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Will Vance Honeycutt strike gold or just silver in the MLB Draft?
The all-everything star of the Diamond Heels has most things going for himself as a future major leaguer. He is a great athlete and all-around baseball player, the ACC’s Defensive Player of the Year his last two seasons, hits for average, is a home-run slugger and steals bases. He has most of it all.
Honeycutt’s one problem he strikes out too much. So did Babe Ruth, but the Bambino played long before analytics showed up in the game. There is something called a “chase rate” for swinging at bad pitches or just swinging and missing. He struck out 83 times in 62 games last season, a rate of 27.5 percent when 20 percent is the baseline for most pro scouts and teams.
Honeycutt broke UNC’s season record for home runs (28) and leaves Chapel Hill as the school’s all-time home run king (65). He hit .318, drove in 70 runs and had 28 stolen bases. But he fanned more as a junior than he did as a freshman, the sole reason Vance has been all over the mock draft boards from mid to late first-round with ESPN’s latest as an early second-round pick.
Now, that isn’t a big deal when it comes to signing rookie contracts in the big leagues. But no one wants to try to make the show with a bad rep hanging over his head. As a collegian, Honeycutt is reminiscent of UNC star Dustin Ackley, the second overall pick in the 2009 MLB Draft by Seattle who signed for $7.5 million and retired after seven full seasons with a .241 batting average.
Ackley has his name on the façade of Boshamer Stadium and will be joined there by Honeycutt someday. They have similar pedigrees with parents who were college athletes and coaches who swore by them. UNC fans refer to Vance as Honeyclutch, Moneycutt and other cool nicknames.
The walk-off meister was responsible for 38 percent of the runs the Diamond Heels scored in their NCAA Tournament run that ended at the College World Series. He hit a ninth-inning single to beat Virginia in the Omaha opener after his walk-off homer and other big plays helped Carolina win the NCAA regional rounds.
So we’ll see where he goes in the draft, which starts Sunday. One scout had this measured response to a question about Honeycutt: “The strike zone is the thing a lot of teams are becoming obsessed with. So what a lot of them think is most important is what he’s worst at. But he’s elite at almost everything else.”
An elite 21-year-old getting ready to take the biggest step in his young life.
Featured image via UNC Baseball on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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