are you ready for that? Do you think Konnor is?
“Konnor is very mature for his age,” Kevin Griffin said. “He’s been to a lot of places by himself. He’s had to fend for himself. I’m not too worried about it. Now, my wife Kim would probably tell you otherwise. I don’t think she’s looking forward to the possibility of him being halfway across the country, by himself, in some minor league town. But we’ve trusted the process. We feel like he’s mature enough to go out there and spread his wings. We’re in a good place.”
The Griffins are just excited – and more like nervous – to see what happens next. Put yourself in their shoes. Wouldn’t you be?
— Article courtesy of Rick Cleveland of Mississippi Today —
