#DudeWatch: Highlighting Top Plays, Names to Know

 

Whether it’s the fall, high school season or the summer, there are often weekends when the Five Tool staff is simply covering a lot of good, entertaining, interesting baseball, which creates a seemingly endless stream of social media content. Occasionally, that makes it unintentionally easy for coaches, scouts and even us to, for lack of a better word, overlook standout performances, tools or skills.

The #DudeWatch aims to shine some light on those players by combing through our vast list of video clips to pick interesting ones to highlight for fans, coaches, and scouts. Here’s a look at this week’s list:

DJ Barrett (Mesquite HS, Arizona) continued to look like one of the most interesting, uncommitted 2022 arms in Arizona. The delivery may be a bit unorthodox with the way the hands break and arm works, but it creates a unique look while working out front. Barrett spun a couple different breaking balls. The combination of size, projection and present fastball make Barrett a good candidate to take off with the right development.

Sticking with right-handers from Arizona with a unique look, Matthew D’Amato (Desert Ridge) gives the appearance of a sidearm pitcher because of the way his arm moves in the back but actually utilizes more of a three-quarters slot. The life and look of D’Amato’s fastball helped him miss bats and hard contact and his back half shows athleticism in his delivery with some projection remaining.

With a swing like this, it’s not an accident 2023 Matthew Hart (Canyon View) collected hits all weekend and will probably continue to. It’s a simple swing that doesn’t require length to put the barrel on the ball and has some rhythm and rotation.

While Hart’s swing is simple and geared more towards line drives, 2023 Burleson Cenennial’s Aiden Hatton tries to hit the ball to the moon when he receives a mistake. The left-handed hitter nearly succeeded here and made sure to wait until the ball cleared the wall before flipping the bat aside.

In any sport, it’s always tempting to look ahead. Jailen Watkins is undoubtedly a name to follow in the 2025 class. Yes, that’s a right-hander touching 85 MPH in the 2025 class with a natural ability to leverage some of this athleticism and physical gifts into his delivery. A two-way standout, Watkins is likely going to be a player who routinely makes pitching and hitting highlight videos.

Oh, yeah. I mentioned he can hit. He can’t just hit. He can really, really run too and is already impacting the baseball with gap-to-gap pop and probably has some future over-the-fence juice in those hands. Special talent.

How about another 2025 name to follow in the Dallas Tigers organization? Jake Fults has an advanced, natural feel at his age for creating rhythm and timing pitches with a short swing in the batter’s box.

Some guys are just blessed with being physical and strong in the batter’s box and it immediately shows. Zach Abell is one of those guys.

Rocklin (California) 2023 prospect Jack Peterson keeps hitting no matter the setting. He can cover the plate and his hands work well with his weight shift before letting his barrel rip through the hitting zone.

I love this clip for two reasons: turn the sound on and you can literally hear the ball smacking the fence; it’s a fun, handsy, athletic swing with bat speed, rotation and hand-eye coordination. Jesuit 2023 prospect Dominic Milgore is going to be a fun hitter to follow.

How cool is this? Ryder Bunfill, 2023 prospect from Highland Park, hit a walk-off grand slam! The crowd reaction does all the talking.

 

Dustin McComas
Senior Editor
Five Tool Baseball

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