The Dodgers added another highly regarded pitching talent to their farm system Sunday, picking Alabama high school southpaw Maddux Bruns with the 29th pick in the Major League Draft.
Bruns’ selection comes a year after the Dodgers drafted Louisville right-hander Bobby Miller in the first round. The 6-foot-2 Bruns was named Alabama’s 2021 Mr. Baseball and Gatorade Player of the Year after striking out 102 and allowing six runs in 49 innings for UMS-Wright High School in Mobile, Alabama. He is committed to playing in Mississippi. Express.
“We thought he was the best left-handed high school pitcher in the draft,” Dodgers director of amateur scouting Billy Gasparino said in a video conference with reporters Sunday. “They are power throws, body of power. Everything about power is what it’s all about.
Bruns’ best pitch is a slider and features a looped curve ball. It features a fastball that is in the mid-90s and hit 97 mph after its speed soared last summer. Gasparino said the pothole caused him leadership problems that have since improved.
Bruns, 19, is the second high school pitcher signed to attend Mississippi State, whom the Dodgers have taken in the first round in the past four years. The first, JT Ginn, was selected No. 30 overall in 2018 and chose not to sign with the Dodgers.
The value of the slot for this year’s 29th pick is $ 2,424,600. Gasparino said the signs of Bruns’s initials were “very positive,” which increased the organization’s comfort level in selecting him.
“We’ll see what happens,” Bruns said in a conference call with reporters on Sunday. “I mean, I think I’m going to be a Dodger, but if things don’t work out, we’ll go to school.”
Bruns’ father, a huge Atlanta Braves fan, named his son after Greg Maddux. The son also grew up as a Braves fan.
“I am,” Bruns said before correcting himself. Or it was.
Bruns is the first left-handed high school pitcher drafted in the first round by the Dodgers since Clayton Kershaw placed seventh overall in 2006. It turns out that Kershaw is the pitcher Bruns said he emulates. He wanted Kershaw’s 12-6 curve ball, and he got it. He likes the way he throws. You like their behavior. Aspire to replicate it. The bar is high.
“I could definitely see how he would think and model his game [after Kershaw]Gasparino said. Hopefully he has even part of that career.
