GREENSBORO – When it comes to the baseball draft, there’s nothing like high school players for the Florida Marlins.

Earlier this month, the Marlins took high school players with their first three picks – pitchers Chad James and Bryan Bergland and outfielder Marquise Cooper. Neither pitcher has signed yet, which is not unusual, but Cooper did and was assigned to the Gulf Coast League. High school players can have “advisors” but not agents in case they decide to go to college or junior college if they don’t sign. It’s a matter of waiting to see what “advice” they receive.

Jim Fleming, the Marlins’ vice president of player development and scouting, said the club doesn’t go into a draft with a predetermined plan of trying to fill certain needs. Instead, as he explained during a recent trip to see the Hoppers, they take the best players on their board.

“There was a lot of high school pitching (in the high rounds),” Fleming said, “and we got two high school pitchers early that we like, a left-hander (James, No. 1) and a right-hander (Bergland, No. 2). They’re kind of the typical guys that we draft – very athletic, tall, with good arms – and there’s ceiling to them, which is what we look for.  Third, we took a high school guy (Cooper) who can really, really run, an athlete, which is another thing we like.”

Typically, any high school players the Marlins sign will spend the rest of the summer in the GCL. Then their performance the next spring will determine if they are assigned to Greensboro or to the short-season New York-Penn League. The idea is to let each player develop at his own pace.

“Any time you draft high school kids you have more risk, you have more development, especially emotionally, and also physically,” Fleming said. “So you’ve got lots of ups and downs. You have good years and bad years and you’ve got to stay on the program.

“We’ve been fortunate that some of our guys go very, very fast, but there are others that are still going to be big-leaguers that are taking a little more time. So you look at each one individually. They’re own their own programs and you have different expectations for each guy.”

Greensboro fans have seen numerous high school players drafted one summer and assigned to the Hoppers the next spring. Josh Johnson, Scott Olson, Chris Volstad, Sean West, Aaron Thompson, Ryan Tucker, Graham Taylor, Matt Dominguez and Mike Stanton are a few that come to mind. This year’s roster includes Kyle Skipworth and Brad Hand, among others.

The care and feeding of young players can be delicate. Fleming said the Marlins look for high school pitchers who don’t have “big deliver issues or arm-action issues.” They usually need to add a third pitch, and sometimes a second and a third, to go with their fastballs. So when they get to the Hoppers, they’re working on developing pitches and pitching in competitive situations.

It can be risky and a long-term process, but the upside is high school players generally have a higher ceiling and, if they make the majors, can be high-impact players. College players are more polished, more defined in who they are. They can be impact major-leaguers but are more likely to be role players.

“For us, we need impact so high school is someplace we have to go,” Fleming said. “You’re going to get some impact at the top of the draft in college, but you can get impact in the draft lower with high school players.

“A perfect example is Josh Johnson, our No. 1 pitcher. He was a fourh-round pick. (Scott) Olson (now with Washington) was a sixth-round pick. Those two to me are impact pitchers, they’re going to be in your rotation. I think as you go through the draft, the chance of college impact is a little bit lower.”

 Still, Fleming says there are always exceptions. When he was with the Montreal Expos (remember them?) they drafted a college senior in the 17^th round who turned out to be pretty good – Jason Bay.

After their top three picks, the Marlins turned to college players for much of the rest of the draft, sprinkled with an assortment of high school players. College players usually are assigned to Jamestown in the New York-Penn League. So far, the Marlins have sent pitcher Daniel Mahoney (4^th round), Elon shortstop Chase Austin (5^th round), pitcher Matthew Montgomery (10^th round), outfielder Kyle Jensen (12^th round), outfielder Sequoyah Stoneciper (14^th round), outfielder Chad Creger (15^th round), pitcher A.J. Ramos (21^st round) and infielder Michael Brady (24^th round) to the Jammers.

One or two of those players might show up with the Hoppers in August, like Pete Andrelczyk did last year.

“In the past we’ve had guys who will pop in here at the end of the summer and do real well,” Fleming said. “I would say overall it’s not in the plans; we’ll just see where it goes.”

PLAYING HARD: The Hoppers finished the first half with a 37-33 record and Fleming liked some things he saw.

“It’s a good group of kids and I think what we like most about them is that they play hard, they’re very intense,” he said. “We have kind of a mish-mash of high school and college here and I think we have lots of guys who can play in the big leagues, I think they’re developing and that’s what this league is for.

“The best thing I can say about the players here is they play hard, they take it very seriously, they work at it and it gives them a chance to improve and get where they want to go. I think we’ll have big-leaguers out of this group and I think there’s lots of possibilities. We’ll have to see.”

ALL-STAR WRAPUP: Five Hoppers participated on the winning Northern Division team in its 8-7 win over the Southern in the South Atlantic League All-Star game Tuesday night in Charleston, W.Va.

Paul Gran started at third base and went 2-for-2 and scored twice. First baseman Ben Lasater was 0-5 and left fielder Justin Bass went 0-3. Pitcher Johnny Dorn threw a scoreless fifth inning, giving up a hit. Andrelczyk pitched the eighth and allowed a hit but no runs, striking out two.