(07-04-2018 08:13 AM)billthebighawksfan Wrote:  He really had good stuff and emerged late in his junior year.

Funny story...we were at a pool in NW Raleigh discussing NCAA baseball action and the LSU game from the night before was brought up. UNCW lost a really close low scoring game in the Regional final. A lady overheard our discussion and announced that her son, Evan, pitched that game that basically shut down LSU for the most part. She mentioned that he really loved baseball from an early age and hinted that he wasn't likely coming back for his senior year. I wasn't surprised by that at the time, but then again he didn't go high like many of the other UNCW pitchers probably due to previous control issues so I wasn't sure. She was a nice person. It was such a coincidence that I'd imagine the odds of that happening are on par with getting struck by a lightening bolt or something like that.

Round 17 is pretty high in my book. For comparison sake, Seth Frankoff, who of course also reached the bigs, was taken in the 27th round.

And it wasn't quite a lightning bolt scenario either. Phillips was a 33rd round pick out of HS, so the ability was always there and seen by the scouts. He just took nearly 3 years to buy into the system and put it all together. Once that happened, his stock skyrocketed.