FSS alum Montgomery starts likely draft year off strong

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Mike Ashmore

March 6, 2024

There is both quantity and quality in this week’s New Balance Baseball Future Stars Series colege alumni update.

Perhaps there’s no better place to start than with Braden Montgomery, a 2020 Main Event standout as a two-way player. Having transferred to Texas A&M for his junior year, the former Stanford star has only made one appearance on the mound this year, with his future looking more and more like it’ll be at the plate as a likely top ten pick in the upcoming MLB Draft.

The six-foot-two, 220-pound junior has only helped his stock early this season, hitting six homers in his first 42 at-bats of the year, and is hitting a white-hot .429 thus far as a whole.

Blake Burke was originally set to play with Montgomery at that International Week event after his performance at the National Combine, but was a late scratch due to illness. The power he showed in Lake Charles still is very much so there today, if not even more so developed, and he continues to show that at The University of Tennessee. The six-foot-three, 236-pound slugger tied a career high with two homers against Bowling Green this past weekend, and has multi-hit games in three of his last four contests.

Burke is joined on the Vols by sophomore catcher Cannon Peebles, who has picked up where he left off after one of the best freshman seasons in the country last year. His last four games have all produced multiple hits, including at least one extra-base knock in each.

Parker Brosius, who earned Academic All-ACC honors in his freshman year, smacked his first collegiate homer this past weekend for Georgia Tech this past weekend in a loss against Georgia, and has been an on-base machine this season; he’s already drawn 11 walks in his first nine games.

Jonathan Santucci. Still really, really good. One of the later adds at the 2020 International Week event has lived up to the hype, but especially early on in his junior year as he continues to rocket up draft boards and rankings. He turned in a gem in latest outing for Duke, as the lefty needed just 82 to rack up a stunning 14 strikeouts in just six innings of scoreless work against Akron, allowing just one hit and two walks along the way. He’s yet to give up a run in his first 17 innings this season.

Another FSS veteran, Kansas redshirt junior Michael Brooks remains a legitimate Draft prospect himself. He found success right away with the Jayhawks after his UCF transfer, and has kept that going this year as well, delivering his first homer of the year on Sunday against Georgia Southern. He’s already come through with four multi-hit games in 2024, and has an impressive .479 OBP in his first 11 games.

University of Houston freshman Ace Reese has quickly emerged as a regular in the lineup right out of the gate, and is hitting .333 in 12 games, including two early season homers. Reese was an under-the-radar prospect at the time of the 2022 Main Event, but reached base four times in just seven plate appearances back at Fenway Park including an RBI single.

A transfer to the University of Alabama from Maryland, Ian Petrutz is a junior to watch. The New Jersey-born outfielder has already produced four multi-hit games for his new team, including one on February 24 against Valpo. He had a five-game hitting streak during that time; batting .450 (9-20) with a double, one homer, eight RBI, four runs, a walk and two hit-by-pitch between 2/23 and 3/1.

Alabama is seemingly loaded with FSS alums, with Zane Adams, Mac Guscette, Pierce George — who was reportedly touching 101 MPH opn the gun in his last outing — joining Petrutz there.

Mike Ashmore
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