Uconn Draft

[mets1090]

Make of that what you will.

 

[dbmill]

Just a reminder. Tomorrow, July 17 at 5pm is the deadline for the Milwaukee Brewers to sign Max McDowell.

 

[mets1090]

Congrats to Max and the best of luck.

 

[Stainmaster]

A more secure catching situation would make me feel a lot better about next season, but I'm excited to see what Max does as a pro. He's earned it. Congrats.

 

[mets1090]

A more secure catching situation would make me feel a lot better about next season, but I'm excited to see what Max does as a pro. He's earned it. Congrats.

At this point all we can do is hope that the combination of the Avery Point transfer that red shirted this year and the CT all state catcher coming in is good enough. Given that our AP transfers tend to work out decently well, I'm feeling ok about it. The offense would look a heck of a lot better with Max coming back though. Such is life with talented players.

 

[Stainmaster]

At this point all we can do is hope that the combination of the Avery Point transfer that red shirted this year and the CT all state catcher coming in is good enough. Given that our AP transfers tend to work out decently well, I'm feeling ok about it. The offense would look a heck of a lot better with Max coming back though. Such is life with talented players.

Here's the book on LeFevre, at least from what I've heard (my old man ran into his mother, coincidentally my former 1st grade teacher, around town and passed this info on to me): Penders recruited him out of HS and told him that his defense was DI ready, but a) they had no room for another catcher on the roster and b) the bat needed a little work. Considering that he hit .309 with a .791 OPS in his last year at AP, I don't think he'll be a huge liability with the bat but we won't be getting anywhere close to the same amount of production as McDowell gave. He graduated from my high school and I believe he captained our hockey team his senior year, so it's good that he has leadership qualities.

However, I think that given LeFevre's lack of DI game experience prior to this season, we will see more of Susi off the bat than we typically do of true freshmen. Granted we have no idea how fall camp will play out, but as we saw last year Penders liked to put Davey behind the dish to give McDowell some rest, and we don't have that luxury anymore.

 

[dbmill]

Good luck to Max McDowell. Let's hope he proves to be a worthy and long lasting representative of the Huskies in the pros.

Losing McDowell is a blow, but I'm optimistic that UConn will have a reasonable catching situation with Susi and Lefevre manning the catcher spot, which is more than I can say about UConn's corner outfield positions (more on that state of affairs some other time). I like what I have read about Susi, it sounds like he could be quite a player. I'm also somewhat intrigued by the redshirt Lefevre for much the same reasons that Stairmaster and Mets1090 have discussed. I'm highly encouraged by the mention of the quality of his defense. The Avery Point connection never hurts. Lefevre had two very nice years with the bat as a Pointer, and he has been hitting around .300 in the Futures League this summer. I suspect Penders must have redshirted Lefevre with the idea that McDowell might be gone after the season.

We'll see what happens behind the plate, but it wouldn't surprise me if Susi and Lefevre end up sharing playing time at catcher. It would not be the first time that happened with a Penders team. Before Max McDowell arrived on the UConn baseball scene and took over the spot, Penders got a lot of mileage splitting the catching duties between Joe Pavone and Doug Elliott.