MLB draft: Matt Fraizer, Grant Gambrell among promising area prospects, but appear headed to college

Clovis North outfielder Matt Fraizer and Buchanan pitcher/first baseball Grant Gambrell are Fresno County’s top high school prospect for the MLB draft that begins Thursday, but the chances they’ll sign professional contracts are slim because of their commitments to college.

Both are set on extending their immediate careers in the Pac-12 – Fraizer at Arizona and Gambrell at Oregon State.

“Right now we have in front of us a baseball scholarship to go to Arizona,” says Fraizer’s father, Terance Frazier (spells last name differently), who played four years professionally after signing with the Oakland A’s as a third baseman/outfielder out of Fresno State in 1992.

The father since has flourished in real estate.

“We’re business people so we’re going to look at anything,” the father says. “We have a scholarship from Arizona, and everything else (from pro organizations) has only been verbal. I’m in real estate and verbal means nothing to me.

“Matt wants to go to school. If somebody does something with him in the draft, of course we’ll consider our options.”

Fraizer closed his prep career with a line single off Gambrell in the seventh inning of Clovis North’s 4-0 loss to Buchanan for the Central Section Division I championship on May 31 at Rawhide Ballpark in Visalia.

It was the second hit of the game for Fraizer, a 6-foot-2, 195-pounder, who throws right and hits left. He batted .392 for the season against a high level of competition.

A pro scout who asked not to be named shared his book on Fraizer: “His body has come a long way, and strength is the separator for high school kids in the draft. Look at Spring Training and those are big bodies. Matt has put on good weight; he passes the eye ball test. He has a chance to go (in the draft), but I think he’ll go to Arizona first and become an exceptional player.”

Gambrell, a 6-4, 225-pound right-hander, checked out with a four-hitter and 10 strikeouts against Clovis North for 30-1 Buchanan, which is a virtual lock to finish top-ranked nationally by USA Today and CBS MaxPreps.

Gambrell, a National Player of the Year frontrunner by CBS MaxPreps, went 12-0 with an 0.69 ERA and also batted .363 with a .598 slugging percentage.

While Gambrell, like Fraizer, is strongly pointing to college, he’s still expected to be drafted between the fourth and eighth rounds.

This story was originally published June 8, 2016 at 7:00 PM with the headline "MLB draft: Matt Fraizer, Grant Gambrell among promising area prospects, but appear headed to college."