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By Matt Byrd
Tennessee Director of Scouting

Our fall and winter events, along with five weeks of the high school season, have afforded the PBR Tennessee staff the opportunity to evaluate many prospects in the 2017 class, and the time has come to release our initial player rankings for the class.

With half of their sophomore season and two full additional seasons of high school baseball remaining, these rankings will undoubtedly change and expand significantly as players continue to develop and we continue to go through the process of scouting, evaluating, and gathering information on prospects at our summer events around the state. For now, we have compiled our top 25 players in the 2017 class.

It should come as no surprise that Brandon Garland sits at the top of the class. The Unicoi County lefty was extremely impressive at our Preseason All-State Showcase in February and was recently announced as the No. 1 ranked overall 2017 prospect in the entire Prep Baseball Report coverage area. Garland’s fastball explodes from his hand easily and topped out at 91 mph at the event. He was an All-State selection last year as a freshman and racked up 91 strikeouts in 55 innings.

A pair of Vanderbilt commits occupy the No. 2 and 3 spots in the rankings in Hugh Fisher and Weston Bizzle.

Fisher is a 6-foot-4 lefty from Briarcrest Christian who made USA Baseball’s 15U National team last summer, pitching well at the World Cup in the team’s silver medal finish.

Bizzle is a transfer from Florida who is now attending Rossville Christian Academy. The 5-foot-10, 195-pound RHP has a fastball that consistently sits in the high-80’s to low 90’s.

Corbin Brooksbank checks in at No. 4. The RHP/OF put on a two-way show at our Preseason All-State Showcase in February with a fastball that topped at 91 mph and a hard 78-80 mph slider. Brooksbank also ran a 6.78 60-yard dash with an impressive round of batting practice that showed his power potential.

Hayden Leatherwood rounds out the top five. The outfielder has a smooth left-handed stroke with the potential to develop into a power bat at the next level.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE COMPLETE CLASS OF 2017 RANKINGS

Here is a look at the top 10.

Rank	Name	State	School	Class	Pos	Commitment
1	Brandon Garland	TN	Unicoi County	2017	LHP
2	Hugh Fisher	TN	Briarcrest Christian	2017	LHP	Vanderbilt
3	Weston Bizzle	TN	Rossville Christian Academy	2017	RHP	Vanderbilt
4	Corbin Brooksbank	TN	McCallie	2017	RHP
5	Hayden Leatherwood	TN	Briarcrest Christian	2017	OF
6	Nick Woods	TN	East Hamilton	2017	RHP
7	Riley Watkins	TN	Evangelical Christian	2017	SS
8	Mason Hickman	TN	Pope John Paul II	2017	RHP
9	David Bates	TN	Christ Presbyterian Academy	2017	RHP
10	Matt Young	TN	Maryville	2017	1B