UPDATED RESEARCH - 2023 Draft Prospect - RHP - George Klassen

 

George Klassen 

RHP             Minnesota

2-27-23 - 2023 MLB Draft Preview: College players to watch -

George Klassen, RHP, Minnesota - If Carrigg is the most interesting position player, George Klassen is the most interesting pitcher in the country today. He hasn’t been seen much due to Tommy John in 2021 and briefly returning last year, but the reports on him over the summer and fall were excellent. Klassen has touched 102 MPH with his fastball and can get swings and misses with his curve and slider. In addition to his lack of college innings, he also has challenges with command and effort in his delivery - but reports from fall say that he has made real progress there. This will be a big year for him to prove what he can be, but the stuff is certainly going to get people’s attention whether or not he can be developed into a future starter.

2-19-23 - Milwaukee Journal -

George Klassen, RHP, Minnesota

A 2019 graduate of Port Washington, Klassen is a flamethrowing righthander who can work up to 100 mph on the mound with relative ease. Klassen has had his struggles in game settings (14.09 ERA in 11 games last year for the Gophers) but he is regarded as a top-100 prospect in this year’s MLB draft because of his immense arm talent.

2-6-23 -

https://www.prospectslive.com/prospects-live/2022/1/15/2023-mlb-draft-prospects-fx4td-92ll4 -

82 RHP

George Klassen

Minnesota

A lanky righty with a clean delivery and a quick arm. Klassen missed 2021 recovering from Tommy John Surgery, but has since begun running his fastball into triple digits. And it's a really easy, smooth 100 mph too. He mixes in a slider with good bite and a changeup for good measure, though both pitches lag behind the dominance of his fastball. The slider currently projects his best secondary moving forward, some throwing above average grades on it, though commanding the pitch will be a point of emphasis. The sheer arm talent alone could see Klassen's name called in the first 50 pick of the draft.

2-6-23 - Prospect Live - Top 100 Prospects -

82 RHP

George Klassen

Minnesota

A lanky righty with a clean delivery and a quick arm. Klassen missed 2021 recovering from Tommy John Surgery, but has since begun running his fastball into triple digits. And it's a really easy, smooth 100 mph too. He mixes in a slider with good bite and a changeup for good measure, though both pitches lag behind the dominance of his fastball. The slider currently projects his best secondary moving forward, some throwing above average grades on it, though commanding the pitch will be a point of emphasis. The sheer arm talent alone could see Klassen's name called in the first 50 pick of the draft.

 1-26-23 - George Klassen eager to pitch a full season

https://baseballprospectjournal.com/george-klassen-eager-to-pitch-a-full-season/?s=03

Klassen is a 6-foot-1, 180-pound right-handed pitcher who throws a four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, slider and changeup from a high three-quarters arm slot, quick arm and clean delivery. 

His fastball sat in the low-90s and touched the mid-90s as a senior in high school. Now, the pitch sits at 98 mph and consistently hits above 100 mph with ease. It’s an elite offering with arm-side run that generates a ton of swings and misses.

11-28-22 - 2023 MLB Draft: College Top 100 Prospects - https://d1baseball.com/prospects/2023-mlb-draft-college-top-100-prospects/ - 

64 George Klassen     RHP     Minnesota     Big Ten 

 

11-19-22 - 2023 MLB Draft: an early look at the Big Ten

http://dugoutedgebaseball.blogspot.com/2022/11/2023-mlb-draft-early-look-at-big-ten.html?m=1&s=03 

8. RHP George Klassen, Minnesota.

Bat: R. Throw: R. 6'2", 170 lbs. Born 1/26/2002. Hometown: Port Washington, WI.

2022: 0-2, 14.09 ERA, 2.61 WHIP, 8/14 K/BB in 7.2 innings.

Now this is a profile you don't see every day, as George Klassen exists on the opposite end of the spectrum from Jason Savacool. He missed his freshman season with Tommy John surgery, then stumbled to 7.2 extremely ineffective innings in 2022 as he walked or hit 42% of the hitters he faced. You read that correctly – that's fourteen walks and seven hit batsmen in 7.2 innings. He did go to the Northwoods League this summer and showed better with a 5.16 ERA and a 43/16 strikeout to walk ratio over 29.2 innings (good for a much better 12.4% walk rate), but the track record remains sparse. As you may have guessed, though, the stuff is off the charts. Klassen sits in the upper 90's with his fastball and has run it as high as 102, coming in with explosive life that puts it up there with fellow Golden Gopher righty Max Meyer for the best heater the conference has ever seen, at least if you ignore command. Klassen also adds a hard slider that can really fool hitters cheating on the heat, making for a deadly two pitch mix if he can stay ahead in the count. To this point, though, that hasn't been the case. The 6'2" righty has a very long arm path with a violent head whack that makes it extremely difficult to repeat his release point, giving him bottom of the scale command on his worst days and still well below average on his best. As he gets further from that surgery, he'll hope to smooth out the delivery a little bit and it looks like he has begun to, but it's a pure relief look unless something drastic changes. If he can get to even 40 grade command, though, that fastball/slider combination could become diabolical out of the bullpen and he could be on his way to a high leverage relief role. I'm not confident he can make that happen, but the stuff is so loud that once the third round or so rolls around, it might be time to start thinking about rolling the dice.

 

10-27-22 - https://gophersports.com/news/2022/10/27/baseball-four-gophers-named-northwoods-league-top-mlb-prospects - 

RHP George Klassen, a Port Washington, Wis., native, missed the entire 2021 season due to Tommy-John surgery before making his Gophers debut in 2022. The former Perfect Game All-American showed premium velocity this summer, reaching triple digits with regularity with multiple recordings of 102 mph, while showing a sharp, bat-misser of a slider in the mid- to upper-80s. The quality of his stuff and the potential he has to miss a ton of bats out of a big league bullpen, at the very least, make him the top prospect in the league from the 2022 season. He's coming off a 2022 season in which he made 11 appearances, striking out eight in 7.2 innings pitched.   

 

All the 2023 Draft Prospects in the Mack’s Mets database can be viewed by going to www.macksmets.blogspot.com and clicking on 2023 DRAFT PROSPECT DATABASE found on the top, left of the front page of the site. 11-28-22 - 2023 MLB Draft: College Top 100 Prospects - https://d1baseball.com/prospects/2023-mlb-draft-college-top-100-prospects/ - 

64 George Klassen     RHP     Minnesota     Big Ten 

 

11-19-22 - 2023 MLB Draft: an early look at the Big Ten

http://dugoutedgebaseball.blogspot.com/2022/11/2023-mlb-draft-early-look-at-big-ten.html?m=1&s=03 

8. RHP George Klassen, Minnesota.

Bat: R. Throw: R. 6'2", 170 lbs. Born 1/26/2002. Hometown: Port Washington, WI.

2022: 0-2, 14.09 ERA, 2.61 WHIP, 8/14 K/BB in 7.2 innings.

Now this is a profile you don't see every day, as George Klassen exists on the opposite end of the spectrum from Jason Savacool. He missed his freshman season with Tommy John surgery, then stumbled to 7.2 extremely ineffective innings in 2022 as he walked or hit 42% of the hitters he faced. You read that correctly – that's fourteen walks and seven hit batsmen in 7.2 innings. He did go to the Northwoods League this summer and showed better with a 5.16 ERA and a 43/16 strikeout to walk ratio over 29.2 innings (good for a much better 12.4% walk rate), but the track record remains sparse. As you may have guessed, though, the stuff is off the charts. Klassen sits in the upper 90's with his fastball and has run it as high as 102, coming in with explosive life that puts it up there with fellow Golden Gopher righty Max Meyer for the best heater the conference has ever seen, at least if you ignore command. Klassen also adds a hard slider that can really fool hitters cheating on the heat, making for a deadly two pitch mix if he can stay ahead in the count. To this point, though, that hasn't been the case. The 6'2" righty has a very long arm path with a violent head whack that makes it extremely difficult to repeat his release point, giving him bottom of the scale command on his worst days and still well below average on his best. As he gets further from that surgery, he'll hope to smooth out the delivery a little bit and it looks like he has begun to, but it's a pure relief look unless something drastic changes. If he can get to even 40 grade command, though, that fastball/slider combination could become diabolical out of the bullpen and he could be on his way to a high leverage relief role. I'm not confident he can make that happen, but the stuff is so loud that once the third round or so rolls around, it might be time to start thinking about rolling the dice.

 

10-27-22 - https://gophersports.com/news/2022/10/27/baseball-four-gophers-named-northwoods-league-top-mlb-prospects - 

RHP George Klassen, a Port Washington, Wis., native, missed the entire 2021 season due to Tommy-John surgery before making his Gophers debut in 2022. The former Perfect Game All-American showed premium velocity this summer, reaching triple digits with regularity with multiple recordings of 102 mph, while showing a sharp, bat-misser of a slider in the mid- to upper-80s. The quality of his stuff and the potential he has to miss a ton of bats out of a big league bullpen, at the very least, make him the top prospect in the league from the 2022 season. He's coming off a 2022 season in which he made 11 appearances, striking out eight in 7.2 innings pitched.   

 

All the 2023 Draft Prospects in the Mack’s Mets database can be viewed by going to www.macksmets.blogspot.com and clicking on 2023 DRAFT PROSPECT DATABASE found on the top, left of the front page of the site.