By Willie Nicklaus
The highly regarded Class of 2007 was touted as one of the best in recent years by the scouting community, major baseball publications, and all experts alike. Those that opted for college baseball are making the impact predicted by many, including our own Brian Foley, the head man here at the College Baseball Blog. We previewed the position players last week and that article is available by clicking here.

This seems like a good time to take a look at how the pitchers who were mentioned as the best of the newcomers before the 2008 season started are doing. It is possible, maybe probable that the players listed below may include the 2008 Freshman of the Year as well as All-Americans to be.

The stats below incorporate the usual measuring sticks when it comes to comparing pitchers.

Below are the stats for 2008 newcomers whose names are becoming more known each day in the world of college baseball and also some names not mentioned much, if at all in the pre-season.

PLAYER	COLLEGE	IP	WINS	ERA	K/BB
HERNANDEZ	MIAMI (FL)	52.0	5	2.77	55/11
MORGADO	TENN	50.1	4	3.04	67/23
BLAIR	SAN DIEGO	48.2	4	4.99	66/25
MCGUIRE	GA.TECH	46.2	6	3.28	37/21
MILLER	CAL	41.2	5	0.86	43/18
POMERANZ	MISS	38.0	3	1.89	46/12
HARVEY	UNC	32.1	5	2.51	38/20
PEAVEY	OREGON ST.	20.2	1	6.53	18/10
STRIZ	UNC	19.0	1	0.95	23/10
DANIELI	NOTRE DAME	14.1	0	7.53	7/9
STATS AS OF 4/17/08

Most of the time, freshman pitchers are eased into their roles while developing and getting used to the college game. Some of these top pitchers are doing much more than that.

More freshman pitchers to keep a watch for are Shane Davis-Canisius, Seth Maness-ECU, Kolbrin Vitek-Ball St., Brandon Workman-Texas

Tags: ACC, Big East, Cal, CBB Column, GT, Miami (FL), Notre Dame, Ole Miss, Oregon State, Pac 10, SEC, Tennessee, UNC, University of San Diego, West Coast Conference

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under ACC, Big East, CBB Column, Pac 10, SEC, West Coast Conference.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.