#2 Hitting Season in the Valley: Luke Greinke

Here comes the first potentially controversial choice of my countdown- #2. Really, I could have listed a #1 and #1a, but I thought that I might as well stick my neck out, so to speak, and make a choice.

Luke had a monster year for Winchester, as evidenced by all the postseason awards. He was named Most Valuable Player, All-League as a utility player, the #1 prospect in both Baseball America and PG Crosschecker, and even had his mug grace the pages of Sports Illustrated.  That's some serious hardware.

Greinke's stats show why. He hit 417/517/642 in 120 at-bats for the Royals, with 25 runs, 50 hits, 12 doubles, 5 home runs, 32 RBIs, a 26/20 BB/K ratio, and 5 stolen bases.  He finished first in the league in batting average, first in on-base percentage, first in slugging percentage, fifth in total bases, tied for seventh in hits, and tied for fourth in RBIs.  Wow.

Luke is preparing for his junior season at Auburn. He hit 286/347/321 in his freshman year, and followed with a 314/400/357 sophomore season. He hit one home run each year, but he made a swing adjustment this summer, and hit five home runs with wood bats. I am very interested to see how he might hit with the combination of his new swing and aluminum bats; we may see Luke drafted pretty high next June!