Chase Meyer’s return huge for WVU baseball team
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MORGANTOWN -- A day after West Virginia lost two key players -- pitcher Carlson Reed and outfielder Braden Barry -- to the Major League Baseball Draft, the Mountaineers were given a huge boost with the announcement that their top recruit, right-handed pitcher Chase Meyer, was going to stick to his commitment and bypass the draft.
"Morgantown I'm staying home!! Let's bring it home this year," he tweeted at 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
Meyer, a native of Canton, Georgia, but who played his prep career at Combine Academy outside Charlotte, N.C., was projected by some to go as high as the top 5 rounds but when he didn't hear his name in the first 10 rounds, he took to Twitter to say he was staying in Morgantown.
At 6-2, he is still developing as he weighs in at 175 pounds, but he can throw a mid-90s fastball, and has a changeup and slider that has been reported to hit as high as 3,300 rpm.
Over the weekend WVU had seen its closer Carlson Reed selected with the third pick of the fourth round by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
"Congrats to Carlson Reed! People have no idea how hard he has worked the past 3 years to make things happen. Very well deserved and I am very proud of him!" Coach Randy Mazey tweeted when the pick was made.
Reed was a project at WVU. At 6-4, 200 pounds, Reed has a major league frame, and with a fastball that hits 96 miles an hour, he has major league stuff.
Taming it was more difficult. Mazey used him as a starter earlier in his career but this year converted him to his closer and hit pay dirt.
"It's more just trusting my stuff more than I did in the past," Reed said after the transformation was made. "Most of the time I was worried about walking people if my stuff was good enough. Honestly, I just try to attack everybody and have a notion that I'm going to beat you."
It was more than a notion. He had major league stuff, a fact that was verified and sent his draft status soaring after displaying the four highest spin rates of any pitcher at the combine. He topped out at 2,719 rpms on his curveball while the MLB average is about 2,500 rpm.
Reed continues to be a project, as indicated in his scouting report on MLB.com.
"Ever since Reed arrived at West Virginia he's shown both an ability to miss a lot of bats and difficulty in finding the strike zone. With a longer arm action, Reed's biggest obstacle is his command, as he put up big walk rates everywhere, including as a starter in the Cape Cod League this summer."
At WVU, Reed pitched in 58 games, compiling a 4.98 ERA to go with a 6-7 career record. This year, he settled in out of the bullpen to a record of 2-1 with 7 saves and a 2.61 ERA, striking out 60 batters but walked 25 in 38 innings.
After Reed was picked in the eighth round, the Toronto Blue Jays grabbed center fielder Braden Barry with the 244th selection of the draft. Toronto used a first-round pick three years ago on right-handed pitcher Alek Manoah, who currently is struggling in the minor leagues following a sensational rookie season and then a solid performance in his second year.
Barry, a fleet center fielder, had been playing this summer with the West Virginia Black Bears.
In three years at WVU, Barry batted .282 with 24 home runs and 76 RBI.
The draft was to end Tuesday afternoon and any player drafted has until the end of July to decide if he will sign.