C Jackson Miller, Mitchell HS [FL]
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DoB: 1/3/2002. B/T: L/R.
Commitment: Wake Forest.
J.W. Mitchell High School, in the northern Tampa Bay area, is one of two high schools with a chance to put two players into the top 100 picks (the other being California's Harvard-Westlake School with Pete Crow-Armstrong and Drew Bowser). Mason Miller is arguably a top five high school left handed pitcher in the country, while Jackson Miller (no relation) is arguably a top five high school catcher in the country. In my rankings, they both place fourth in their respective demographics. While Jackson doesn't have the loud tools of the catchers ahead of him, like Tyler Soderstrom's or Kevin Parada's bat or Drew Romo's glove, he might be the most balanced high school catcher in the class as a whole.
Miller has a quick, loose left handed swing that helps him put leverage on the ball and hit for some nice power, though he's not a true slugger. He also brings the good approach at the plate that you hope to see out of catchers, enabling him to handle more advanced pitching with a relatively consistent bat. Together, he's a well-rounded hitter with average power and average hitting ability, which from a left handed hitting catcher, plays up. Defensively, Miller is again, well-rounded, showing soft hands and plenty of ease of operation to go with a pretty good arm. He's not a finished product back there, but he has shown enough to inspire confidence that he'll stick as a catcher.
High school catchers are the riskiest demographic in the draft. The amount of development that goes into getting these kids' gloves up to par while simultaneously developing their bats leads all too often to prospects "busting." As a left handed hitter, Miller does have a slight advantage, and the fact that he has such as a balanced game now helps as well, but the risk remains. The upside, though, is fairly clear, as just providing a baseline of offense is enough to get you to the majors and provide value. The fact that catchers are so risky is also what makes them so scarce, and that scarcity is why teams will keep rolling the dice on these teenage backstops.
Personally, I tend to shy away from high school catchers just because the risk is so high, but I really like Miller as a prospect. I think the offensive projection is there to hope for upwards of 15-20 home runs annually with solid on-base percentages, which would make him one of the better catchers in the game. He's in need of a fair amount of refinement on both sides of the ball in order to reach that projection, but he's not completely raw and has more than enough feel for the game to get it done. If signable away from Wake Forest, he probably projects in the third to fifth rounds.
Hitting in 2020
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