BREAKING: Houston Astros Select RHP Jayson Schroeder with 2nd Round Pick in 2018 MLB Draft

Jumping on some helium, Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow, Assistant GM Mike Elias, and their team in the Astros War Room have selected 6’ - 2” tall, 205 pound right-handed pitcher Jayson Schroeder out of Juanita High School in Kirkland, Washington.

A very physical three-sport star from a cold weather climate, Schroeder was ranked in the top 100 prospects both by Baseball America (72nd overall ranking) and by MLB.com (98th overall ranking) and has consistently been sitting in the 92-93 mile per hour range on his fastball with good power and sink from a high ³⁄₄ arm slot and projection for additional velocity as he ages. In addition to the fastball, he has good depth and a consistent shape with high spin rates on a curve and a developing slider. Baseball America considers his secondary offerings to be a bit fringe currently, though it is believed that his arm slot and feel for spin (surely an attractive quality from the spin-happy Astros’ perspective) will lend itself well to a power slider as he matures.

Whether he can start or will end up a high velocity reliever will depend largely on his ability to develop a third pitch. His stuff has absolutely dominated at his level in Washington, as he struck out 110 batters (against only 19 walks) in just 60.1 innings pitched with even fewer earned runs allowed (13) than his stingy walks total.

When it comes to signability, most players taken in this range are going to sign, and there’s no reason not to expect Schroeder to forego his commitment to Washington University in order to sign at or near his allotted slot bonus of $965.3 K to join the ranks of professional baseball players with the defending World Champions.

For your viewing pleasure, please visit this page for a good look at his pitching repertoire in a bullpen session (video not available for embed here) and please feel free to check out this in-game video courtesy of YouTube:

Here’s a tweet with some video (taken from this post, which also has quite a bit of good info about Jayson...go give the author a follow!) of Jayson at work: