With the 29th pick of the first round, the Los Angeles Dodgers chose lefty pitcher Maddux Bruns as their first selection in the 2021 MLB draft on Sunday night in Denver.
This is the second consecutive year the Dodgers chose a pitcher with their opening pick. Last year, Los Angeles selected righty hurler Bobby Miller out of Louisville in the first round.
The 19-year-old Bruns has committed verbally to the 2021 NCAA Champion Mississippi State, so it remains to be seen what path he decides to choose. Should he indeed elect to attend college, Bruns won’t eligible for the draft again until after his sophomore year in 2023.
Bruns was the third left-handed pitcher selected in the first round of this year’s draft and the second high school lefty.
Bruns attended high school at UMS-Wright Prep in Mobile, AL. He went 7-0 last season with a 0.86 ERA. He allowed just 13 hits and six earned runs in 49 innings pitched over 10 starts, striking out a whopping 102 batters while walking 19. He recorded two shutouts, one of which was a perfect game. Bruns was named the Class 5A Pitcher and Player of the Year by the Alabama Sports Writers Association.
Bruns was also named Alabama’s Gatorade High School Player of the Year last year and was named to three Perfect Game Preseason All-American Teams in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Some scouting reports show the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Bruns’ heater topping out as high as 98 MPH. He also uses a slider, a curve, and a change, although many scouts feel that command is his biggest weakness.
Here’s a video of Bruns throwing at the Area Code Games last summer in Georgia:
According to Perfect Game’s scouting report, “Bruns has a compact arm action in back with a tight 3/4’s arm slot, fast arm coming through, stays balanced and above the rubber well from a high leg lift delivery, can get more drive out of his lower half, short stride out front. Raw stuff has jumped since last seen in October, fastball topped out at 97 mph and was consistently in the mid-90’s, works his fastball to both sides of the plate with heavy life down in the zone, flashes bat breaking late life. Has tight spin on a slow curveball, will slow his arm at times on the pitch, also cuts his fastball effectively and has definite slider potential. Showed feel for his change up.”
Day 2 of the Draft kicks off on Monday at 1 p.m. ET with the start of the second round and will continue through the completion of Round 10. Coverage will be provided by MLB.com.
Saw some video of him at True Blue and it appeared he couldn’t find the strike zone. Must have been a bad day, or he was just so overwhelming he had high school kids chasing. A lot of work to do with him, and he could decide to go to Mississippi State, but I have a feeling he will sign.
Says he’s a big Kershaw fan. All it should take is a call from Clayton to seal the deal.
Also, based on the photo at the top of the page, it appears his team was named after Orel Hershiser. Another reason to sign.
I’m going to guess he’ll sign for about 10% under slot.
Since AF has relatively little money to spend this year, and even less because of the second round pick they lost by signing Bauer, I expect them to play some games with their picks and how they spend their money. Let’s see how it all plays out.
Isn’t everybody a big Kershaw fan? 🙂
Never heard of him.
Me either. I don’t remember seeing his name anywhere in pre draft speculations. 48th rated prospect by BR.
Since there have been some comments from Bruns about being a Kershaw fan, I was trying to go back and find out what people were saying about Clayton’s pitch mix the day he was drafted. Couldn’t find anything on that but did come across an interesting read which details exactly how we managed to draft him in the first place. This story was from 2016, ten years after we drafted him.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2642794-how-prep-phenom-clayton-kershaw-became-an-la-dodger-10-years-ago
I thought they were going to take Madden when he dropped into their laps, but not to be,
Lots of people agreed with you. It’ll be interesting to see which of those choices turns out to be the better one.
Yeah, I will watch some of the draft today, but not until they start the 3rd round.
You can wait until right at the end of the 3rd round. 🙂
They picked all pitchers…..that kind of surprised me. Your evaluation of those guys??????
I like the video and comments I’ve seen on Heubeck (3rd round) and Sublette (7th round), but I definitely don’t consider myself an expert on this kind of stuff.
More of an expert than I am…..
I admit I thought it would be Madden. But allegedly they had Bruns picked out early, and obviously rated him better. Maybe they are targeting ’24. Three dimensional thinking. I’m not sure I know what that is, but I bet Friedman does.