Saturday, June 18, 2016

Meet a Prospect: Keith Skinner


The New York Yankees absolutely love taking talent in the draft out of Southern California and the state of California in general but every once in a while they take a local kid with a ton of talent and they did just that with their seventh round pick in this year’s draft. With their seventh round pick the Yankees took Jersey boy Keith Skinner, a catcher, with the pick and have almost immediately signed him to begin his professional career. Sounds like a great time to meet him. This is Meet a Prospect: The Keith Skinner Edition.

Skinner began his collegiate career in Fairfield, New Jersey before transferring to Seminole State for the 2014 season. Skinner spent a year there before spending his final two seasons at North Florida College. It may be because of all the bouncing around that Baseball America did not have Skinner ranked in their Top 500 list but it definitely wasn’t because of his stats. This season Skinner, a catcher by trade, batted .382/.466/.486 with 16 doubles and 40 RBI in his age 22 season.

Skinner is a big guy for a catcher standing 6’1” and 185 lbs. but scouts believe he could stick back there going forward. Skinner unfortunately has not been a big power guy which is evident by his triple slash but he has produced doubles power that could always translate into power later as he grows into his frame and his body. I remember when Robinson Cano could only hit 10-15 home runs a season and he grew into his frame later on as well to add power so there is no reason Skinner couldn’t either, not to compare the two players whatsoever.

All told the Yankees signed the seventh best hitter in the Atlantic Sun Conference at an absolute bargain thus giving them flexibility to get either Blake Rutherford and/or Nolan Martinez signed. Great news and a local guy, what’s not to like. Welcome to the team Keith and welcome to the Yankees family!


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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)