Branden Kline is the pick

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On a crisp October night in 2007, the arc of Branden Kline's baseball career changed forever.
Firing a fastball that was already humming near 90 mph, the recent Thomas Johnson graduate was already one of the most dominant high school pitchers in Frederick County.

But a typical postgame conversation that night with Allen Haines, a Frederick resident and manager of the elite Mid-Atlantic Red Sox team Kline played for, paved the way for the 6-foot-3, 185-pound right-hander to become one of the hottest prospects in the country.

Haines suggested that Kline go see Mark Shives, one of the region's top pitching minds who coaches the baseball team at Clear Spring High School and does some light scouting work for the Kansas City Royals.

"I saw something in Branden and I didn't want him to injure his arm. I sent him up to Mark to make sure all of his mechanics were in order," Haines said.

"If you are throwing in the upper 80s, touching 90, you better be in good shape or you are going to hurt yourself."

Kline had never before worked with a pitching coach. So this was going to be a new experience that required some adjusting.

"I thought everything with my mechanics was fine," Kline said. "I was totally wrong."

After a few weeks of working with Shives, Kline had a new lease with his arm.

His fastball traveled into the low 90s on a more regular basis and he was firing his entire arsenal into the strike zone more consistently.

The improvement did not go unnoticed.

Professional scouts armed with notepads and radar guns were already trickling in to see Kline pitch. And when he hit 95 in a April 15 start against Hedgesville, W.Va., the flood gates opened.

Now Kline, 17, is considered by some scouting services to be the top overall pro prospect in Maryland.

This week, he has a chance to be the highest county baseball player ever taken in the Major League Baseball draft right out of high school.

***

Kline, who has already accepted a full scholarship to play at his dream school, the University of Virginia, will be watching within arm's length of his cell phone, on pins and needles.

"I never thought I would have this opportunity to be drafted out of high school," he said.

"It will be an exciting day in my life. I know that. My cell phone will probably be ringing a whole bunch that day. My cell phone bill might go up a little bit. My mom (Linda) might be on me."

***
"Are you kidding? He's like a pitching coach's dream come true," Shives said. "He's 6-3, 6-4 with long arms. He's got great aptitude. Whatever you tell him, you can see the wheels spinning in his head and he starts to put it to work."

Shives worked with Kline on dropping the point he releases the ball in his delivery, maintaining the proper balance in his motion and cleaning up his footwork.

"It's not like this kid was a project. He already had decent mechanics and a lot of arm strength. I just tried to get him to focus on one thing at a time," Shives said.

"When he released the ball, his hand was above where I wanted it to be. I also wanted to get the front of his body going more toward home plate. I was basically working with him on cutting the angle down between him and the hitter and getting his ball to go on a downward angle.

"Pitchers already have a built-in advantage because they are throwing off a mound that is 10 inches high. Then, you get somebody who is tall like Branden and his ball is coming toward a batter at a pretty awkward angle. You want to make the batter hit something on a different angle. That makes it harder for them to hit your pitch."

Once he started to master what Shives was telling him, Kline was taken aback by his improvement.

Now he was throwing his already good fastball with even more zip and consistency.

To accommodate the pitch, Kline's catcher at TJ, Matt Lawrence, opted to wear two batting gloves underneath his catching mit for additional protection.

"If you don't catch it right, it hurts your hand a lot," Lawrence said.

During this past high school season, Kline was close to untouchable.

In 41 innings for the Patriots, Kline (6-1) allowed only three earned runs and 16 hits. His 79 strikeouts led the county.

By the end of the season, he was performing before a regular audience of 20 to 25 professional scouts.

They'd hover around him while he warmed up in the bullpen, jotting notes periodically. Then, during the game, they'd gather in the seats behind home plate, aiming their radar guns toward each one of his pitches. After the game, they'd often ask to speak with him or his coach at TJ, Jim Foit.

"I like the attention, but sometimes it can be overwhelming," Kline said.

After the game at Hedgesville, a scout approached Kline and asked if he knew how fast he had thrown.

When Kline said no, the scout told him he had hit 95 on his gun.

Momentarily stunned, Kline simply replied, "Wow."

***

Through all of his dealings with professional scouts, Kline has made it well known that he is strongly leaning toward going to college.

"It's going to take a high pick and a lot of money. When I say a lot, it's probably going to take anywhere over $5 million (as a signing bonus)," he said.

"Anything under that, I will talk to my parents and everything about it, but, most likely, I'm going to school."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051002022.html

While Kline has indicated to scouts that he also wants to go to college, some teams likely still will pursue him because of his talent. His parents, Linda Kline and Gary Bowens, also would like to see their son attend Virginia.

"For me, growing up, I didn't have a chance to go to a university," Linda Kline said. "I would like for him to go to college and get a good education. Plus, he'll get more experience with baseball on a higher level. It wouldn't be going from high school to the minor leagues. That would be nerve-wracking. I never thought his playing ball would get this far."

The decision to possibly put off college is one Kline never anticipated having to make, even after his senior season started. That's not to say he wasn't a good player, because Kline often played against older competition and has spent the past two falls playing on a well-known travel team, the Mid-Atlantic Red Sox, which draws players from all over the East Coast and has sent 40 players to NCAA Division I programs the past two years, according to General Manager Allen Haines. But in the 10 years of the Red Sox, Kline could be the highest draft pick.

"I saw his potential, but I never thought he could do this," said Haines, noting that Kline threw in the low- to mid-80s when he invited Kline to join the Red Sox. "I saw a projectable kid with potential."

That's the same thing pro scouts see now. Although Haines set up Kline with a pitching coach for offseason workouts -- Clear Spring Coach Mark Shives, who played at Florida International -- scouts still consider Kline a raw talent, not a polished pitcher. They like his arm strength and velocity. While Kline is 6 feet 3 and 185 pounds, he is still growing. With proper nutrition and a dedicated weightlifting regimen, scouts envision him adding another 25 pounds, perhaps adding even more velocity to a fastball often in the low 90s that requires his catcher to wear two batting gloves for padding under his catcher's mitt.

It was after Kline hit 95 in a game at Hedgesville, W.Va., that things took off. A few scouts had started to trickle in to see Kline, but word of his performance against Hedgesville quickly made it through the tight-knit scouting community. For his next start against Tuscarora, about 25 scouts and a potential agent were on hand. Ditto his following start last week against North Carroll.

"In the fall I knew pro scouts would come out and look at our team, but I never thought I would be one of the guys they would be looking at to draft high," Kline said. "I got a couple questionnaires in the fall, but I didn't think anything about it. I figured they just wanted to know my info."

Now they want to know more. They will watch an inning or two from behind the plate, then move to a spot down the foul lines to get a different vantage point. From any angle, they've seen the emergence of a pitcher.

"Anybody can walk to the field now and see it. A year ago it was Virginia that had a pretty keen eye," Shives said. "There is still more in that arm. His breaking stuff is still maturing. He's learning how to pitch. That's what is so attractive. He is still raw on the mound. All of this stuff is new to him."