Gophers add California Pitcher

JohnnyGopher

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From Thursday's Sid column,

An outstanding pitcher from San Diego named Alexander Robert Tukey has decided to commit to Minnesota, where both his mother and father went to school. His sister, Val Engler, is swimming coach at Eden Prairie High School.
 

I did a little digging(google) and found some interesting stuff on this kid. Looks like alot of potential but Sid, as usual, jumped the gun on calling him an outstanding pitcher.

Here's the school website with alot of good information
http://www.eteamz.com/tpfalcons/news/index.cfm?cat=456215

Most references I could find, he goes by Alex Tukey and pitches for Torrey Pines High School in San Diego. He is listed at 6-4, 165.

Sounds like kind of a late bloomer, which might explain how he flew under the radar and ended up here. Looks like he spent most of his junior season on JV, pitching 2 innings on varisty.

Here's a clip from an article on April 1,

Wednesday, he was in right field as senior Alex Tukey made his first start of the season.

Tukey, who had been battling pneumonia and had thrown just one inning all season, used a fastball clocked at 90-91 mph to strike out eight in four innings. Swanson allowed just one hit over the final three innings. DeNato believes Tukey's performance could give the Falcons the opportunity to challenge for the Avocado League title and a CIF crown.

"He was on JV last year," DeNato said. "He has improved so much. And the way he battled today really makes me proud of him.

His senior stats we're OK

2-3 with 1 save 6.00 E.R.A.

15 appearances, 2 starts

23.1 innings pitched
27 strikeouts
17 walks
35 hits
20 earned runs
.354 opponents BA

From reading these articels and looking at box scores, sounds like he has the size and 90+ velocity with potential room to grow and add a few more mph and his coach mentions several times how much he has improved in the past year so he may be a late developer. No idea what else he throws. His stats aren't great but if he was battling pneumonia, he probably hasn't been at full strength all year. Sounds like a Josh Oslin type pitcher. He pitched in half of his teams games so maybe a potential replacement for maytas or redshirt him and try to make him a starter. We really have nothing to lose signing him so why not, maybe it works, maybe not.
 

When I read Sid's blurb, I was reminded of the old line..."An expert is an idiot a long way from home."

In this case I wondered if maybe a great prospect was an average prospect a long way from Minnesota.:)

I'm not one to knock Sid, I've read him since I was a kid in the the early 60's, but these days I take lots of what he writes with a grain of salt.
 




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