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Missouri Tigers: Five Baseball Players Heading to Major League Baseball

By Jesse Holt

Aug 11, 2016; Arlington, TX, USA; A general view of the MLB logo with Colorado Rockies batting gear on it during the game against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Park in Arlington. Colorado Rockies won 12-9. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
Aug 11, 2016; Arlington, TX, USA; A general view of the MLB logo with Colorado Rockies batting gear on it during the game against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Park in Arlington. Colorado Rockies won 12-9. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports /
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Tanner Houck will wear this logo soon enough as the first round pick of the Boston Red Sox. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Tanner Houck will wear this logo soon enough as the first round pick of the Boston Red Sox. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /

The Best of the Black and Gold

Of the quintet, Tanner Houck should undoubtedly be the best. Initially drafted by Toronto in the 12th round in 2014, Houck instead chose to spend the past three years with the Missouri Tigers.

This time around, Houck was drafted by the Boston Red Sox with the 24th overall pick in the draft. The selection also marks Mizzou’s seventh ever first round draft pick and the highest since Kyle Gibson in 2006.

According to the scouting reports, strengths for Houck include his hard, sinking fastball clocked up to 97 mph. He also tends to throw a lot of strikes and avoids walks. The biggest area for him to improve is with offspeed pitches, especially his change-up.

Per the Boston Herald and Boston’s vice president of amateur scouting, Mike Rikard, the Red Sox view Houck as a future part of their rotation.

"“We envision him in as a starter,” Rikard said. “And we have a bunch of scouts on our staff who have tremendous conviction that he’s going to end up as a starter.”"

It would be a great pick for the Sox if Houck ended up as a starter. In fact, some prognosticators are already comparing the righty to Max Scherzer. I do feel like that’s unneccessarily high praise given that Houck is still pretty raw.

Honestly, I think it’s more likely Houck finds a place in Boston’s bullpen than the starting rotation.

His final numbers for his Missouri Tigers career includes 17 wins, a 3.26 ERA, and 292 strikeouts. In addition to that, Houck also pitched three complete games over the past two seasons.

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