The CBB continues our countdown for the 2010 College Baseball season by checking in on the Top 100 Players in the country. We will be providing one player per day until we reach number 1.
We continue the list today with number 25 in our countdown with Virginia Tech outfielder/first baseman Austin Wates. He is from Richmond Virginia and attended St. Christopher’s high school. In his senior season, he had a .449 batting average with seven homers and 21 RBI. He earned all-prep, all-state, and all-metro honors as a senior.
Wates as a freshman played in 53 games including 51 starts while finishing second on the team with a .324 average, two homers, and 33 RBI. He also led the squad with 15 stolen bases in 20 attempts. He led the ACC with six triples on the year. He developed even more in his sophomore season as he had a .397 batting average with five homers and 42 RBI. He was a machine at scoring runs as he finished with 50 runs scored. He also was eighth in the ACC with 16 stolen bases in 17 attempts. 
Wates spent the summer of 2009 in the Cape Cod Baseball League with the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox as he played in 40 games. He had a .312 batting average while driving in 21 runs. He finished second on the team with 12 stolen bases. He was named to the 2009 Cape Cod All-Star game where he went 0-2. The Cape also named him to the All-League Team. Baseball America rated him the 15th best prospect in the Cape Cod Baseball League.
You can check out the rest of our Top 100 by clicking here.
I was fortunate to see Austin play quite a bit when he was in Seattle. IMO that he was one of the top prospects for his class, unfortunately scouts in the pacific NW tend to follow and not lead. Good to see him get is due, too bad he had to move across the country to do so, he should have a great shot of playing for a living somewhere. He is also a high character kid which will further is chances.