Michael
Sinks

2014 All-Sunflower League - Second Team

8/6/14 - Sinks is a strong 5-foot-10, 185-pound right-hand hitting infielder.  At the plate showed a balanced set-up, inline stance, strides inline, fluid hand load, level bat path, bat speed, lower half works, maintains balance, finishes with extension.  Simple, easy, repeatable swing, middle-oppo approach.  89 exit velocity – top mark of middle infield group. 4.56 home to first base from the right side.  1-for-3 with a double in the game.  Moved well in the infield, quick feet, clean exchanges, three quarters throwing motion, arm works, 82 throwing velocity, all accurate throws.  Grades out well across the board.

6/3/14 - Class of 2015 SS Michael Sinks ran a 6.99 in the 60-yard dash, threw 82 mph across the diamond and tied Shinkle for the top hitter exit velocity mark at 89.

5/20/14 - Sinks is a 5-foor-11, 185-pound shortstop for Lawrence HS.  We’ve seen Sinks a number of times over the last several months and he has made steady progress throughout that time.  Sinks has always shown solid across the board skills and his feel for the game is advanced.  The one area of improvement that stood out on Tuesday was defensively at shortstop where he showed quicker hands and feet as well as a stronger arm – making a number of average and challenging plays with ease in a high-pressure state playoff game.  Earlier this spring he also showed improvement in his home-to-1B time running a 4.48 when we had a 4.63 from earlier in the fall.  In addition, on the mound he’s bumped up his top velocity to 83 from 81 in the fall.  At the plate he looks stronger with more bat speed and put together an All-Sunflower League performance hitting .373 with seven extra base hits, 15 RBI and 20 runs scored while stealing 11 bags in 11 attempts – all of this while hitting in the three-hole for a team that played a very tough schedule, in particular the Sunflower League slate, a league with no shortage of top shelf high school arms.  Looking over this spring’s stats one area Sinks could show improvement in is his 17:3 strikeout-to-walk ratio.  He is very aggressive in all phases of the game, including at the plate.  Combine this with the fact he hit in front of the dangerous left-hand hitting Drew Green and this explains the low walk total to some degree but the 17 strikeouts was the most on the Lawrence team – evening these numbers out going forward would serve Sinks well.  Having tracked his progress over the last several months and seeing upgrades in other areas, I would anticipate this happening.  Sinks’ feel for the game and competitiveness was also on display Tuesday, in addition to his performance at the plate and in the field, as he executed a well-timed double-play decoy on a fly ball preventing a runner from reaching third base – a key event in a very tight game.

10/19/13 - The 5-foot-11, 185-pound Sinks is a good baseball player, period.  On the mound he brings the position player approach: working fast, pumping strikes with a simple delivery and very little analysis – attack the zone, see what happens.  He has a quick arm and his pitches have some down angle to them.  His fastball was 79-81 mph and featured a 69-71 breaking ball with some depth.  Since strike-throwers who compete tend towin a lot of games, expect Sinks to do just that this spring.

10/19/13 - The 5-foot-11, 185-pound Sinks has a tall, balanced set up at the plate with a clean load and simple leg kick stride.  The right-handed hitting infielder/outfielder has excellent balance throughout his swing.  He has loose hands and is short to the ball and finishes with good extension - a simple, repeatable swing.  In game 2, he went 1-for-2 with a walk.  In the outfield he showed good hands and delivered accurate throws using long arm action (top velocity 80 mph).  In the infield his feet worked well and had solid infield actions and good enough arm (infield throwing velocity was 78 mph).  He ran a 4.63 home to 1B.  Sinks is a very solid all-around player that will do a lot of different things to help his team win games - including pumping strikes on the mound.