SS Anthony Servideo, Mississippi
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DoB: 3/11/1999. B/T: L/R.
2020 Stats: 5 HR, .390/.575/.695, 9 SB, 16/24 K/BB in 17 games.
It's hard to have a lower low and a higher high than Servideo had over the past year on the field. He was a relatively consistent if unspectacular hitter as a sophomore at Ole Miss, slashing .287/.429/.388 with three home runs and earning a trip to the Cape Cod League. There, against elite competition, his bat fell completely silent – .149/.277/.228 over 32 games, 37 strikeouts to just 15 hits, and a quickly tanking draft resume. Then, something changed in 2020. He started off with a bang, picking up two hits off likely top ten overall pick Reid Detmers in his first game, and kept on rolling. Through 17 games this year, Servideo had slashed .390/.575/.695 with five home runs, nine stolen bases in ten tries, and 24 walks over 17 games – leading all of Division I with 51 times on base. Now scouts have to decide who the real Anthony Servideo is.
This might not be my boldest prediction ever, but he's probably somewhere between that .149 Cape hitter and that .390 2020 hitter. Servideo is a high-energy player with long, artificially bleached blond hair, who as you might expect served as the catalyst for an Ole Miss offense that won 16 games in a row after losing to Detmers and the Louisville Cardinals in the opener. He's a bit undersized at 5'10", but he finds the barrel extremely easily with great pitch selection, and in 2020 he was aggressively doing damage on pitches in the zone while leaving the ones outside of it. Though he had a stretch of four home runs in five games at one point in 2020, he's likely to be more of a contact hitter in pro ball due to his size, as his power was more a product of punishing mistakes than of brute strength. That's alright, because you don't put up a .575 on-base percentage by accident, and his plus wheels helped him steal 33 bases in 83 games dating back to his sophomore year.
Servideo's profile is also aided by his defense, as he's a lock to stick at shortstop with quickness, arm strength, and instincts. The real question that teams will grapple with, however, is the bat. While he's an adept contact hitter who has shown the ability to punish mistakes with some ambush power, it's important to remember that his track record of high-level performance is just 17 games – 16 if you consider an 0-4 in his final game of the season. He hit just .149 on the Cape and .272/.353/.350 over last year's SEC slate, so there's not much of a track record of performance against high level arms. Aside from that Louisville series, Ole Miss didn't play the strongest non-conference schedule, and three other Rebel starters hit better than .350 this year, including likely fourth or fifth rounder Tyler Keenan's .403/.488/.791 line.
Servideo's most likely outlook is that of a strong utility infielder, one who can hold his own in the lineup with on-base ability, ambush power, and speed, but he just hasn't done quite enough to convince some evaluators he'll hit for impact at the highest level. If the 2020 season had been played out in full and he had continued his hot hitting into SEC play, he very well may have, and we could be talking about him in the first round range. That makes this a very high upside play for a college hitter, and a team selecting Servideo in rounds two through four could get rewarded heavily. At the very least, his defense and speed will make him a valuable utility infielder, and his ceiling likely has him at 10-20 home runs per season with high on-base percentages, plenty of stolen bases, and good defense at shortstop – All Star upside.
Highlights from his junior season
Game at bats as a sophomore
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