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MLB Draft 2011 Prospects: Dylan Bundy Asks Pirates To Lay Off, Per Reports

Dylan Bundy, one of the best high school pitching prospects in the 2011 draft, has reportedly asked teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals to hold off on selecting him for fear that they'd ask him to change his throwing-heavy work habits. Jeff Passan broke the story, which relates to whether or not the team would allow him to long-toss.

Bundy's pitching program looks outrageous, though so does the throwing that most high school pitchers do, but this is a fascinating move on his par, and demonstrates if nothing else his convictions on a very touchy side of the pitching debate. He's unlikely to get a lot of good press for this move, but he's got to be concerned most, at this point, with protecting his arm—and whether he's actually doing it or not by throwing 300-foot loopers, he's convinced he is.

At some point the team has to have some say in a player's program, or his plans, or his understanding of his own abilities, but pitchers in particular should speak up whenever they can; they're simply too fragile to allow someone further away from their own arm to make decisions about their health or repertoire.