The CBB continues our countdown to the 2009 College Baseball season with our Top 50 players to watch. We will be providing one player each day (Monday-Saturday) until we reach number 1.
We continue our list with sophomore shortstop D.J. LeMahieu from Louisiana State University. He is from Bloomfield Hills Michigan where he attended Brother Rice High School where he picked up High School All-American honors from Louisville Slugger and Rawlings. He ended up being named the 2006 and 2007 Player of the Year for the state of Michigan by both Gatorade and Louisville Slugger. The Detroit Tigers ended up picking LeMahieu out of High School in the 41st round but he decided to head down to Baton Rouge to play for Paul Mainieri.
D.J. stepped right into the everyday lineup for the LSU Tigers in 2008 playing in 68 games with 67 starts. He finished third on the team with a .327 average. He also had six homers and 44 RBI on the year. He was solid on the base paths where he had ten stolen bases in eleven attempts. He struggled in his freshman campaign committing 22 errors for a fielding percentage of .933.
He spent the summer with the Harwich Mariners of the Cape Cod League where he finished the year with a .290 average with one homer and 13 RBI. He was selected to the CCBL All-Star game that took place on July 26th where he went 1-2 with a run scored. (We attended the game and you can read our full report by clicking here.) Baseball America rated him the sixth best prospect in the CCBL which seems about right to me.
You can check out the full top 50 by clicking here.
8 comments
I would have to put LeMahieu a bit higher, maybe somewhere in the top 20.
He has a good glove and some developing power. Im looking for a nice year from him.
LeMahieu is a terrific, young player, but last year he ranked as the #3 Freshman SS in the country and, at least offensively, was significantly behind both Rick Hague of Rice (who played the final third of the ’08 season with a bum shoulder, requiring surgery over the Summer) and the kid from Georgia
Tech (Freidrichs?).
Walt,
I think you mean Derek Dietrich of Georgia Tech.
The biggest issue with Dietrich from my point of view and other people in the industry is that he has some defensive weaknesses which will drop him in the 2010 MLB Draft or will be moved to an outfield position at the next level.
Brian, re. Dietrich, I agree with you 100%. Personally, I think he’s a bit overrated, as I always question the power numbers produced by GT players. Having said that, he had a heck of a Freshman season, especially given very little other support in the lineup.
I definitely think LeMahieu is the second best SS to Grant Green this year.
Hague could be a sleeper
oh, and by the way, i look at things through a more MLB draft oriented approach, so i may be different than some of you guys purely because of that. LeMahieu is draft elligible.
I don’t think it is a debate that LeMaheieu is the second best SS in the nation.
DJ will play 2nd base professionally. He doesn’t quite have the arm to play ss and in fact he has been moved to 2nd base at LSU to allow a better defensive ss to play.
When he is hitting well and that has been the entire time he has been at LSU he hits line drives to the power alleys.
I’ve watched him play nearly 90 games and LSU and it has been a pleasure.
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