DeAndre Shelton shines at Florida Underclass Games

August 11, 2015

By Rob Sidwell
Florida Scouting Director

The Florida Underclass games had some impressive young talent. Some talent from the 2018 and 2019 class stood out, still a little raw, but had a lot of upside. The 2017 class showed talent with a bit more polish, probably due to their age and skill level. The most talented and polished middle infielder was 2017 DeAndre Shelton from West Orange HS.

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Shelton showed very good actions at short stop with an average ML arm. He’s got good defensive instincts with plenty of range and very good fielding mechanics. He reads the ball well of the bat and takes good angles to balls. His hands are soft, he presents the glove with the pocket open and fingers down, left of center and fields through the ball. He throws from an over hand slot. If I were to be critical about one thing, I would like to see him throw from different arm slots when needed. Shelton showed today that he can play shortstop and that he’s not just a second baseman.

As good of a defender as Shelton is, his best tool is his bat. He is a switch hitter with a short compact quick stroke from both sides of the plate. He continues to gain strength in his bat and has average ML power right now with more to come. He can drive the ball in both gaps. More doubles power right now but can also get the ball out of the yard. From the right side, he looked more like a line drive type guy that worked down through the ball. From the left side, he looked like he had a little more lift in his swing and could get the ball in the air a bit easier. He took impressive rounds of BP and squared a lot of balls up in the games. From both sides, he showed bat speed and strength.

A very polished player who is also highly skilled. He has improved tremendously since the last time I saw him last spring which is a testament to his work ethic. It’s no surprise that Shelton continues to learn and work and improve. He comes from a baseball family with his father, Harry Shelton, being a long time professional scout and currently with the ML Scouting Bureau. He has also been influenced by and played for Chet Lemon, long time ML player who came up as a shortstop and later moved to the outfield.

DeAndre Shelton is a good baseball player and a good athlete with tools and skills that will someday allow him to have a professional career, but right now the 2017 infielder is still uncommitted to a college. He is definitely one of the better middle infielders I have seen in his class. He runs a 6.9 60 and has a 4.2 weighted GPA. He has great character and make up that any coach will love! I don’t expect him to be uncommitted for very long if he continues to play like he did at the Florida Underclass Games.

DeAndre Shelton shines at Florida Underclass Games

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