MLB makes for high stakes in Gator baseball recruiting

This time two years ago, Levon Washington was just a kid who loved baseball.

He was good, no doubt, but didn't see himself as anything special.

"I had fun playing," the recent Buchholz graduate said. "I never looked at it as much more than that."

Later that summer, Washington picked up his first scholarship offer, from Florida State. But it wasn't until a year later that it hit him he could be different than most of his friends.

"I never expected I could be drafted until the end of my junior year summer," Washington said. "I started realizing a few things then."

Among those was that Major League teams covet speed, and he had more of that than anyone in the history of high school baseball, aside from his friend, current Kansas City Royals farmhand Derrick Robinson.

Just prior to his senior year at P.K. Yonge, Robinson wowed scouts with a high-school record time of 6.19 seconds in the 60-yard dash. That helped propel him into the fourth round of the 2006 MLB draft, where he made the difficult decision to forego a football scholarship from Urban Meyer's Florida Gators to sign with the Royals.

Two summers later, Washington ran a 6.21 60 and suddenly, the kid who saw baseball as just a game to play for the enjoyment of it began to realize he might have a future on the diamond.

"That's when a lot of us really perked up and took notice," said one National League scout, whose team lists Washington as a center fielder and one of its 30 best prospects available. "You don't find those kind of wheels too often.

"Plus, he's someone that keeps getting better and better in other areas of the game, so you can tell his work ethic and ability to pick up things is there."

Meanwhile, Washington signed a national letter of intent with Kevin O'Sullivan's Gators and is part of a star-studded recruiting class that some experts have called among the best ever. That group includes eight of the nation's top 200 players.

However, in baseball, signing such classes brings a great risk in addition to potential College World Series rewards.

Including Washington (projected as a first- or second-round selection in Tuesday's draft), UF has signed 16 players. The top prizes are Fort Myers Bishop Verot infielder Bobby Borchering, whom The Sporting News called "the best high school hitter in the draft;" Jacksonville Eagle's View catcher Austin Maddox; Cape Coral Mariner catcher Michael Zunino; Port Charlotte left-handed pitcher David Holmberg; and Cocoa Beach lefty Brian Johnson. Most mock drafts list those players between first- and fourth-round selections with Borchering a near-lock to be drafted in the top 20 picks.

Current Gator pitcher Billy Bullock also carries a first-round grade on many draft boards.

Another highlight of the Gators' incoming class is perhaps the country's best-known senior — Tampa Mitchell's Patrick Schuster, who garnered national attention for throwing four consecutive no-hitters this season and raised his stock from being picked around the 40th round to potentially being drafted in the first 25 rounds.

Washington said he is planning on attending UF, where he has been told he would start out as a middle infielder but could move to the outfield if O'Sullivan deems that would be the 6-foot, 170-pound speedster's best opportunity for success.

He has worked out for the Tampa Bay Rays and spoken to at least one representative of every other team. Washington added his plans to attend college could change if the money offer is one he just can't turn down, but he conceded that part is "pretty much up to the teams, because I can't control how much they want to pay me."

Washington is almost giddy when discussing the possibility of the majority of O'Sullivan's class arriving on campus in the fall.

"If that happens, it's not going to be fair to our opponents," said Washington, who hit .388 with seven home runs as a senior. "That's the best recruiting class in the nation.

"Florida baseball is going to be on top."