Prospects Plus: Hagen Danner

Name: Hagen  Danner
Team: Huntington Beach HS (California)
Position: Pitcher
Organization Rank: One of the top prospects for the 2017 Draft (UCLA commit)
Thursday vs. Puyallup (Wash.) High School at NHSI: 13 strikeouts, 3 hits  in complete game shutout.

Positives: touched 90/91 with his fastball during his outing but can be has high as 93/94. For only being a sophomore he looked incredibly polished. Danner is no stranger to pitching in big games. Danner played and won the Little League World Series. Hagen's curveball is presently a soft hammer with projection, breaking late vertically at 79-80 mph with shape and depth. Danner even showed some feel throwing a pair of 81-82 mph changeups. His curveball was dominant as he locked up hitter after hitter. If his arm hold up he is going to be a top five pick. Looked the part of an ace despite being so young. 

Negatives: Like any players this young, you worry about his delivery and his arm holding up. 

Prospects Plus: Carlos Rodon

A new baseball season  is here and so is the return of Prospects Plus. During the course of the season ,  I will deliver scouting reports on some baseball's up and  coming stars that I have the pleasure to watch on TV or see in person. I have a tickets package to the  Lakewood BlueClaws, so you will see reports about prospects in the South Atlantic League as well as college games I watch on TV. So here is our first report on White Sox prospect Carlos Rodon, who pitched against the Royals last night on MLB Network. 

Name: Carlos Rodon

Position: pitcher 

Organization: White Sox 

Organizational rank: top ranked player in the White Sox system, according to Baseball America.

Wednesday night vs. Royals: 4 innings, 4 hits, 0 earned runs, 9 strikeouts.

Positives: Rodon struck out the side on 12 pitches in the first inning. Looked so polished even against the regular lineup of the American League Champions. Touched 96 with his fastball at one point. The Sox have not yet announced whether Rodon, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2014 draft, will start the season with the major-league club or will go to Triple-A Charlotte for more minor-league seasoning.

Negatives:  Rodon is still trying to harness his  fastball and could use some time in the minors to smooth that out. While Rodon does repeat his delivery well, he did have a tendency last year to lose command with his fastball and secondary offerings, putting too many men on base via walk for a frontline starting pitcher.

Bring back WWE King of the Ring

One of the best wrestling events of the year is PWG's Battle of LA. This single eliminate three night event features great wrestling action. Tournament type wrestling is something that is sorely lacking the WWE.

Why can't/won't the WWE bring back the King of the Ring tournament to file some of the down time in the wrestling calendar, like the time between WrestleMania and Summer Slam. The Crockett Cup used to  be a staple of the wrestling calendar. Now these type of events have been limited to just independent promotions.

Wrestling tournaments like the NJPW Cup and Best of Super Juniors, I know those two are over a couple of weeks but the semifinals and finals are the same night, have been praised. In addition to providing great action the event would allow the WWE to develop another great star similar to what they did with Steve Austin when he won the 1996 King of the Ring. This event set in motion Austin 3:16 and the company made a ton of money.

Why not bring that back to the WWE.

A tale of two brackets

This year I allowed my 5-year old son to fill out his first bracket for March Madness. He went with SMU, he has a thing for Larry Brown.

While I went with the Big Blue Nation capping a perfect season. 

What a week

The last 10 days have been a theater of the absurd for the Philadelphia Eagles. Maclin and McCoy are both gone. Now Murray and Matthews are birds. The best part of the week has been the classic front and back pages turned out by the Philly Daily News. Here is a look back at them including a shot at the governor of New Jersey and Cowboys fan Chris Christie.  

Could NXT house shows spell the end for ROH

Last weekend NXT took their indy inspired show on the road for the first time.

The developmental arm of the WWE held shows in Cleveland and Columbus as part of the Arnold Sports Festival. The shows were greeted with much fan fare and seemed to be hit. 

For years Ring of Honor has been the standard in traveling independent wrestling shows. Over the years the their roster has been filled with current WWE superstars. 

Over the last couple of years, the WWE has signed many of ROH stars from Kevin Steen to Sami Zayn and weakened ROH's product.  With the loss of talent in ROH and NXT continued growth, things could be changing. 

With NXT now starting to go on the road this could have a huge impact on ROH. Would you rather see a watered down ROH product or a high tempo NXT show. 

While I'm not saying that it will put ROH out of business it could impact their shows and their bottom line. If ROH's bottom line drops then their ability to bring in stars will suffer. It's something to watch out for the next year. 

Chippa

Chip Kelly moves have given the Philly Daily News tons headlines idea and  I say is not different. 

This is sums up being a fan perfectly

Today the New York Times did a great profile on Borussia Dortmund difficult season in Germany. In the story a season ticket holder summed up being a fan perfectly.

“It is like my girlfriend,” said Jan-Henrik Gruszecki, a longtime season-ticket holder. “I have a big fight with her; I am disappointed with her; I am gutted by her. But then, always, I realize that I love her and I want to be with her and I can’t imagine anything else.”

No words have been truer about being a fan,  no matter what the sport. 

A different type of Bird

Chip Kellys has wasted no time flexing his newly found player personal power. The Eagles traded Shady McCoy to the Bills yesterday and here is how the Philly Daily News covered it.

Professional Tailgating: Tanking

I've never watched tanking live before bit last night I did as the Sixers took on the Wizards. Too bad th sixers forgot they are supposed to be tanking and beat the Wizards.

I actually saw the Sixers win. 

That was a rough watch

I knew WWE Fast Lane could be a hard watch but I never thought it would be this bad. 

The event being sold as a PPV was no better than an episode of Raw/ old WCW Clash of the Champions. Besides tag title match and Reigns/Bryan match most of the matches on the first two hours of the card lacked a ton. These type of shows usually have the crowd into them but the crowd in Memphis was totally dead. 

The best part of the show has been the spots that weren't matches. The Sting/HHH showdown and the Bray Wyatt segment challenging the Undertaker where the best parts of the show. Each developed a WrestleMania match without having it yet. 

As for the final stop before WrestleMania it was more like a rest stop for broken down vehicles. 

The mad scientist

So Sixers GM Sam Hinkie decided to deal Michael Carter Williams on trade deadline day. While it will take years to know if the deal was right, it did provide us all with something special. The Philadelphia Daily News gave us this classic front page. The graphics design team at the Daily News deserves a ton of credit. 

The most important class ever

Since the start of the season, the 2015 Rutgers recruiting class has seen like a salad before a dinner at a fancy restaurant. While the salad is tasty it's not the main course you are looking for.

While the 2015 group is an interesting class it's not the main course. The 2016 class is the most important class in the history of the program plain and simple. The state is overflowing with national recruits and Rutgers has to get a bunch of them to be successful in the Big Ten. 

Fans are so obsessed with the Class of 2016 that web sites have been developed urging the states most talented players to play on the banks. Fans of taken to Twitter and created works of social media art  to urge the states best to stay home. 

The Rivals 250 for the 2016 class features 10 players from the Garden State. The top 10 players in the state have 4-star rankings. The states top 10 is comprised of five guys from private school and five from public schools. 

While fans are infatuated with the likes of Walker and Gray, the key to this class for the Scarlet Knights will be that next tier guy like: Johnson, Hawkins and Fuller (pictured below). 

If Rutgers can get five of the top ten in the state as well as either Guarantano or Haskins to play qb. This class would be a huge success and go down as one of the great classes in the history of the program. 

Professional Tailgating: You have to make shots.

Purdue took Rutgers to the cleaners last night and one of the reasons why is because Rutgers went 11 minutes without making a field goal. Even Sgt. Slaughter showed up at the game. 

Maybe I was wrong on Owens and Zayn

Last night, I made NXT Takeover on the WWE Network appointment television. I told my wife to leave me alone so I could  focus all of my attention on watching how Owens and Zayn played out.

A couple of months ago, I expressed my concern about having Owens and Zayn feud again. During their time in ROH and PWG the duo put on one of the great feuds in the modern day era. The feud had everything from blood, over the top violence and psychological warfare. I never thought the WWE would let them take it to that level.

Last night, the pair had their first match in the new incarnation  of their fued and boy did they not disappoint. While lacking the over the top violence that their prior matches had, this told a great story and left both looking good for the future. They booked Owens as this monster similar to Brock and Zayn in a more sympathetic role similar to Daniel Bryan.

While the pair didn't take it to that level of violence,they did play out a high impact match. Zayn sold Owens multiple power bombs so well and the having the ref stop the match makes both look strong in future bookings of the match. Maybe they could let Owens and Zayn kick off WrestleMania this year in a ladder match.

After the match was over, I decided to put on Final Battle 2012 Ladder War match between Owens and Zayn. While it was very violent and entertaining it got me to thinking. The guys in the ring, while being the same, where totally different. The true measure of the true talents of the pair is how they made the same feud look totally different.

Maybe I was wrong about this and Zayn vs. Owens will rival Steen vs. El Generico.

ESPN Fail

I know ESPN does the best they can but can you at least get the right logo for Loyola Marymount and not confuse them with Loyola in Baltimore. Is that too much to ask.

Baseball season is coming

Went to the mailbox this afternoon and found this. It's always a highlight of year.

RIP Dean

Dean Smith was the reason I fell in love with North Carolina Basketball. He was the God father. I'm just happy I've been able to read about his life over the years. 

Never Forget

So the Popeyes Bahamas Bowls was one of the best bowl games of the year. The game featured a classic comeback from Central Michigan that fell short against Western Kentucky. The game was played more than a month and a half ago and Popeyes is still giving out stuff promoting the game. Come on enough is enough. 

NSD in Twitter

The hats are chosen and the NLI have been signed. Here are some of the best tweets highlighting another wild National Signing Day.