This past June the Reds selected Phillip Ervin out of Samford with their first round pick, 27th overall and paid him a signing bonus of just over $1.8M. Ervin didn’t disappoint at the plate as he hit .331/.425/.564 between Billings and Dayton in 200 combined plate appearances.
During the season I had a chance to watch Ervin play quite a bit on Milb.tv and got a chance to see him several times in person when he was in Dayton playing for the Dragons where I shot the video posted below. He was rather impressive at the plate, which you could probably tell by his stat line from above. With that said, there were a few concerns that showed up throughout the season in his game that are discussed below.
Scouting Report
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Hitting
Ervin hit for a high average this season and should continue to hit for a strong average. He has excellent plate discipline, and while he does seem to swing at pitches at the letters a little more than most do, his short and compact swing mixed in with good bat speed allows him to catch up to good fastballs at the letters. His short and compact swing is what will allow him to maintain good contact rates. He does have some pull tendencies, though he also stays up the middle well, which we can see by looking at his 2013 spray chart below. His hit tool is above-average and shouldn’t struggle to hit for average in his career.
Power
Ervin slugged .564 between the two stops and while his power dropped off quite a bit when he stepped up to Dayton, it was in a very small sample size. I am starting to feel like a broken record here, but his short and compact swing mixed with his bat speed will allow him to hit for solid power. During the 2013 season he showed off elite pull power, but only moderate power to center and below-average power to the opposite field. Small sample size alerts are abound with this of course, but it’s worth noting that of his 21 extra-base hits only one of them went to right field, while 16 of them went to the pull side. Ervin looks to me like he profiles as an average to slightly-above average power guy who could develop into 20-25 homers at the Major League level.
Speed
Coming out of the draft Ervin was described in some places as having plus speed, but that speed didn’t quite show up in his minor league debut. He suffered an ankle injury in the spring while at Samford and played through the injury, which may be why there were varying reports on his speed and with the Reds he wasn’t quite as fast as advertised. The fastest I had him from home to first was the 4.25 in the video below, which is ever so slightly above-average (4.3 is average for a right hander). I heard second hand that the Reds believe that he will be faster moving forward than he was this season, so that will be worth keeping an eye on next year, but for now all that I have to go on is that he has average speed until I see otherwise.
Fielding
As a professional, Ervin split time between center and right field. In center field he looked comfortable, got good breaks and showed off a good arm. In right field though he looked uncomfortable and seemed to have problems judging the ball at times. He showed more range in center than in right, though it was more about quicker breaks and better routes, likely due to having experience and being comfortable at the position. As noted above, Ervin didn’t show above-average speed in 2013 and if he doesn’t pick up a step moving forward he will probably wind up in right field rather than in center. Tools wise, he should profile as an above-average right fielder, though he will need experience at the position to learn to read the ball off of the bat better than he showed in his debut. If he picks up a step, as the Reds expect him to do, he profiles as an average center fielder.
Arm
You can see it in the video below, but Ervin has an above-average arm that will play just fine in either center or in right field depending on where he ends up on the defensive spectrum.
Other
While Ervin doesn’t have a single tool that really jumps off of the page at you, he has all 5-tools that are at least average with a few that are above-average and there aren’t many of those guys around. The team has said that they believe they can get him in better baseball shape, and while he is absolutely not out of shape, he does look like he is more in “football shape” than in baseball shape.
Overall
It is hard to argue that Ervin wasn’t one of the more impressive draft picks in terms of performance from the 2013 draft for all picks, not just the Reds, given just how well he hit. With that said, there were some questions when it came to parts of his game that weren’t related to his bat. His speed and defense both left some questions that need to be answered moving forward and will be a big part of just how valuable he can be. While he will certainly provide value at either position he could wind up at, center field will provide more value with his bat than right field would.
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Video