The preseason baseball accolades begin to roll in. The Jayhawks will have a very real chance to be in the top 5 in the Big 12 this year and a legitimate chance to make some post-season noise. I will have some player and team info and writeups throughout the long cold winter. I would expect TJ Walz and Tony Thompson to be on many preseason lists for awards and personal recognition this year.
http://thecollegebaseballblog.com/2009/11/30/top-100-countdown-number-51-tj-walz-kansas/

Former Kansas Pitcher Hall Signs with New York Yankees

LAWRENCE, Kan. - Two days after being selected in the 25th round (765 overall), former Kansas pitcher Shaeffer Hall has signed a professional contract with the New York Yankees organization.

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Im not trying to do anything shady here, but i truly thought someone may have some interest in these.

I have two autographed cards of the late and great Chuck Daly.

I have both listed on EBAY. The links are listed below. If you have no interest then please just ignore. Thanks everyone!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=280353098913

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=280353946159

Aman provides a great prospect preview of the visiting Baylor Bears.  The team is stocked with MLB prospects.  They have five players listed in Baseball America's top-100 college prospect list.  Print this out and bring it down to Hoglund for Sunday's series deciding game.  First pitch at Noon. - JQ

JR Kendal Volz 6'5, 225 RHP
Volz is without a doubt a very solid professional prospect. I have him listed as #8 in my Pre-Season College Top 50 (draft eligible) players and Baseball America had him at #6. Volz was the closer for the USA National Team and gave up ZERO runs in 13 appearances. Volz was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 50th round out of HS. He is a tall kid with plenty more room to fill out and add more velocity to his already 92-94 mph sinking fastball. Volz also throws a very nice sharp slider at about 80 mph and a decent slurve/change up that isnt thrown very often. With those 3 pitches working, he gets a lot of strikeouts and even more ground balls. His command is decent but nothing spectacular. His mechanics are not too bad although he does have some violent actions at certain points of his delivery. He is a very good athlete and has plenty of upside. So far this year he hasnt been quite as sharp and his velocity has been down in the upper 80's. Volz is 2-2 with a 3.00 ERA in 39 innings. He has 32 K's, 16 walks and has given up 13 hits. It appears his command hasnt been quite as good as normal so maybe he hasnt quite rounded into form yet. I would seriously doubt that Volz would make it out of the first round of the MLB draft this summer UNLESS he continues to struggle with his command and his velocity stays down. An injury could be in place as well. I will be getting video and photography of Volz and am very anxious to see what he brings and how his mechanics look in person.

more after the jump...

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Jayhawks added a game against Missouri Valley College at 3pm today.

Its gonna be cold and windy out there!

Missouri Valley College is an NAIA school (plays in Bakers league-Heart of America Conference). This should be an easy win even for some of the freshmen and 2nd teamers that will play today.

1st inning

Heere walks
Narodowski singles
Waters triples and scores 2
Elgie sacrifices Waters in to score the third run

2nd inning

Bollman gives up a HR to Jay Walkup.
Wow
thats embarrassing.

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Kansas baseball coach Ritch Price announced his weekly honorees for the first two weeks of Fall Ball. Honorees were selected by the Kansas coaching staff for their outstanding efforts.

For the first week of practice, freshman Travis Blankenship was named the Pitcher of the Week, while sophomore outfielder Brian Heere earned Player of the Week honors. Senior center fielder Nick Faunce made the plus-play of the week.

For the second week of practice, which ended Saturday, freshman Kevin Burk was named the Pitcher of the Week, while junior infielder David Nardowski was named the Player of the Week. Freshman outfielder Casey Lytle made the plus-play of the week.

The Jayhawks will resume practice Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m. at Hoglund Ballpark. The team will scrimmage on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., as well as Friday (4:30 p.m.) and Saturday (6 p.m.). All scrimmages are free of charge and open to the public.

Im not sure how many of you are into watching college volleyball but this Saturday night (9/27) at 7pm at Horejsi, the KU women take on #3 Texas. These games are quite entertaining and you respect it a lot more in person.

Its also "Youth Organization Night" - $3 ticket for all Youth Organizations (little league teams, club teams, boys&girl scouts, youth groups, etc.)

just an FYI to gather some kids up and go down to Horejsi for some entertainment.

Thanks to bkmhoxx for publishing this.  There actually has been a fair amount of baseball news recently.  The Szefc hiring was made official.  Fall practice is underway.  Buck Afenir had a bad night.  I am working overseas this semester which has made finding time and internet access to post updates more challenging so I'm happy to see other fans taking up the slack this fall. - JQ

The 2009 Kansas baseball schedule has been released.

http://kuathletics.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/091708aab.html

There is an 8 game stretch where we play 3 on the road against Arizona St., 2 on the road against San Diego St. and then come home to play Texas in a 3 game set. WOW!

This should be a fun year as Coach Price had a great recruiting class the past 2 years and he is really starting to build a nice young nucleus. We had 2 of our recruits get drafted and they chose not to sign and come be a Jayhawk.

February 20th cant come quick enough!

There is one other item I'll highlight.  Chuck Woodling of the LJWorld published an early preview of the '09 team worth taking a look at.  Woodling reports that Price is approaching '09 as a rebuilding year in which he might start as many as five freshman.  Woodling reports that Zac Elgie turned down a $250,000 bonus to come play at KU.  Lee Ridenhour turned down $150,000.  Price believes Ridenhour might be able to handle two-way duties, both as a pitcher and a position player.  The article identifies Colton Murray, Jake Marasco, Jason Brunansky and transfer David Narodowski as other potential impact newcomers. - JQ

What do soem of you guys think the ceilings are of Brent Lillibridge, Hernan Iribarren and German Duran? At one point in time, these 3 guys were fairly well thought of as decent prospects. They all 3 have had their struggles this year.  I know Duran has a lot more pop than the other 2 but i was curious to see what you might thing their ceilings could be.

Utility type guys?

Average middle infielders?

Or could one of them be something fairly nice?

any thoughts are appreciated.

Here is bkmhoxx' rundown of Jayhawks who are eligable today for the MLB draft.  I will update with individual postings for each KU player selected today.  Be sure to hit read more, there are ten players profiled here! - James

These are the notes that i published before the season began.
I will add my current TAKE at the bottom of each players notes.

Erik Morrison SS (6'1, 195 lbs)
Morrison is a senior who was drafted in the 49th round in last years draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates but declined their offer and came back for his senior season at KU. With a solid senior campaign, he should be able to drastically improve his draft slot. Morrison has some very nice tools and has very high upside. Defensively he has a plus arm I would grade to be about a 7. He is a good fielder with good hands. He will flash the leather a lot this year and show off his arm strength although it would help him to cut down on some of his errors (10) and keep his emotions in check. Offensively, Morrison shows a good swing with decent power (7 HR) and decent speed (6 SB). The issue with Erik will be whether or not he can keep his average (.296) at a respectable level or not. If he can eliminate just a few errors, get his average up n the .310-.320 range and show more improvement, Morrison could be looked at fairly early. My guess would be 8th round on the high side, 20th round on the low side.

CURRENT TAKE: This year E-Mo got his avg. up to .308, he hit 7 HR again and showed more speed with 13 Steals. He did have 16 doubles which shows possible power development in his future. He did however go from 10 errors last year to 16 this year, with 19 walks and 38 K's. I guessed rounds 8-20 at the beginning of the season, and while he did get his average up a little higher, I think his errors and strikeouts may hold him back a little bit. I personally think he can remain at SS at the next level. Most of his errors were throwing errors which are concentration errors. He will be a low risk/high reward type player for a team to take a chance on. He has a chance to be the first Jayhawk taken (I think it will be Paul Smyth). I would guess Morrison to go somewhere in rounds 15-20.

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