Draft Prospects You Should Know: Trey Faltine

When you have the No. 3 overall pick, it’s never too soon to take a quick peek into this year’s MLB draft. This year’s draft class is loaded with excellent hitting prospects, but is relatively weak on the pitching side.

Draft Prospects You Should Know is a new series that features prospects who the White Sox could pursue in this year’s draft. As the June draft nears, we’ll return to many of these athletes and provide updates on whether their stocks are rising (or falling).

Age listed as of Day One of the Draft (June 3).

Trey Faltine
William B. Travis H.S. (Richmond, Texas)
Shortstop
Age 18
Bats Right
Throws Right

Rankings

Baseball America 100
MLB N/A
FanGraphs N/A

Trey, whose given name is Sanson Faltine III (hence the Trey), is athleticism and versatility personified. Because he still needs more work offensively and still can’t be pinned down to just one or two positions, he’s not ranked as highly as he probably should be. Faltine can play almost any position on the diamond, including shortstop, third base, outfield and pitcher.

His pro future is likely as a position player, though he throws in the upper 80s off the mound with a high spin-rate fastball (2,700-2,800 rpm) and a 72-78 mph curveball that has some promise, according to Baseball America. Faltine is extremely athletic — he also plays football and basketball — and shows impressive body control in the infield and outfield, having made a highlight-reel, diving catch at the Area Code Games last summer. He’s not polished at any specific defensive position just yet, but he has the tools to impact the game in a number of ways with a quick bat and line-drive oriented swing out of the right-handed batter’s box.

Faltine, at 6´3´ and 200 pounds, has quite the projectable build. He recently ran the 60-yard-dash in an exemplary 6.53 seconds, has very athletic actions in the middle infield with soft hands out front and plenty of arm strength across the diamond, is light on his feet and very balanced. Faltine, as he still needs to add polish to his game, has a medium floor due to the versatility and speed he provides; however, if everything comes together, he has an extremely high upside. Skillwise, Faltine reminds me a lot of Tim Anderson and is verbally committed to the Texas Longhorns. The White Sox could do far worse than select Faltine in the third or fourth round.

Here’s a small sample at-bat of Faltine’s, taken last March:

And hey, why not, here’s him pitching:

In place of the long list of Draft Prospects You Should Know with story links that usually resides here, just click the “Draft Prospects You Should Know” on our page, below the main stories, to access a list of every player so far profiled.