MILES DURHAM

3/21/83; '06 22nd; Northwestern State Univ.
R/R; 6-3, 195

Level	BA	OBP	SA	AB	2B	3B	HR	BB	K	SB	CS
2006 NCAA	.291	.351	.492	244	12	5	9	18	64	18	7
2006 A-	.201	.239	.302	189	7	3	2	7	49	4	4
2007 A-	.255	.310	.369	141	11	1	1	12	38	1	0
2008 A+	.220	.275	.344	218	15	0	4	15	49	11	4
2008 A	.348	.394	.585	287	24	1	14	17	63	7	1

The Northwestern State team web site described Durham as the team's best athlete going into his junior year, although he hit only .242 as a sophomore. He did better as a junior, but not all that well, with terrible plate discipline. After signing he played RF for Williamsport, where he was part of an astonishingly bad collection of outfielders and first basemen. The Pirates over the last two years of Dave Littlefield's inept stewardship used a large number of draft picks on college prospects at those positions and seemed to go out of their way to find ones who couldn't hit. Durham returned to State College in 2007 and played semi-regularly, splitting time between RF and DH. After a bad first month he made some progress, even hitting 302/347/465 in August. He specifically made progress with his plate discipline.

Durham moved up to Hickory in 2008 and became the regular at 1B when Justin Byler went out for the year with a broken arm. He finally began taking a decent number of pitches—not a lot, but a decent number—and he took off with the bat. He was by far Hickory's best hitter, although you can't forget that he was playing in low A at age 25. After moving up to Lynchburg he didn't hit except for a decent amount of power. It may seem unlikely that a guy could dominate low A like that and be unable to hit in high A, but with overage players it's quite common, this guy being an example. Defensively he's pretty good at 1B, but with Kent Sakamoto there at Lynchburg he moved back to RF. He's not good there; the first time I saw him he misplayed three balls there and he didn't look much better with the Hillcats. He'll probably return to Lynchburg in 2009.

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