2021 MLB Draft Board
The MLB Draft is swiftly approaching and with the draft comes my draft board. This is the only edition of my draft board I’ll publish as I don’t have the time to make multiple versions and this was months in the making throughout the spring. Before we get into the list, first, some notes on my methodology.
I don’t have sources in the industry or access to synergy, trackman, or any other form of data except what I find written by others with access. Mason McRae, Prospects Live, and Joe Doyle have been some of the most helpful resources in that regard as they have published considerable data not usually available to the public. As always, Matt Collier and FaBIO have been a godsend when it comes to batted ball data. This is primarily based on video scouting in tandem with some of the data I do have. My opinion is my own and will not perfectly align with the opinions of other publications. Part of this is a lack of data, and part of it me seeing/not seeing something they do/don’t. Part of it the subconscious bias of the different sources including myself.
I don’t have scouting reports on everyone. I’m only one person who tries to maintain some semblance of a life beyond this list and in general puts less focus on the draft than the rest of the minors as a whole. As such, I can’t commit the time to scout all 500 players on the Baseball America top 500. I have scouting reports on about 120 players and that’s it. I will miss on players and likely will not even have first-round picks on here, not because I dislike them, simply because I’ve never watched them. Others I do actively dislike. I didn’t even know who Nick Yorke was on draft day last year. I came to love him after doing the research after the draft. That will likely occur again this year even if probably on a smaller scale.
I’ve come around on drafting high schoolers in the past year. High Schoolers are scary. They are risky lottery tickets that rarely pan out historically. Except for the fact that there have been vast improvements to player development in the last few years make the historical success rates of the demographics very misleading. We aren’t using the same inefficient techniques we used to in order to develop talent and with a few exceptions, every team has much better development than any team did even ten years ago. More recently, high schoolers have been much less bust and much more boom.
If I assume every team has average player development for the sake of this list, which I am, then I’m comfortable enough with that system to take the higher upside prep talent more often than not. High Schoolers are higher upside, younger, and make more of an impact long term.
It was brought to my attention that on my prospect lists in the past, I have valued the international teenagers with high upside in the minors much higher than their high school counterparts with comparable toolsets. There is no reason for that, and it’s something that I’m making an effort to correct. I firmly believe that star upside is always going to be worth more than a good chance at average and now my draft rankings also reflect that.
In terms of statistics, in high schoolers, I only look at one thing. Strikeout rate matters even- no, especially at the High School level. If you are striking out 34.7% of the time at the High School Level (Cough Elijah Greene Cough) against bad pitching then I find it very hard to believe that number will decrease when facing actually good pitchers. That is a huge red flag to me and I can’t see why it wouldn’t be to more people.
To a much lesser extent, I look at walk rate to get a general sense of a hitter's approach. When a guy is walking 20% of the time and not striking out at all, that is something to make note of and likely shows advanced plate discipline and pitch recognition. If their strikeout and walk rates are both high, it is likely due to a passive approach rather than good discipline or equally so high whiff rates. Walk rate can tell us something about a hitter it just has to be taken with a grain of salt at that level.
I generally don’t place much value on showcase games when compared to regular games. I understand that performing against good pitching is important but you’re looking at such a small sample size that you’re never going to get an accurate representation of a player's talent on a handful of at-bats. Hot and cold streaks happen and I’ll always choose the larger month-long sample over the three-game one against the better arm. Showcase events and measurables have value but the live at-bats are only weighed slightly more heavily than any other live at-bat.
I am aware that pitch data is not really that comparable at the high school and college level to that of major leaguers. There are high schoolers who average 25 inches of induced vertical break when the MLB leader only averages 22 inches. That is not because they have a better fastball than any MLB pitcher. That idea is completely asinine. The answer likely has to do with the baseball they are using. Seam height, core density, and other factors have a huge effect on pitch movement. We know the MLB ball is not the same as even the MiLB ball yet alone the NCAA and the ball every high school league uses.
Comparing pitches to those of an MLB pitcher isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison. In a perfect world, I would be able to use percentiles/ranks among players at their level. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the pitch data of every single college player and prep arm in the country. I have to make do with what I have which is the MLB pitch data. The comparisons aren’t perfect but they are better than nothing. Saying that Chase Petty has similar traits on the fastball to that of Jacob deGrom is not me saying that his fastball is as good as his or anything of the sort.
I don’t do swing comps. Just because there are some cosmetic similarities between John Doe and Mike Trout does not mean anything. When I use comps, it is based on how they profile and not how they look. Often time I’m just noting the similarities between one tool. Even when I drop straight comps, I am not saying that they will be that superstar player. I’m simply saying they do a lot of things similar and theoretically have that same upside.
There are two kinds of comps for pitchers. I’ll comp a pitcher based on their mechanics to show projection for stamina/health. Those are fairly self-explanatory. I’ll also comp individual pitches to show how the traits can mesh if they perfect the pitch. Even if I note the similarities of a fastball to that of Jacob deGrom does not mean I think it will be in the same realm of effectiveness. I do not comp entire pitchers almost ever as it is literally impossible to find a perfect match for multiple pitches and mechanics, and batted ball profile, and, and, and… I will also occasionally comp based on expected results based on Strikeouts, Batted Ball Profile, and Control. Those comps are always loose and surface-level only.
This list is being written over the course of a month. As such, I will share stats from before the conclusion of the College Baseball Playoffs or even some High School Baseball seasons. It’s likely that some of the stats I share in this article are slightly out of date at the time of publishing. Other stats aren’t available to the public and as such are only available from even longer before when someone with access chose to share that information. I can only work with what I have access to so some data will be slightly out of date. I won’t make a note of the exact date the data is from when I use it every time.
This is not a fantasy baseball list. Walks are a valuable skill. Defense is important. Stolen bases are largely irrelevant. This is not a list that gives any consideration to what school a player goes to or how good their school is at developing players. I don’t even look at success rates for players drafted from their school. This is not a Mock Draft but a ranking of the top players in the draft, irrespective of their bonus demands and the teams interested in them. Players are ranked according to their potential in a neutral environment. Without further preamble; let’s dive into the list.
1. SS Kahlil Watson, Wake Forest High School
Kahlil Watson has been my top shortstop since before the season began and he has only reinforced that notion this year as he has been unbelievable and impressed at every turn. This is a five-tool superstar in the making and in my opinion, the fairly clear-cut top player in the draft. He’s undersized and not white which hurts his stock for some scouts but he’s very clearly an impact talent in all facets of the game.
Kahlil Watson immediately stands out for his hit tool. His bat-to-ball skills are probably the best in the class. Before the season I would have given that nod to Marcelo Mayer but he’s separated himself this year as he only struck out once all season across 58 PA in a 4A High School. This isn’t because he’s a free-swinging maniac who never reaches two-strike counts either. He walked 31% of the time so he’s clearly capable of taking pitches.
His swing is violent. He takes big hacks that use his entire body- it’s a stroke that has garnered comparisons to the whiff-prone Jazz Chisholm. That doesn’t matter how it looks as he continues to just make contact consistently and with authority. He controls the violence in his swing and puts bat to ball. He’s the perfect combination of patient approach, good strike zone recognition, the ability to hit spin, and the bat speed to hit velocity, and the bat to ball skills that tie the whole thing together. He is going to hit at the big league level.
His contact quality is very high as well. That is in part because of his power which is among the best in the draft class. He doesn’t look the part as he is listed at 5'9" and 170 lbs or 5'11" and 180 lbs depending on who you ask. Regardless, neither of those frames suggests big-time raw juice but he has it in spades.
Here’s a quote by Mason McRae that I think really does a good job of summarizing Kahlil Watson: “Watson’s entire swing could generate an hour-long presentation on how hitters should move.” His swing is technically perfect and it lets him squeeze every bit of power in his frame out of it.
He doesn’t have an extremely pronounced hip hinge before foot strike, it’s tamer than what you see in most hitters and unassuming. Once his foot lands it’s go time for Watson and only after he strides does his hip hinge make itself apparent. His torso doesn’t so much coil as it does lean back and rest as his hips launch. It’s a smooth and natural movement. He keeps his shoulders from prematurely rotating in the slightest and leans hard into his back leg to transfer force. Then in an instant, he explodes. His pelvis opens up and the moment it completes its own rotation, the upper body unwinds with incredible force.
The torque he generates is nothing short of astonishing. He lacks the physicality of a Marco Luciano type and as such isn’t an 80 power guy but the rotational ability is on par with a Luciano and he pairs it with elite bat speed. The posture is perfect throughout his swing and it really makes a world of difference. The swing is visually breathtaking and analytically it grades out even better.
The other element of his raw power is his barrel accuracy. He has a knack for finding the barrel of the bat and squaring balls up. He makes adjustments with his upper body to put the barrel in the optimal hitting position and make flush contact. He doesn’t overrotate and miss his spots often. His power is consistent due to the feel for the sweet spot which lets it play up in games- possibly even above his raw juice.
He can get a bit pull-heavy at times which could wind up leaving him vulnerable to the shift as his point of contact is very deep over the plate. That is perfectly acceptable as that same late contact point lets the power play up even further. If that wasn’t enough, Watson has a fairly advanced feel for elevation for a high school bat. His vertical bat angle is naturally steep and he has a somewhat inclined swing plane. He knows how to put the ball in the air and how to do it with authority.
Kahlil Watson does have his warts. He’s not a flawless hitter despite a near-flawless swing. He can get beat inside as he struggles to pull the barrel in for those pitches at times. He can also have some attack angle issues at times. He hits too many popups for a guy with his swing path as he’ll occasionally prioritize contact frequency over quality and hit at sub-optimal angles. There are some kinks to be worked out but they are minor issues. He’s going to hit and be an impact talent at the plate.
I also think he can be a good shortstop. I’ve seen lots of people suggest that Kahlil Watson won’t be a shortstop long term- possibly because his lower half will outgrow the position but I don’t see that at all. His waist is narrow and he already has a burly upper half with little weight going to the hips or glutes that would slow him down- there is going to be some speed regression but when your starting point is 65+ it’s not going to ever get that bad. (He lingers in the box but can absolutely fly down the line once he gets underway). He’s also a fairly adept baserunner averaging nearly a steal a game in his high school career while seldom being caught.
His actions are very much those of a shortstop. He moves extremely well laterally and can charge in on balls to make the tough plays. His transfers are quick and efficient with easy plus arm strength as throws surpassing 90 MPH across the diamond can attest to. He has smooth hands and just looks the part of a shortstop. He has his lapses like all kids do but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. His processes are good enough that I’m not at all unconvinced that he can’t stick at shortstop even if his mobility completely tanks and he’s only an average runner.
I don’t usually put much stock in character when evaluating prospects as I don’t have the tools to properly assess it. That being said some of Kahlil Watson’s interviews have completely blown me away. He’s a small-town guy who is very down-to-earth. In an interview with Prospects Live, Kahlil Watson revealed that he wants to go into coaching when he is done playing baseball.
When MLB Network asked what player’s the top draft prospects most wanted to meet, most guys responded Fernando Tatis Jr., Mike Trout, Ronald Acuña Jr., etc. Kahlil Watson responded with Jackie Robinson because he changed the game. Kahlil Watson cares about more than just being good at baseball or having fun. He’s a real human being who cares about other people than himself and helping them. That is powerful. Baseball is his entire life but it’s not just his life but the life of the people around him.
If you want to find a wart with Kahlil Watson’s personage, you can maybe squint and call his lack of faith in data that. He is very much a feel guy who prefers to make adjustments based on what feels right and what works for him. He has expressed an aversion to using stuff like blast motion to train as he finds it distracting. There are plenty of feel guys who are superstars. Data is a tool but it’s not one you have to use and some guys are probably better off without it. I might prefer a player who is willing to use all the new technology and get every possible edge in training but it’s not really anything close to a dealbreaker.
This is a five-tool impact talent who is going to be a difference-maker wherever he winds up. If he was six feet tall he would go #1 overall and no one would bat an eye at the selection. If he was white he would probably be the favorite to go #1. He’s neither of those things but he doesn’t have to be. He is who he is and he’s a really fucking good baseball player with five loud tools and superstar upside. The fact that he’s likely to be the cheapest of the prep shortstops plus Leiter as a Notre Dame commit means he has a higher chance to go #1 than a lot of people think. If I’m the Pirates I don’t hesitate to pull the trigger at #1.
2. SS Marcelo Mayer, Eastlake High School
Marcelo Mayer is the best player in the draft according to most people. It’s not at all hard to see why that is. Marcelo Mayer is one of the best hitters in the prep ranks and also projects to be a good shortstop. Like Watson, he is a five-tool talent who projects to be an impact player at the big league level.
Marcelo Mayer is very clearly a hit tool first prospect although that isn’t intended to say anything negative about the rest of his tools. His bat-to-ball skills are quite impressive as a 6.2% strikeout rate in a 6A School in California can attest to. He possesses elite plate coverage and just has a natural smoothness to his operation. His swing is smooth and sweet as silk. There isn’t any violence or over-aggressive rotation in his stroke. He’s composed and all his mannerisms look choreographed when he stands in the box. His swing is consistent and beautiful.
His contact quality is exceptional. He has tremendous barrel accuracy and squares balls up with regularity. He has a steep swing plane that lets him make aerial contact semi-frequently despite some attack angle issues. He is incredible at hitting the ball to the opposite field and avoiding his pullside, in the past that has limited his power output but he’s gotten better at occasionally pulling the ball this season and getting to more of that power. He’s going to be a high BABIP hitter with his feel for the sweet spot and a somewhat optimal spray profile that projects to translate at the next level.
Speaking of his power, Mayer also has plus raw juice in his frame. He’s a very physical hitter with a very physical frame. He’s 6'3" 185lbs with room to add maybe forty pounds of good weight and strength to bolster his power. He efficiently utilizes his full body in his swing and well he doesn’t have the most torque or elite bat speed. He still hits the ball hard because he is very strong and has great barrel accuracy. His power plays a tick lower than the raw in games due to the occasional troubles pulling the ball but it’s clearly still above-average. This is going to be an impact bat with plus/plus potential at the plate.
His acumen at shortstop can not be doubted for even a second. He’s a plus runner who might slow down to only above-average but that’s not what you should be concerned about because he doesn’t need speed to succeed. He’s a clear-cut shortstop who could survive with well below-average speed because he has incredible instincts and actions.
He’s able to move in all directions with conviction and make all the tough plays. His hands are quick and he shows the ability to read the ball off the bat. He’s not the most explosive fielder but he’s an agile one with all the actions to be a good defender at shortstop. He also has plus arm strength with quick and concise footwork. He may grow into more of a third base profile ala Manny Machado but if he moves there then he will be special there and likely compete for Gold Gloves at his best. He’s gotten comparisons to Brandon Crawford in the field and they aren’t all that outlandish.
Marcelo Mayer is a five-tool talent with franchise-altering potential. There is some development to be done. He probably has to tweak his swing to generate more torque and grow into more raw power. There is a lot of projecting into what he might one day be when calling him a future superstar. The upside, however, is as high as just about anyone in the entire draft. What separates him from the rest of the upside plays below him is how strong the hit tool is that makes him a regular even if he doesn’t make the changes needed to hit for significant power. Mayer has the potential to be an all-around stud who makes an impact all over the diamond in every facet of the game. Whoever gets to draft him will be lucky for it, regardless of how big his bonus demand is.
3. Jack Leiter, Vanderbilt
Had you asked me two months ago, Jack Leiter was the top player in the draft and it wasn’t even close. Not only has Jack Leiter struggled some after his torrid start but I’ve come across some info that has made me completely reassess my opinion on him and has me now considerably less hyped about his potential.
Jack Leiter has an incredible fastball. His best pitch and maybe the best single pitch in the draft depending on how you choose to interpret the data. His fastball is a special pitch. He typically sits more 93–95 MPH touching 97 but in some starts, he’s 95–97 MPH and touching 99 MPH. He also has seven feet of extension on the average fastball which lets it play at a higher effective velocity than his actual velocity. With his mechanics, it’s not hard to see him sitting near that higher velocity range more often than not.
His fastball shape, however, is much more important than his velocity and that is what separates him from the pack. His spin rate is only 2300 RPMs which gives him about 24.5 Bauer Units on the average fastball which is basically MLB average. His fastball is typically thrown with a 1:00 spin axis with near-perfect spin efficiency. That leads to 19.8 inches of induced vertical break on average. Of all pitchers to throw at least 500 fastballs this season at the MLB level, only John Means and Trevor Bauer have more induced vertical break on their heaters.
What really separates his fastball from the pack, however, isn’t just the shape but the angle. His vertical approach angle is historic. Jack Leiter throws from a 5.0 foot vertical release height which is extraordinarily low. Among all pitchers to throw at least 300 fastballs this season, only Alex Wood and Freddy Peralta have a release height as low. No one is lower. The combination of the low release height and elite vertical movement leads to a historic vertical approach angle from a starter. He averages -3.7° on the fastball. Since 2017, the earliest we have VAA data available from, no starting pitcher who threw at least 200 fastballs that year has ever had a VAA that flat. That historic angle lets the fastball really play up in the zone.
Jack Leiter has some issues command his fastball, particularly to the arm side and up in the zone. I just am not at all certain those command issues matter much at all. Jack Leiter could throw the fastball down the pipe and it will very rarely wind up a hit. In fact, in 2021, opponents hit .182 with a .455 slugging on the fastball down the dick. (Down the middle). He could sell out for control if need be and be perfectly fine because the fastball traits speak for themselves. There are signs that his command will improve but it doesn’t have to. The fastball traits are too historic for the command to hold it back.
Except they aren’t actually that historic because Vanderbilt is an evil institution that spreads false information for the purposes of propaganda. Jack Leiter has absurd home/road splits and we aren’t talking about results but pitch data. Jack Leiter might have an average release height of a mere five feet but the split for that is fascinating. He has a release height of 4.72 feet at home and 5.63 feet on the road. (Not all road games have trackman which is why that has an average of five feet).
His fastball has 20.2 inches of vertical movement at home and only 18.9 inches on the road. 1.3 inches might not sound like a huge difference in movement but it absolutely is. That drops his vertical movement from third in the entire MLB to only 87th percentile if we only look at road games for Leiter. That is a massive difference.
That drop in vertical movement, along with his release height jumping over half a foot from what we previously believed it to be has a major effect on his VAA. He goes from the best VAA ever by a starter to a -4.4°. That takes him into the Trevor Bauer, Max Scherzer, and Brandon Woodruff range of mortality. Yeah, this is still going to be an elite fastball even with him not being completely historic, it’s just only a 70 rather than the 80 I previously thought it to be. This still might be the best pitch in the entire draft just not the best in the entire minors anymore.
His secondaries are nowhere near the quality of his ethereal fastball but they are quality pitches in their own right. The slider is the best of those secondaries. He throws the pitch with heavy gyro in the low eighties. His spin efficiency on the pitch is extremely low, sitting around 25% with a more vertical axis at ~10:30 on average. The shape of the slider leads to very little vertical movement and lets the sweep play up even if it’s not the most in the world. He averages 8.8 inches of horizontal movement and 30.4 inches of drop. Here is a complete list of sliders with less vertical drop and more sweep this season: Luis Patiño, and Heath Hembree. That is a pretty elite company as far as sliders go. This is probably going to be a plus pitch.
There is a chance that his slider might be better than this season-long number too as scary as that might sound. In road games, Jack Leiter averaged 29.6 inches of drop and 11.6 inches of sweep with the slider in road games this season. Here is a complete list of pitchers with as much sweep and as little drop as his:. The least drop by a player with as much horizontal movement as him on the slider is from Lance McCullers who checks in 31.2 and 13.4 inches. His slider shape is tremendous and while I’m grading him based on the season-long pitch data rather than the tiny sample of road games, there is a chance that I’m selling it short because the Vanderbilt trackman is completely terrible.
His curveball in terms of traits is extremely average. He averages 79 MPH with the curveball which is entirely unremarkable. His average spin rate of 2350 RPMs is no better. The pitch has 52.3 inches of drop on average. The MLB average at that velocity range is ~53 inches. His curveball has 9.3 inches of sweep on average. The MLB average at that velocity range is ~9 inches. There is literally nothing at all that stands out when it comes to the curveballs inherent traits.
His curveball performs despite very mediocre traits due to elite command over it. As the Pitching Ninja likes to claim it is a “bowel locking curveball.” He’ll drop it in the zone out of the same tunnel as the high heat and split the plate vertically with the fastballs mirror image that is ~15 MPH slower. The deception on the pitch and feel for it gives him a second above-average secondary pitch.
His changeup is his worst secondary offering but it still projects as an average pitch at the big league level. He throws the changeup sparingly, only using it 3.3% of the time in 2021 but it has some solid traits. He averages 12.5 inches of induced vertical break on the changeup. Of all 127 pitchers to throw at least 100 changeups this season, that would be the 10th most IVB in the majors this year. The IVB is a positive number so we are measuring rise not drop meaning his changeup doesn't drop.
He doesn’t get much horizontal movement as his 13 inches of run on the changeup is in the bottom quartile of the league but the vertical shape is very good. The changeup also has an inherent floor because his low release height is always going to make it easy to flatten out the changeup and limit the drop on it. The lack of feel for the pitch has the changeup only graded out as average but the traits are there that it could very realistically develop into a plus pitch with time and effort.
His supplementary skills are not as good as the pure stuff which is what has him a tier below Watson and Mayer. His batted ball profile is only average after taking a step back in that department this season. He gives up a lot of aerial contact and well it is low-quality aerial contact, it still leaves him vulnerable to the longball. His fastball suggests that he should have elite popup rates and well he hasn’t yet, I still believe he will eventually so I have him as an average batted ball guy despite the FaBIO fundamentals suggesting he is below-average.
Jack Leiter is undersized which leads to some workload concerns with scouts; workload concerns that were compounded when Leiter had to skip a start to recuperate during the long season. However, his mechanics are so technically sound with no red flags and very efficient force generation, that I find it near impossible to be concerned with his stamina. It’s also worth noting that he was averaging 25 BF/G this year so it’s not like he’s not pitching deep into games or anything.
His command can wane and in general, repeatability of mechanics doesn’t actually have much effect on command so I don’t have him as more than average there. He doesn’t have to be. The stuff will absolutely play and the so-so supplementary skills will be made largely irrelevant because of it as long as he strikes out 30% of batters like I fully expect him to. This is an impact arm that with further refinement, could easily sit at the top of a rotation. He’s not that far off from being able to contribute at the major league level and as a very fastball heavy reliever he would be good even now. Jack Leiter is going to make someone very happy even if he likely commands record-breaking money to sign as what is essentially a draft-eligible freshman.
4. SS Brady House, Winder-Barrow High School
Brady House has had a very up-and-down draft season. He struggled in one of the biggest scouting showcases last summer after the long layoff from the pandemic as it took him a while to refind his groove and slumped hard that weekend, whiffing often and not hitting with much authority. That singular bad showcase caused scouts to forget his track record of hitting as evidenced by a career 5.1% strikeout rate in a 6A school, and believe that he had serious whiff issues for some reason.
He has reminded scouts just who he is this spring as he dominated everyone he faced with it all climaxing in one epic clash against Dylan Lesko. For those unaware, Dylan Lesko is pretty much the consensus top prep arm in the draft next year and according to some scouts, the best prep righty since the 2000s. Brady House owned him in a three-at-bat sample where he was aggressive and didn’t whiff even once in three at-bats against Lesko. Had he struggled that game, there is a decent chance that he would be closer to the back of the first as people continued to question his inability to perform against premier stuff. Fortunately, he excelled and then some.
He has an unorthodox high hand load that will rear its ugly head at the worse of times but he can grow out of that habit, and even if he doesn’t- he has enough bat speed to make it work. Carter Kieboom had the same mechanism in his swing and he has found no success at the big league level which is slightly alarming. Kieboom has other issues that are just as much at fault for that one failing that aren’t applicable to Brady House. It’s a small warning flag but a very small one and not some huge kryptonite that makes him not a top-five pick. He absolutely is one.
He tends to get a bit too aggressive at the plate when facing good pitchers. That aggressiveness can lead to some ugly chases. That aggressiveness can also lead to him ambushing hitters on the fastball and taking them deep just as often. His aggressiveness is born more out of a desire to not strike out against those high-quality arms than a lack of discipline from what I’ve seen. When he faces just the average high school starter, he’s a completely different hitter. He is patient and waits for his pitch and will ambush the fastball and take it the other way and over the fence. There are some issues with good secondaries but it’s not anything earth-moving.
His power is what makes him a breadwinner. He has some of the best raw juice in the entire draft class. His rotational ability is impressive. His raw power is a 70-grade tool with extreme amounts of torque and plus bat speed but it more comes down to his physicality being so impressive. He has a stable front half which combined with one of the most powerful bases in the draft and explosive but controlled hips.
He has some launch angle issues and a flatter VBA which artificially increases EVs without helping how power output because working with gravity is easier than against it. Even still, it is very loud power and he has all the time in the world to learn to elevate frequently. Even if he doesn’t learn to elevate he has enough raw that it should still wind up as plus power and ~25 homers annually. He’s an explosive hitter who has hit balls near triple digits off of a tee and who shows incredible ability to contort his body when he swings and bends his arms in manners that look impossible to ensure quality contact. He’s going to hit and he’s one of the more advanced prep bats we’ve seen in some time.
His defense has had no shortage of critics but a lot of scouts are coming around on him as a shortstop now. He has the arm for the position, there is no doubt about that fact. He’s thrown 95 across the diamond and up to 97 on the mound. His arm is an elite tool grading out as a 70 on the 20–80 scale. The arm arguably makes up for any possible deficiencies in how quickly he covers ground because he also makes stronger and quicker throws than anyone to close the gap. He can throw from multiple platforms and has quick actions.
He also has surprising range and athleticism for a guy his size. He really worked on improving his mobility in the winter and it’s shown as he has looked really good defensively in games this spring from what I’ve seen. He might have randomly become an elite baserunner as well out of nowhere going 21/21 on steal attempts in 31 games this spring. It goes without saying that High School Stolen Base numbers mean diddly squat.
That newfound speed is playing in the field, however, where he has shown tremendous lateral agility. He’s an explosive fielder with a quick first step and has all the actions for the position mostly down pat. I’m not sure he retains his newfound athleticism but I don’t think he needs to. As a defender, he reminds me a fair bit of Carlos Correa. Correa has below-average speed but great lateral agility and a rocket arm which has lead to him being one of the best defensive shortstops in the game. I only have House as average but it’s on the higher end of that grade.
Brady House like every prep shortstop I’ve listed so far appears to be a five-tool talent who can make an impact in every part of the game. His bat is what will get him drafted in the top ten and possibly even top five picks but the glove provides considerable value as well. He’s been nitpicked as much as anyone in the class seeing as he was long considered the top prep hitter in the draft leading up to this year. Despite all the undue criticism simply because he is in the spotlight, he remains at the top of draft boards. Brady House is a real impact player who should go very early on draft day.
5. C Henry Davis, Louisville
I have fairly mixed feelings when it comes to Henry Davis. In general, I’ve never been an advocate for drafting catchers in the first round unless they are Adley Rutschman. I just think there is far too much uncertainty surrounding the position and how they will translate both offensively and defensively that no one else in the draft has. On top of that, Davis has an unorthodox swing that has some length to it and has me slightly concerned about the ultimate upside just based on video. However, his production is just way too loud to ignore and he does enough things that I still think he’ll likely be an above-average regular despite my misgivings.
Henry Davis can hit. This season, his final with Louisville, he hit .370. He also only struck out 10.5% of the time and walked 18.4% of the time. Those are obviously very good numbers for the ACC. He rarely has swung and missed, is a heavy line drive hitter, and consistently sprays the ball to all fields with authority. All the ingredients are there in the results for a plus hit tool.
Aside from the obvious catcher fatigue catch, there is another thing that gives me pause. Henry Davis has a very lengthy swing with a long bat path and although he does do an excellent job hitting with the barrel and making small adjustments, I worry how he’ll handle high-velocity arms. His bat head is nearly completely flat which should let him feast on the high fastball so I don’t think it’ll have too much of a negative effect on contact frequency against high fastballs which is often an issue for long swing guys.
However, I do worry that Davis’s contact quality will greatly suffer on velocity in general even up in the zone and he needs to hit that high heat to thrive. His bat angle is very flat and that flat angle will cause him to swing over a lot of pitches down in the strike zone. If he can’t hit the high stuff that his swing is primarily engineered to hit then what can he hit?
Henry Davis’s pitch recognition is a plus skill that is possibly the primary reason I’m so optimistic about the hit tool. He walks more often than he strikes out by a wide margin and has the makings of a serious on-base threat. The lack of certainty in projecting catchers hit tools’ is as always a lingering concern here.
Henry Davis has very loud raw power. There is at least plus raw in Davis and I think it’s more than that but it won’t play close to that way in games. He’s the most physical player in the draft and is built like an ox. His exit velocities are off the chart and he’s consistently posting 100+. There is some inflation in those numbers because of low his LAs are but his batted ball data is nothing short of elite.
Henry Davis generates good separation in his swing and has the physicality to make the most of it. The problem aside from the very low elevation in his swing is the fact that his weight transfer is entirely dependent on his foot strike. If his foot strike is mistimed then he doesn’t hit with power. If his footstrike adds unnecessary length to his swing and causes swing and miss he won’t hit for power when he tries to cut it out. His long stride and foot plant are what generates his separation and the power he produces. It’s not just a timing mechanism but an intrinsic element of his power generation- the primary one and it could make him quite the very streaky hitter at the next level.
Especially when you combine that with his flat VBAs as that tends to lead to some inconsistent performance. I think his power and hit tools both have to be working in concert for either to function and that’s a risky road. His bat is every bit as good as any hitter in the class and the upside is absolutely there but there is a substantially higher chance of him bottoming out than most comparable talents in this range- even most of the top prepsters are just as low of risk if not lower. The upside might be Adley offensively even but it’s a much lower likely outcome.
Henry Davis will greatly benefit from the inevitable electronic strike zone as his only real wart defensively is his hands. He has the elite arm strength and the athleticism to contort his body and block pitches in the dirt. His receiving is rough and he sucks at framing but he’s lauded for his work with the pitching staff. Also, he might have an 80-grade arm although I only have it graded as a 70 for now. He’s posting sub-1.8-second pop times semi-regularly and from his knees has even hit 1.88 on a throw to second. It’s elite arm strength that will absolutely play and might be increasingly valuable in the world without pitch framing that we are quickly heading towards.
Henry Davis is weird. I think he might wind up going #1 overall as maybe the only top-five talent who would sign for significantly under slot. His upside warrants that selection. He’s not that much worse than the other talents above him, he just is a bit riskier. There is a considerable amount of boom or bust to Davis. I think he’s worth that risk because the upside is so great but there are certainly causes for concern with him. The raw tools are as good as you’ll ever see from a catcher and that is a hard thing to pass up for anyone.
6. C/CF/2B Harry Ford, North Cobb High School
As a demographic, I avoid high school catchers like the plague. There is just so much we don’t know about them and catchers don’t follow typical curves. I don’t remember any time I’ve ever even put one half this high. Kevin Parada was my top-ranked prep backstop last season at #29. Harry Ford isn’t exactly the exception but he is still ranked #6. I think he might be a plus defender at catcher but I don’t want him to be one. He has the athleticism to play centerfield or the middle infield at a high level so I’m not going to punish him for being a catcher at this time when he shouldn’t be one at the next level.
Harry Ford is a monster amalgam of tools that doesn’t always get the proper respect he deserves because high school catchers are terrifying, he’s short, and he is black. His power is so loud and people are stupid and call it average. He is a high elevation hitter with 99th percentile bat speed and truly imposing physicality.
Harry Ford’s loading phase is very quiet. He starts with his elbow down and his stance open and his feet close together. He’ll stride forwards as he picks up his elbow to about ear level and tilts the bat head slightly to point towards the pitcher. His stance lands wide. His hips explode forward at foot strike as his torso delays the rotation significantly and lets him uncork on baseballs with maximum torque. His hips are so incredibly controlled and he never overrotates. Please don’t let him catch and break his hips. He’s explosive and doesn’t leak out.
Ford gets optimal spinal tilt and can cover the plate as he’ll bend at the hip to optimize his VBA’s. He has a very stable lead leg block that stops him from leaking and his back is fluid as well. His swing is just a work of art. The steep VBA and natural slope to his swing have lead to low groundball rates in high school as well because of course, it has. This is a premium power bat and I might be underselling his power giving it a 60/65 Game/Raw. He is going to hit balls hard barring catching breaking him and hit a lot of home runs.
His hit tool gets more mixed reviews. Harry Ford has elite bat speed and that gives him no trouble with higher velo and he has the flexibility to get pitches all over the zone and dig them out for hits. He takes hellacious cuts which might mean there is some swing and miss to his game but it’s fairly controlled and the contact quality is very optimal.
He is extremely opposite-field heavy with his spray chart as he will spray the ball to all fields consistently- going oppo nearly 40% of the time in the summer showcase circuit this past year. He’s a high LD and FB hitter with a steep VBA and loud power who should post high BABIPs.
Harry Ford will very rarely chase pitches but that is more likely due to being uber passive at the plate than elite discipline. That approach has worked splendidly in high school but it’s less likely to do so in the higher levels when pitchers can actually throw strikes with any regularity. I believe in his bat as much as just about any prep player in the class.
Harry Ford is also a freak athlete. He’s an elite runner who has somehow posted a 6.42-second 60-yard dash which is a 75–80 time. He’ll obviously lose speed, especially if he catches but I’m grading him as if my goal isn’t to break him. He’s an incredible athlete even if he doesn’t look the part.
Ford’s arm strength is also elite with a 1.81-second pop time and a max throw velo of 85 MPH which is in the 99th percentile of all participants at the perfect game showcases. The strength plays down due to accuracy troubles though.
Harry Ford unsurprisingly has less polished footwork at other positions. However, the arm theoretically has the same upside elsewhere if not more so when he’s not throwing out of the crouch. His speed should also play in centerfield as an explosive runner like he is with elite acceleration should be able to cover a lot of ground out there. The rest of his supporting skills are unknown and that is quite possibly the biggest risk with Ford.
This is another potential five-tool freak and if he can handle the rigors of catching he might wind up as the second coming of JT Realmuto. I’ll play it safe and just take the five-tool centerfielder with a loud bat instead. Hopefully whatever team drafts him feels the same way as I do. The offensive upside is too loud to risk breaking him by having him catch. I expect he’ll go very early on draft day.
7. SP Chase Petty, Mainland Regional High School
Chase Petty draws fairly mixed reviews from scouts. A few years ago, Petty would have been a surefire top 10 pick since he throws 102 MPH in High School. However, in an age increasingly dominated by draft models, he is less highly valued. The track record of high school right-handed pitchers is sketchy at best. As I’ve already outlined at the beginning of this piece, I don’t place much value on the track record of a demographic because player development has evolved and every player is unique but lots of teams do value that. This model reliance further hurts Petty when you consider this:
The only four players to throw 101+ in High School are Tyler Kolek, Riley Pint, Hunter Greene, and now Chase Petty. Tyler Kolek recently retired without ever reaching the majors after being selected #2 overall. Riley Pint went #4 overall in 2016 and has failed to even make it out of A+ as he’s been constantly battered by injuries and completely ineffective when healthy. Hunter Greene went #2 in 2017 and has been fantastic but he’s also already had a Tommy John Surgery. That is an ugly track record of hard-throwing high schoolers and an irrelevant one. None of them are Chase Petty.
Aside from the velocity, there is almost nothing in common between those three and Chase Petty. Petty is 6'0" those three are all 6'5". That height difference says a lot. What also says a lot is the mechanics and there are no real similarities between those three and Petty. Here is a picture of the four of them at foot strike:
The picture is horrible but hopefully, you can pretty clearly see the difference in the arm action. The previous three flamethrowers out of the draft had a flat arm during the loading phase. Petty has the upright arm you typically see in the less injury-plagued starters as he completes his arm spiral in time. The angle of his elbow isn’t perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than most guys who throw as hard as him with no command. This should theoretically mean he avoids that extra stress on the shoulder and elbow that results from an incomplete arm action or a rushed one. His arm action is long but he still completes his spiral so it’s not an issue. Length is only bad if it creates a timing issue. His very obviously doesn’t create a major one. Moving away from absolute gas, his mechanics are fairly similar to another top-five pick, Max Meyer. Here’s a side-by-side view of their deliveries:
Chase Petty has fine mechanics if not outright good ones, unlike his contemporaries who threw equally hard with sloppy mechanics that held them back. Chase Petty has fantastic biomechanical evals apparently and his mechanics are near perfect for velocity generation.
He is extremely lower half dominant when it comes to generating velocity which is extremely encouraging and even if he’s injured, it’s unlikely he loses much if any velo because of it. He drives hard off his back leg, getting deep into his glutes with a long stride coming down the mound and the block with the lead leg is as good as anyone does. This effectively completely stops his hips rotation which is part of what leads to effortless velocity with typically above-average command. He has unreal scap retraction. Like his hip hinge and maximum scap retraction in every throw that comes so naturally and consistently for him, isn’t something most humans have the flexibility to even replicate the position, let alone make it so linear and fluid repeatedly.
Chase Petty has been designed in a lab working with pitching specialists and physical therapists to limit wear and tear on his arm while maximizing velocity since he was in 8th grade and has yet to have any major injuries as far as I’m aware. I’m still somewhat hesitant with a hard-throwing prep arm with a long arm action since neither of those things has brilliant track records but his combination of stuff, and extremely efficient and optimal mechanics has me very high on him. He’s had no real issues throwing strikes in High School and I don’t actually expect that to change much as he climbs the ladder.
Apart from throwing it at 102 MPH, there is still quite a bit to like about his fastball. He gets probably close to seven feet of extension on the heater which lets his velocity play up even further and he rides very low to the ground. His average release height is a mere 5.1 feet on the heater and that’s just unfair as it gives him a very optimal VAA on the pitch.
His fastball is a turbo sinker most of the time but it’s an exceptional one. He averages ~18 inches of horizontal movement despite average spin rates due to a very lateral spin axis- roughly 2:00 and very high spin efficiency. Only five sinkers had that same spin axis in 2020 and all of them were good. Only Dustin May, Victor González, and Luis Castillo averaged 95+ with as much horizontal movement as him on the sinker. It’s a good sinker but it’s still just a sinker and its utility is limited in the modern game. He throws his sinker from the same low vertical release height as those three guys who all sit at about 5.3 feet (He is 5.1). However, he doesn’t have the same amount of sink on his sinker as they do so I don’t expect it to be quite as good as theirs. It’s a plus pitch because velo+horizontal movement will force weak contact but it’s not quite an elite one.
Chase Petty has been diagnosed with a somewhat rare medical condition known as depressed clavicles (Flat collarbones). Throwing from a higher arm slot with flat collarbones can cause serious shoulder damage in the long term and would be a huge red flag. Petty in response has dropped his arm slot to a low 3/4 where he is much more comfortable. With that arm slot, it is near impossible to add a true vertically moving four-seam fastball with Josh Hader basically being the only one. This is truly tragic for Petty as his release height would make a vertical four-seam fastball completely unhittable.
Except Chase Petty isn’t a silly mortal. He just decided one day in a bullpen that he wanted to be Josh Hader and adopted his fastball as his own. In a bullpen this March, he showcased a fastball with a 1:15 spin axis. His release height was a tick higher at 5.4 feet but only a tick and that is still incredible. He also was spinning it at and above 2600 RPMs. As a result, the fastball sat between 16–19 inches of induced vertical break. He used that fastball throughout the season this year and it was tremendously effective even if it was the secondary option to his sinker.
Why is that development so important? Josh Hader has the best non-deGrom fastball in the game. He throws from a low 3/4 slot like Petty and has an average release height of 5.3 feet. He throws the fastball with a 10:45 spin axis (Lefty version of 1:15) and 17.7 inches of induced vertical break. Hader averages 96.1 MPH with 6.7 feet of extension. All of those figures are nearly identical to Petty’s four-seam fastball. He’s not a lefty but that is still a lot of similar traits to the best non-deGrom heater in the game.
Actually, why not include deGrom? Jacob deGrom uses a more over-the-top arm slot but the raw data is still very comparable. He throws his fastball from a 5.5-foot vertical release height. He also has a 1:15 spin axis and averages 16.9 inches of induced vertical break. He has a very comparable spin rate. deGrom throws harder at 99.2 MPH on average but both have approximately 7 feet of extension. Petty isn’t deGrom and command is a huge element to the success of God’s fastball. However, when you can drop that many close comparisons on the two best fastballs in the game on Petty’s fastball, you know you have something truly special here. I have a 70 on Petty’s heater because I need to see more four-seamers first, but it is entirely possible this is a true 80-grade heater by the end of the year.
You can make a very convincing argument that the fastball isn’t even Chase Petty’s best pitch. His slider is equally as exceptional and a second 70-grade offering. Something that none of the other dudes throwing 102 in high school ever possessed. He’ll throw it 85–87 MPH in most games from a 9:00 spin axis with a high degree of gyro spin. In 2020, seven sliders had the same spin axis as that. Tanner Rainey’s, Nate Pearson’s, Jake Newberry’s, Scott Barlow’s, Sergio Romo’s, Taylor Williams’s, and Ryan Thompson’s. Those sliders averaged an absolutely ludicrous 45.8% Whiff rate and .258 wOBA against across just over a thousand pitches.
The heavy gyro action from that axis leads to an absurd 20 inches of horizontal movement on average on the pitch with minimal dropoff vertically. That number was only topped by Chaz Roe and Kyle Crick in 2020, both of them throw more than 5 MPH slower. The most movement on a slider 85 plus is Dillon Maples at 14.9 inches. The slider is truly special and if he can learn to command it then it could be the best slider in the game full stop. There are consistency issues with the pitch to work out. The slider will likely sacrifice some movement for control as he grows and it won’t be quite so historic. Still, this is a hell of a starting point for a slider and an easy 70-grade offering.
Chase Petty also has an above-average changeup although he uses it very infrequently. His arm slot is ideal for generating heavy horizontal movement on his changeup and while it is inconsistent it does flash that plus break. He can struggle to kill spin on the changeup as it’ll sit at about 2000 RPMs which isn’t too far below the sinker which typically sits at around 2300 RPMs. He throws it at about 87–90 MPH so it’s a hard variant but it still has the highly coveted velocity separation from the heater. When it’s on it really works off o of the heater and misses bats but it often isn’t on. His feel is well below-average and his command is lackluster of it but it’s a developable pitch that in a good organization could definitely get to a plus or even more.
Chase Petty is an incredible athlete with elite stuff. He has a complete three-pitch mix and two elite pitches that could carry him to greatness. The mechanics aren’t perfect but they are plenty enough to not be a major detriment in his development. He has big-time movement on all his stuff which might cause some command struggles in the future. However, he also has enough life on his pitches that he could take the down the middle and let the movement carry it to the edge approach that so many players take nowadays.
There is some relief risk with his arm slot (Low arm slots often see their effectiveness greatly deteriorate in multiple looks) and the changeup stalling would be a bummer but in that case, he has the makings of a likely high leverage reliever with Ace level upside in the rotation. Petty is an incredible package who should be off the board very early in round one.
8. SP Jackson Jobe, Heritage Hall High School
Most people have Jackson Jobe as the top prep arm in the draft, he only just misses that top spot for me by a hair. There is no pitcher in the entire draft with more upside than Jobe, I just think that Petty has a slightly higher floor and less risk with still monumental upside.
Jackson Jobe has a slider that sounds like something Sidd Finch would throw. Jackson Jobe only actually started pitching last year. In his first start, he ripped off a 3100 RPM slider. His slider has since run up past 3400 RPMs and he now averages 3100 RPMs! This is historically unprecedented raw stuff in his slider which might be the best pitch on a prep arm ever. Walker Buehler led the MLB in spin rate on sliders last year at 2931 RPMs on average. Dustin May averaged 3089 RPMs on his slider that he likes to pretend is a curveball. Jackson Jobe already has the best slider spin in the MLB and I’m fairly certain that he hasn’t even been introduced to the sticky stuff yet.
The slider as you would expect with such elite spin rates has elite movement both horizontally and vertically. The pitch has made some of the best prep hitters in the draft look completely overmatched. He throws it in the mid-eighties and has even shown an above-average feel for spotting it in the strike zone. It’s a potential 80-grade offering although the realistic is probably a tick lower.
There are some slider shape issues to work on, it’s not perfect… yet. His shape can be inconsistent between starts and his spin axis is often inconsistent. His spin efficiency is mediocre and you usually want an extreme on one end. That being said, you can’t teach the spin that he naturally possesses on the slider.
That is only one of his two breaking balls, and while it is very clearly the better of the two, he has a second above-average one in the curveball. The curveball is honestly only remarkable because of the spin rates. It has less spin than the slider, typically sitting around 2900 RPMs. He’ll throw it in the upper seventies with solid shape but limited spin efficacy and the shape doesn’t have great synergy with the rest of his arsenal. The spin is all that makes it an above-average offering.
I’ve seen some scouts put a 70 on Jackson Jobe’s changeup. I very much disagree with that lofty grade but it’s not that difficult to see why they would think that. This is without a doubt, an above-average pitch. He throws the changeup sparingly because his fastball/slider combination has been much more dominant and there has been no need for that extra offering even against opposite-handed hitters but it is there and quite good.
He throws the changeup in the low eighties with significantly lower spin rates than that of the fastball. He has good tumbling action to it although the fade can be a bit inconsistent. He does a good job selling it with his arm speed and the velo separation makes misreading it lethal. There is a solid feel for the pitch and the ability to spot it in the zone is present. My primary concern is that the shape doesn’t really play off of the fastball and his arm slot appears to be slightly more lateral on the Cambio. I still think it’s an above-average and maybe plus pitch but I’m not all in on it yet.
Jackson Jobe has one of the more fascinating fastballs in the draft. His fastball will typically sit 92–94 MPH and topping out at 96 MPH but in a handful of starts, he’s been more 94–96 and has run it up to 99 MPH. His fastball has elite spin rates, averaging about 2500 RPMs on the lower end of the velo spectrum. His spin axis sits around 1:15 from a ~6-foot vertical release point and his spin efficiency sits around 75%.
The pitch still has nearly average vertical movement and plus horizontal because of the raw spin. He needs to shift his spin axis and boost his spin efficiency to get the pitch into plus or better territory but there are zero reasons to believe he can’t do so. He’s already shifted his spin axis significantly since he started pitching last summer.
In terms of mechanics, there is room for optimization but he is in no way bad in that regard. The stuff is here and it’s average command with some scouts projecting better. He’s uber-athletic and has barely walked anyone but his go-to method of avoiding walks is getting chases. There is nothing wrong with that method but I’m not entirely confident it will translate as he climbs the ladder and faces stiffer competition.
His delivery is easy but his arm action can get a bit long and he has some posture on release and lower half efficiency issues that need to be corrected. Those are fixable issues and not that difficult of ones for a pro-development staff but issues nevertheless that take time to fix. Seeing as he’s only been pitching for a year, there is almost no wear and tear on his arm and the instant dominance after converting is probably without precedent.
Jackson Jobe is a work in progress who will take a while to reach the big leagues in all likelihood but he could be truly special once he arrives. However, my real wart with Jobe is that we don’t really know much about him. There might be some injury issues we don’t know about yet, or the velo could drop off under a full workload, etc. There is a lot of stuff we don’t know because of how new he is to pitching, questions that can only be answered with time.
What we do know is that he has 80-grade raw stuff and that will see him drafted extremely high- quite possibly in the top five picks. At his peak, it’s entirely possible that he’s a 70 FB, 80 SL, 60 CB, 70 CH guy with plus command which might make him the best non-deGrom pitcher in baseball. There’s also a decent chance that his velo falters under a full workload, he runs into command issues, and he gets injured to hell and back before ending up in the bullpen. This is a risky prep arm but one with an extremely lofty ceiling.
9. SS Matt McLain, UCLA
Matt McLain is one of the more unorthodox but fascinating hitters in the draft. I’ve gone back and forth on him quite a bit, but I think this is likely about where he belongs. The former Diamondbacks' first-round pick should go considerably higher this time around. His tools are there and while there are some warts, as a whole he’s a safe college bat with more upside than you might think at first blush.
Matt McLain probably has the best hit tool in a fairly weak college crop this year. His whiff rates are well below-average and in the single digits. He doesn’t chase frequently at all and has impressive plate discipline as a whole so he should probably walk at an above-average rate despite an apparent lack of raw power. His primary hitting ability comes from his feel for the barrel as he’ll keep his hands in and consistently square balls up. That barrel accuracy is really impressive and lets the entire toolset play up considerably.
He can’t get beat up and in ever due to how flat the bat head is and he has no issues dealing with velocity due to easy plus bat speed. His plate coverage is elite and while he can be fooled by tough stuff, he can hit anything if he can recognize it. That ability to hit the high fastball is something that is widely coveted in the MLB today and gives him an advantage in projecting his translation to a league where high heat is much more common. He also has a very tight distribution of his launch angles which would tend to lead to a high BABIP later in life. The hit tool is far from perfect but it is certainly a plus tool.
Prior to this season, his power was not one or even average or even at all close to that. His average exit velocity has hovered around 88 MPH at the collegiate level that sounds like average power until you remember that this is with a metal bat so his average with wood would translate to roughly ~84 MPH which puts him in Nick Madrigal territory. His max exit velo of 102 prior to this season was even scarier than that. There has only been one occasion in the statcast era where a qualified hitter has had a max exit velocity that was 102 or lower. That one occasion was Billy Hamilton in 2018. Every other hitter even to qualify had more max raw EV than McLain did prior to this season.
There are reasons to think he could learn to hit for more power but how much of it? His swing isn’t exactly tailored for power. He has plus bat speed but his weight transfer is highly inefficient as he just rocks forward with a stride and lets it rip. He probably needed to add some length to his swing to delay torso rotation and really put some oomph in his batted balls.
He got hot late in the 2021 season after a slow start before a broken thumb ended it and showed significantly more power with the data to back that up. This past season, he averaged 91 MPH and maxed at 109 MPH. That is roughly average raw power for a college bat. He’s evolved from the groundballer he was when he went in the first round to the Diamondbacks during his time at UCLA. He is now a much more lift-centric hitter, especially after this season when his average launch angle was just over 15°.
Matt McLain now elevates very frequently despite a flat VBA due to very optimal attack angles and elite explicit loft generated by his swing shape and attack angles. There is a lot of similarities in the bat to a slightly worse version of Alex Bregman coming out of LSU. Just as we saw with Bregman, adopting a pull-heavy approach could see his lift-centric style and elite barrel accuracy result in manufactured plus or better power in an ideal world that could abuse certain ballparks.
Alex Bregman has never had any better-than-average raw power. His career-high exit velocity is a mere 108.8 MPH. The highest Hard-Hit rate in his career is only 64th percentile and that is the only year he’s even above-average. This is far from good raw power. Bregman still hit 41 homers in 2019 and has the 16th highest ISO in the MLB min 2500 PA since his MLB debut. He didn’t create power by hitting the ball hard. He hits for power by putting the ball in the air 65% of the time. He hits for power by pulling 35% of aerial contact.
Matt McLain could follow the same optimization path. In college, Alex Bregman was a very flat VBA spray hitter with a lift-centric approach. Matt McLain right now is a very flat VBA spray hitter who rarely puts the ball in the ground. If he were to adopt a more pull-heavy approach, not only would it help him generate more bat speed, it would trade BABIP for homerun power. I don’t think he’ll ever be a 40 homerun threat because Bregman is a bit of a unicorn; however, I do think you have a good chance at above-average game power due to the ability to elevate. Elevating is such a valuable skill and despite the lack of homers, I have no issue projecting on the power because he is so good at it.
Matt McLain is also a quality shortstop. He has 70-grade speed which plays in the form of plus range. His actions and instincts are nothing to write home about, but he is more than adequate there. His hands are solid and he has some natural smoothness to his game. His arm strength is a plus but it plays down due to somewhat inconsistent footwork. I think he’s an above-average shortstop although not very far above that line. A transition to centerfield or a different infield spot could be in his future if he loses a step.
There are certainly some warts for Matt McLain. He might not be much more than an average bat if he can’t adjust and start pulling the ball. I think learning to pull the ball is one of the easiest things to teach which is why I have him ranked where I do and as I do but it’s possible he can’t make that switch. He’ll have some struggles down in the zone with a flat swing. That being said, his ability to generate loft and make frequent contact is extremely enviable. He murders pitches up in the zone and that is valuable for anyone. For a shortstop, even more so. There is some risk he winds up without any real punch but I think he’ll be an above-bat with a good glove at shortstop with proper development.
10. SP Gage Jump, Junípero Serra Catholic High School
Gage Jump plays in maybe the toughest high school baseball league in the country as his school is part of the brutal Trinity League. He was absurdly dominant there this season as across 50.2 innings he logged a deGrom-esque 0.14 ERA with a 17.2 K/9 and a 2.9 BB/9 for a 0.64 FIP. This is impressive even at 1A let alone, in arguably the best prep league in the country.
David Clyde was according to MaxPreps, the best high school pitcher of all time. He had a .18 ERA. That was a 4A school and not the Trinity League. His ratios are on par with what Clayton Kershaw did in a 4A High School and his ERA was only .77. Brady Aiken had a 1.06 ERA and a .44 FIP in High School. Brady Aiken did that in a 5A school also in California. Gage Jump didn’t throw as many innings as these guys but his dominance is still historical. That dominance hardly is even a factor in this ranking for him.
You can easily see why scouts and teams might overlook Gage Jump at a glance. He throws his fastball 91–93 MPH and tops out at 96 MPH with no projection in an already filled out 5'10" frame. However, this is the year 2020 so I like to imagine that we’ve evolved beyond the need to evaluate a pitcher and more particularly their fastball off of velocity alone. According to nearly every other measure, this is probably hands down the best fastball in the draft.
His spin rates are consistently elite as he averages ~2400 RPMs and has a spin efficiency that typically sits north of 98%. He throws his fastball from an 11:30 spin axis which gives him nearly pure backspin on the pitch. This leads to absurd vertical movement on the heavy backspining fastball. Like 25 inches of induced vertical break kind of absurd. DeMarcus Evans led the majors in induced vertical break in 2020 at 22.3 inches. To be fair, part of that is probably because the high school baseball has different seams. It still is nearly completely unfathomable.
More importantly, however, is his diminutive stature at only 5'10" and his elite extension from such a small frame, ~6.8 feet to be precise which pads his perceived velocity by ~1.5 MPH. The fact that he rides so low to the ground during his delivery because of how glute-centric his hip hinge is, has lowered his vertical release height to a mere 5.7 feet on average. It is very rare for a starter with an over-the-top arm slot to have such a low release height but Jump does due to both his frame and mechanics.
When combined with his elite vertical movement, the low release height creates literally impossible angles on his fastball that leaves batters completely helpless against the high cheese. His fastball can be very difficult for hitters to Gage as it can really Jump up on hitters out of nowhere due to the low release and elite carry on it. (Haha puns so funny). This is one of the best fastballs in the draft and an easy 70-grade offering despite the velocity limitations.
Gage Jump throws one of the slowest curves in the draft as he’ll sit 69–72 MPH. I hate slow curves but his might still be a plus pitch and is at least above-average. He throws it with fastball arm speed and it actually comes out of the same tunnel. He throws it with low spin at ~2100 RPMs but he has 95% spin efficiency and a mirrored movement and spin pattern from the fastball coming out of the same tunnel with elite vertical depth on it. This is a bat missing offering and while I might want more velocity on his curve, it has elite traits aside from velocity and spin. He actually already showcased a harder curveball in a few outings this spring that looked like a plus pitch in very limited looks.
Jump’s slutter hybrid is also above-average with mid-eighties velocity and heavy gyro spin and above-average spin rates. He gets considerable horizontal movement with limited drop to it. It’s a bat missing pitch now that many draft models have as his best and it could easily become a plus with further refinement. The depth is somewhat limited which leaves him in more cutter than slider territory which should probably mean he adds more velocity to it but in terms of shape, it’s a great pitch that could pretty convincingly become a plus offering.
Gage Jump’s changeup is his best secondary offering. I’m not sure if that still qualifies as a hot take at this point. He throws the changeup at ~80 MPH which is very good velocity separation from the heater. He also does a solid job of coming close to replicating the fastball arm speed on it. He throws the changeup with a spin axis of ~10:30 which leads to an optimal movement profile. The pitch has heavy fading action without a lot of tumble which allows it to function as a sort of reverse slider and miss bats. He has a bit more spin on the changeup than you typically will see, more than the fastball even at times which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I also have his command graded as above-average although it is a very tentative above-average. He is a very small pitcher which makes it very easy to control his limbs and he’s a plus athlete which only helps in that regard. His delivery is smooth and repeatable. He keeps his head firm and his front side closed off while also excelling at stopping his rotation. His velocity generation is efficient and low risk which well it may theoretically limit the eventual velocity upside but lowers the risk he presents.
His arm action is a bit irregular, he keeps the back shoulder down through the motion and hides the ball beneath eye level. It doesn’t look problematic to me but I am well aware that I could be wrong on that. He does still complete the arm spiral and get his arm into the ready position which is what I think matters more.
Gage Jump is very comparable to Jack Leiter except he is a lefty and in high school. They have very similar fastballs and three quality secondaries each. The upside is nearly identical if not higher for Jump as Leiter even if the floor is considerably lower. This is an impact arm with four quality pitches headlined by an elite fastball who deserves to go early on draft day. If he is allowed to attend UCLA, he will be the #1 overall pick in three years.
11. CF Benny Montgomery, Red Land High School
Benny Montgomery is the highest upside hitter in this draft in all likelihood. His raw tools are unbelievable- like borderline Jasson Dominguez and Elijah Greene levels. There are very legitimate reasons to be concerned with the swing and hit tool but the other four are so absurd he still belongs in the top ten in my opinion.
Benny Montgomery is a freak athlete that will likely make him a gold glove contender in centerfield in his prime. He is an 80-grade athlete without question and that isn’t something you can teach. His 60 yard dash time is 6.32 seconds. An 80-grade time. He’s also absurdly explosive with a 1.55 seconds ten-yard split on that 60-yard dash as he can accelerate in an instant and reach top speed. This explosiveness gives him an elite first step in centerfield and very good jumps on the basepaths. 80-grade speed and 80-grade explosiveness will play and is incredibly exciting.
His jumping ability should be lauded just as highly. He has an 11'7" Broad Jump at the Baseball Factory showcase events. Which is the second farthest broad jump ever by a 17 year old at one of those showcases. His one-legged broad jump laterally is 7'9" off both legs which are plus measurements as well. He might be spiderman in centerfield, climbing walls and leaping to bring back home runs.
His arm is against something that is just absurd in how impressive it is. His max throw velocity is 97 MPH from centerfield. That is in the 100th percentile. The highest ever at a showcase event is 101. His throw velocity is the highest in this year's draft from an outfielder. He has 70-grade arm strength and maybe more with good footwork to boot. He’s going to be a freak defensively.
His bat is nearly as outlandish. His power is at least. He has a max exit velocity of 103 MPH off of a tee. That is not only tied for the best exit velocity off of a tee in the class, it is the 11th best in the history of perfect game showcases. That is obviously elite power.
He pairs blinding exit velocities with arguably even more blinding bat speed. His max barrel speed is 84.8 MPH. That is again not only the second-best in this year's draft, it is the 21st best ever at a perfect game showcase. His impact momentum (Bat speed relative to bat weight basically) is 33. That is not only the best in this year's draft, it’s also the seventh-best ever in a perfect game showcase event. His max acceleration is 49 G’s which isn’t the best in the draft for once, but it is still in the 99th percentile. His trigger to impact of 157 milliseconds, is again elite. Suffice to say, he has bat speed in spades.
Benny Montgomery also has a very projectable frame. He’s a lanky kid in the present day, weighing in at 200lbs in a 6'4" frame. He has sloped shoulders and a narrow waist that makes it very easy to project him adding 10–20lbs of good healthy weight and becoming even stronger. This is probably the easiest 70-grade raw power in the entire draft. His game power is another story altogether.
I feel generous putting a 55 on his game power despite 70-grade raw juice. He doesn't understand how to be a power hitter. His swing is flat with a flat bat and a flat plane. His attack angles are awful averaging -4° which leads to a lot of balls hit straight down into the ground. He has questionable barrel accuracy from what I’ve seen and can’t put the ball in the air. That is not a recipe for success. There’s a reason he only had 6 extra-base hits in 91 career high school plate appearances tracked by Maxpreps despite him playing at a 4A school. That reason is elevation and attack angles.
His swing looks like Frankenstein's monster. He strides and lands with his knee rotated inwards from the pitcher standing on his front toe. He twists his foot down and around as he boxes out his hips to kind of create a hinge. He then opens up his hips as his hands drop to create separation. Finally, he slams forward with a very loopy bat path that seemingly goes around the baseball and often results in him getting over the ball and pounding it into the ground as there appears to be an attack angle issue and a major one at that. His swing is impossible to describe. Just watch the video frame by frame yourself.
The swing is going to result in a lot of suboptimal contact quality, kill his game power and probably lead to swing and miss. I say probably because he only has an 8.7% K% in his high school career although some of that is born of hyper aggressiveness. The swing really doesn’t look like it should work with that hitch and loop and his lower half looks very uncomfortable but we said some of the same things about the loopiness of Mike Trout’s swing. That isn’t a comp to be clear just saying we’ve been wrong on what works before and we could be here. He’s also from the Pennsylvania area and only a 4A school for the little it’s worth and that demographic typically gets underrated on draft day due to the difficulties of seeing them which is especially true this year.
There are some major positives with his swing and things he does tremendously well that give me some optimism that he won’t have to completely rebuild himself. His plate coverage is elite as he’ll cover 37 inches in the zone according to Baseball Factory. His hands are elite and despite his long arms, he gets them into optimal positions to make contact. Hunter Pence had some similar mechanisms and had no trouble making contact at the big league level. Perhaps, it just works for Montgomery with his athleticism and bat speed minimizing the cost of his inefficiencies.
There is certainly work to be done on Benny Montgomery to get his bat up to snuff. You can debate if his inability to make quality contact is a philosophical issues, a small mechanical tweak to get better attack angles, or in need of a complete swing overhaul to resolve but there is likely some fix. The team that believes it’s a simple one will take him very early.
You are taking a risk on the bat with Benny Montgomery but as a whole, he’s not that risky of a player because of how elite the supplementary skills are. An elite defense and elite speed centerfielder only needs an ~80 wRC+ to play every day.
Benny Montgomery could make no contact and flame out before he even reaches AA, but it is also entirely possible that he just hits and is a top ten prospect by year's end. This is a high reward talent with unreal tools. A patient team with an elite development system, should take him without hesitation. Be that at pick #4 or even in the second round. I have no clue where he’ll be drafted but I am sure that he has the potential to make any selection the biggest steal in the draft.
12. SS Jordan Lawlar, Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas
Jordan Lawlar is according to some people the best player in the draft. I vehemently disagree. I don’t think he’s bad by any means, I just don’t really understand the absurd amount of hype that he has gotten. Perhaps I am missing some piece of data that explains his stock or perhaps I’m just being foolish.
Jordan Lawlar has a good hit tool but even when I squint, I find it very difficult to see how people can consider it the best hit tool in the draft. His high school numbers aren’t everything obviously, but a 12.8% strikeout rate in both his senior season and his varsity career is far from great. Dallas Jesuit is a 7A school in one of the most competitive leagues, so he gets some grace for that but at the same time, he’s also a year old for the class at 19 on draft day so it’s still a bit of a red flag.
Part of the strikeout issues is born of a passive approach that results in him taking a lot of pitches- both in and out of the strike zone. He walked 24.2% of the time for a reason after all. That’s not as absurd as it sounds considering this is high school ball but it’s still impressive. He shows good pitch recognition in all of my looks and has shown the discipline to spit on some really tough breaking balls.
His swing and miss troubles in high school are also in part due to some mechanical kinks. His swing is on paper really simple and borderline perfect. He has no drift with the bat head. His leg kick is minimalistic. There isn’t any significant length to his swing. His hands are quiet and direct. He keeps them inside and pulls the barrel through the zone. Such an approach has its pros and cons. He has no trouble barreling the majority of balls because of how good his hands are but the outside stuff- especially that with significant horizontal movement away from him, can give him trouble.
My primary concern has to do with his lack of consistency. He is a very hot and cold hitter. He struck out once during his last 55 PA this year and struck out nearly 25% of the time the rest of the season. A lot of those hot streaks have coincided with well-attended showcase games where his stock has soared because of the timing. He’ll run into slumps, however, with frequent swing and miss that leaves you wanting. His hips will oftentimes open up early and leave his upper body disjointed from the rest of the swing. When everything is on point, he has as much offensive talent as just about anyone in this year's draft.
His contact quality is pretty good albeit unexceptional. He hits with very good posture that helps him square balls up. His spinal tilt is reminiscent of the game’s biggest stars and his armbar is highly efficient. He hits the ball at a fairly optimal attack angle and is a heavy line-drive hitter although there can be a tad too many groundballs at times. His swing can be a bit flat which might leave him with some issues down in the zone but it’s not a major concern. He’s also a spray hitter who is capable of going the opposite way. I think as a whole, Lawlar is like a ~.315 BABIP guy with a strikeout rate that is a tick worse than average but above-average walk rates.
His power is fairly average in games due to the elevation issues but it will probably mature into plus raw juice. He doesn’t have very much punch in his bat right now. His swing is primarily tailored for line drives and I think that is the correct approach for him to take. His raw punch is underwhelming. His bat speed is only a tick above average and his exit velocities aren’t anything to write home about either. He struggles to create torque in his swing due to how concise his swing is.
Regardless of if the swing improves, you can still pretty easily dream of more raw power. His body is incredible. If you were to pick the perfect frame for a player it would look something like Jordan Lawlar who comes it at 6'2" 185 lbs. More importantly, is the way he is built. He checks all of the boxes. Broad shoulder, high waist, lean, and easy to dream on. You can easily envision Lawlar adding 20 lbs of good muscle to both the upper body and legs without losing much athleticism. The power should improve as he grows into himself.
Jordan Lawlar is blazing fast. He has been clocked as fast at 6.45 seconds on the 60-yard dash. That is 70 raw speed. He plays a tick below that grade due to mediocre acceleration but he certainly has impressive straight-line speed. That lack of acceleration has me somewhat down on him defensively although he is still easily above-average defensively. That first step is incredibly crucial and a weakness of his. That might be his only weakness.
Despite the weak first step, Lawlar showcases tremendous range. He has the appropriate levels of flash for the tough plays that make your jaw drop. His actions are smooth and he has incredible hands. He’ll leap and dive to make the impossible look routine. He has no issues charging in on balls and moving laterally. His arm strength is mostly average (85 MPH max throw velo) but it plays above that due to lightning-quick transitions, concise footwork, and the ability to throw from multiple arm angles with elite arm accuracy.
Lawlar has the talent to be a star with patience and good development. He certainly flashes such. I just think he is going to take longer to reach that outcome than most of the other top talents in this class and the probability of that outcome might be lower as well. He’s a good prospect but I expect a lot of ups and downs as he finds out who he is and establishes himself. The glove will play and should make him a regular even if the bat is only averagish but I do question the true value of his bat. I’m not sure that Lawlar deserves the hype he’s been getting but he’s not going to be a bad player by any means. This is a stud prospect who is firmly in the top 100 of the league.
13. SS/3B Trey Sweeney, Eastern Illinois
Trey Sweeney went to a small school so he hasn’t gotten a ton of hype but he might be the best college bat in this year’s draft when all is said and done. His offensive production against vastly inferior competition has been nothing short of ethereal although that is largely to be expected. This season he hit .382/.522/.712 in the Ohio Valley Conference. The process is incredible and it seems likely that his production will translate to higher quality competition.
Trey Sweeney has an above-average hit tool and that might be underselling it. He has a 13% Whiff rate… when you combine it with his chase rate. Yeah, he’s averaging 6.5% on each of them on average. That is just stupid. He’s an absurdly patient hitter who has reached base via a free pass fifty-three times. He’s struck out less than half as often at only twenty-four in 226 plate appearances.
A large part of the elite chase rates is a very passive approach that you might want to tweak. He swings at a below-average rate on pitches in the zone too. Most of it, however, is because he has elite pitch recognition and strike zone awareness. The combination of that and tremendous contact skills is incredibly rare.
His swing is objectively loud. He has a lot of pre-pitch movement and a weird loading phase. His leg kick is particularly voracious. There is a sense of rhythm to those loud mechanics, however, and I’ve never seen him have any issue repeating his swing or getting disconnected. More importantly, if the length does become an issue and he needs to simplify things it can be pretty easily coached out as pretty much all of the noise is not at all integral to his operation.
His bat speed is some of the best in the draft class and that isn’t something you can teach. He can turn on high velocity with ease and hit it with authority. His vertical bat angle is naturally steep which creates implicit loft for him while also putting backspin on batted balls. He doesn’t put the ball on the ground all that much and in general, doesn’t hit too much high flyballs either.
He tends to sit in the perfect line-drive range where all his contact has a really good chance of falling for a hit. His line-drive rate this season was close to 50% because of the swing path being so optimal and the feel for the barrel. He also shows the ability to hit the ball the opposite way and go against the defense.
The only reason this isn’t a plus hit tool and the best college hitter in the draft is because of the quality of competition concerns. However, he’s had a handful of matchups against actually good pitchers without struggling. He put his name on the map initially with a loud performance against probable first-round pick, Jordan Wicks. He only whiffed twice on twelve swings in that game and managed to hit two balls with a 105 MPH exit velo. I think there is a high likelihood that Trey Sweeney is an on-base threat at the game’s highest level.
His power is likely also going to be a plus. He has already posted a 111 MPH exit velocity. On top of the aforementioned elite bat speed, his swing effectively utilizes the power upside he has as well. His leg kick effectively transfers his weight and he absolutely unleashes on the ball with good torque and barrels balls to all fields. His lower half is well designed and he has tremendous physicality. There is also considerable projection left in his frame. He’s listed at 6'4" 200 lbs and checks a number of markers in body projection. His shoulders are sloped and he has a high waist. This is the kind of power bat you can dream on.
Trey Sweeney is a below-average runner but there is still a solid shot he sticks at shortstop, if not I think he’ll be a possible plus defender at third base. His lateral agility really stands out in all my looks and he has steady hands. There are some range concerns but the actions are fine. He also has easy plus arm strength with good accuracy. He won’t ever wow you at shortstop and would probably be below-average but it’s not like he’s Eugenio Suárez or anything at the position. The profile is much better suited for third base, however.
The only real concern I have with Trey Sweeney is the competition quality. Even then, I’m not that concerned because he has hit just about every good arm he has faced. The tools are loud and the offensive potential is massive. I only have him a 50 FV because of the risk associated with his performance but if he dominates in High A or something after being drafted, it is very much possible that he is a 60 FV entering 2022. The offensive potential is as high as just about anyone and he’s going to provide some defensive value regardless of if he sticks at shortstop. The profile screams Farhan Zaidi to me as an under-slot first-rounder, although it’s entirely possible he is off the board by #14.
14. SP Gavin Williams, East Carolina University
Gavin Williams has some of the same concerns as Trey Sweeney that hurt his stock a tad. He was one of the most dominant pitchers in College Baseball against vastly inferior competition in the American Atlantic Conference. However, unlike Sweeney, he is a pitcher so we have entirely objective data that we can use to evaluate him and realize he’s amazing.
Gavin Williams will garner much-deserved headlines with his fastball. He will typically sit 95–97 MPH on the pitch and has run it up to 101 MPH in some outings. His fastball plays up to that velocity in games as it has conflicting but overall solid shape. Gavin throws from an over-the-top arm slot which when combined with his 6'6" frame gives him a very high release height. His fastball shape doesn’t gel perfectly with the release angle.
Usually, with those guys, they are ideal for throwing a sinker. Gavin Williams instead just overpowers hitters with a four-seam fastball that averages 20.2 inches of induced vertical break. That is elite life on the heater and gives him a relatively flat VAA despite the release being so high. The combination of velo and movement makes the fastball a plus pitch that might be more without so many command questions.
His fastball is impressive but his secondaries are what will see him taken in the first half of the first round. He has three of them that all grade out as above-average or better. All of them have real out pitch potential and the repertoire depth is awe-inspiring.
The curveball is pretty clearly his best secondary pitch. He throws a bit of a power breaker from that high arm slot as he’ll typically sit in the 78-80 MPH range but its shape is more comparable to those of a much slower curve. His Curveball averaged -20.3 inches of induced vertical break this past season. In 2020, with a minimum of one pitch, Caleb Thielbar had the least induced vertical break at -20.1 inches. Caleb Thielbar averages 68.7 MPH on his curveball. Gavin is throwing his over 10 MPH harder on average with that same kind of shape.
In a small sample of 2021, Alex Reyes has taken his curveball to the next level- by that I mean it is nearly identical that of Gavin Williams. He averages 79.2 MPH on the curveball with as of the time of me writing this (not publishing), -20.3 inches of induced vertical break. Alex Reyes has some of the best breaking balls in all of baseball so Gavin having comparable shape is very encouraging. The elite vertical depth from such a high arm slot is very exciting.
My only real concern with the curveball could be considered a positive depending on how you look at it. There is nearly 20 MPH of velo separation on the two-pitch combo that is separated by just over 40 inches vertically. If he can repeat his release and arm speed between the two pitches or even just be consistently inconsistent enough that the release blurs together, then the two could have incredible synergy and be deadly. I’m not sure that he can do that, and from my looks he can slow his arm speed considerably on the curve which gives away that he’s not throwing the fastball. The curveball is still a plus pitch because power velo + shape but it’s not quite that next level offering for me yet.
The slider is also an above-average secondary offering to keep in his back pocket. He throws it at about 88 MPH on average with great shape to boot. He gets a very low spin efficiency on the gyro slider which enhances its profile as it kills lift and creates sweep. The combination of velocity and fairly optimal shape plays. The command of the slider is very erratic. The pitch isn’t necessarily spectacular but it is easily above-average and an awesome third option for any pitcher to have with plus upside.
His changeup is probably the second-best secondary with a lot of traits that make it stand out although I still only have it as above-average. He throws his changeup with the same velocity band as the slider and not a vastly different shape. Where the slider sweeps, the changeup fades and the drop isn’t all that different on the two either. Out of the hand, they appear to come out of the same tunnel with mirrored movement patterns. The effect of the two playing off of each other could be lethal.
The changeup has heavy fading action with 17.3 inches of horizontal movement on average. Only five pitchers who threw at least 50 changeups in 2020 averaged more horizontal movement on the pitch. That is elite fading action. My concern with the changeup comes down to two things. The lack of shape in common with the heater, and the struggles to command this offering. On traits alone, the changeup is a plus or better like all of his pitches. However, he really struggles to throw it for strikes and the pitch doesn’t play off of his fastball as most good changeups do. The changeup plays incredibly off the slider so it’s not a huge deal but it is a slight detractor.
In terms of pure stuff, Gavin Williams probably has the best in the entire collegiate crop. His stuff is advanced and high upside both. The reason Gavin ranks so low on this list and much lower on other people’s lists when compared to the stuff is two-fold. Neither of those reasons is the obvious quality of competition concern. The issue with Gavin comes down to command and durability.
Durability is the easier of those concerns to evaluate. Gavin Williams has been consistently dinged up during his time at East Carolina University. He had a forearm strain his freshman year that held him to only 15.2 innings. In his sophomore season, he pitched in relief primarily, in large part due to health concerns and some finger issues. In his junior year, he only threw three innings before a broken finger and then a pandemic ended his season. This year he was more healthy than ever, but still missed a few starts with minor issues at the begining of the season.
Most of those injuries are seemingly unrelated so while the quantity of them is concerning, that doesn’t mean that they are part of an underlying issue and certain to reoccur. That also doesn’t mean that there aren’t underlying issues, however, or that he isn’t just brittle.
However, upon a deeper inspection, there aren’t that many easily noticeable red flags to the naked eye with his delivery. He has no problem completing his arm spiral by foot strike and aside from some slightly premature rotation, there isn’t much to see in that phase of his delivery. His unloading phase doesn’t raise very many questions either. He’s far from perfect but he’s not bad by any stretch mechanically. He might have some weird grip issues that are hurting his fingers but he’s not a huge Tommy John risk or anything. The build is arguably the biggest red flag injury-wise to the naked eye. I have some durability concerns because of the track record of being hurt but I don’t think it’s as bad as the history might suggest.
Command is the bigger concern for me. Gavin Williams has had major struggles controlling his long limbs to date. He has not been a strike-thrower in college baseball even this year. That might sound weird to say about a guy with a mere 6.4% walk rate this past season but it’s important to note that if you count hit by pitches as walks, he jumps to 9.4%. 2.4% of all his pitches this season were wild pitches. This is again coming against very poor competition. He also has a track record of walking hitters. Prior to this season, his walk rate was 11.1% in his career.
The control is worse than those numbers would indicate. In his breakout season this year, he threw strikes 66% of the time. That sounds quite good but it’s a misleading figure. He gets strikes by eliciting chases. Only 43% of his pitches are in the strike zone. Using the MLB as a baseline, among all players to make at least eight starts in 2020, only seven of 118 starters to meet that specification threw fewer balls in the zone. He throws the same rate of in-zone pitches as Robbie Ray did. To be fair, the Central Cy Young that year, Shane Bieber threw the lowest amount of in-zone pitches that year but he is the exception, not the rule. In general, fewer pitches in the zone means that a player has/had a walk problem. Gavin probably does still have one.
I can find it easy to get caught up in the breakout season that Gavin Williams had this season but it is important to remember the context of it all. Gavin Williams prior to this season was universally projected as a reliever at the next level due primarily to command and durability concerns. He was draft-eligible last season and went undrafted altogether. He didn’t see some huge jump in the quality of his stuff like Matt Mikulski did since then. His velocity is the same it’s always been and the only real new thing has been the slider which has made huge strides this season.
I firmly believe in the stuff of Gavin Williams, and the upside of the arsenal. There is no college pitcher with better pure stuff than him. The batted ball profile is robust as well with high groundball rates and good line-drive avoidance. What I don’t believe in is the control being at all good. I don’t buy into all of his problems being completely fixed in a year. There is a lot to like about Gavin but he has his flaws and considerable risk with the lack of track record of success and injury concerns. He deserves every chance to start as the stuff will play incredibly well in that role but it is entirely possible and even likely that the long-term role for Gavin Williams is still a high leverage reliever.
Gavin Williams is going to go a lot earlier than most people think on draft day. I think he could be in play in the top ten, #5 even- potentially. Teams who look heavily at pitch data and don’t place a premium on command are going to love him for obvious reasons. More importantly, he is a senior despite turning 22 in July. He is an obvious way under slot value senior sign who doesn’t have age as a negative against him. He does retain another year of draft eligibility due to the pandemic so he won’t sign for literal pennies but he is still going to be cheaper than just about every comparable talent in the draft. He’s worth a high selection on his own merits as well and not just his likely asking price. Literally the perfect player to under-slot in round one.
15. 2B Peyton Stovall, Haughton High School
There are guys that you watch and they make your jaw drop and leave you breathlessly muttering wow mindlessly. Peyton Stovall was one of those guys for me the first time I saw him. He has his warts but his bat is truly just wow.
Peyton Stovall has the best hit tool in the entire draft as far as I am concerned. He checks just about every box on what you would want out of a hit tool. His swing is simple and concise with some pre-bat waggle and then no drifting with quiet hands. Peyton Stovall just doesn’t whiff. He has struck out occasionally with a 4.8% strikeout rate in a 5A high school this year but that is more because he’s passive and walking 30% of the time than anything. His pitch recognition is elite and there is nowhere over the plate where he can’t hit it.
His bat path is incredible in terms of contact optimization as is how efficient it is. He gets a steep bat angle on pitches down in the zone and in the middle regions while flattening out more on pitches up and in. He has a very flexible hip hinge that allows him to make adjustments to hit pitches all over the strike zone. This allows him to make flush contact on just about all pitches and not whiff very frequently. Stovall is from everything I’ve seen the textbook example of a perfect spray profile at the plate. He hits most things on the ground the opposite way and his aerial contact still contains at least an average pull rate. This is your textbook high BABIP bat and one with elite contact skills to boot.
I think perhaps the most important thing with Peyton Stovall is his ability to just hit. That is obviously an oversimplification but a warranted one. He’ll make adjustments mid-plate appearance on the rare occasion that he gets beat and won’t miss twice ever. He just hits everything in sight. He has hit breaking balls, offspeed, and fastballs with shocking consistency. If a pitch is in the zone then Stovall will hit it. That is just what he does. There are some minor competition quality concerns like there is with every pop-up guy who breaks out the spring before the draft but there is nothing in his game to suggest that his bat won’t translate.
Peyton Stovall due in part to his vertical bat angle, and in part due to his natural swing shape, has an awesome feel for elevation. He puts a significant amount of balls in the air. Aerial contact results in more home runs. His bat speed isn’t exactly elite although it is without a doubt better than the 78th percentile numbers from the perfect game showcase a year ago. He’s probably into plus bat speed territory. Stovall’s a strong rotator and more importantly a consistent one with very controlled hips and no leaks in his swing. His weight transfer is consistently efficient and his attack angle optimization lets him get the most of his power in games.
There is still some projection in the body of Peyton Stovall as well. He has room to grow into probably ten more pounds of muscle and add some strength to his frame. There is a real chance that takes him up to plus game power. He already plays above the naturally average raw power because of his feel for elevation and elite barrel control. Peyton Stovall has incredible hands that consistently put his hands in an optimal hitting position and let him square balls up with authority. That is one of the key ingredients for one to have hard-hit rates that exceed the level of their max exit velocities. I consider Peyton Stovall a likely bet to be the somewhat rare bat who outproduces their raw power and wind up with above-average game power.
There are some warts with the bat of Peyton Stovall although not many of them. His track record with wooden bats is rough. He struggled in the showcase games where he didn’t have a metal bat but those were also before his breakout as they took place in the summer of 2020. In the past there have been some chase issues and he’ll still press at times and get hyper-aggressive. However, more often he is relaxed and patient. There is some risk with the competition quality not being elite and his lack of track record but everything I’ve seen suggests he is the real deal. Peyton Stovall will hit.
I’m not sure Peyton Stovall will provide much if any value with the glove. He’s a high school shortstop who will hopefully be announced as one on draft day so we can have ten shortstops in the first round. There is zero chance he is a shortstop at the next level. He is very clearly a second baseman with a fringe chance at playing left field and not a great one at that.
His actions are fine and while his range is limited- especially going to his right side, it’s not a liability. His hands are not an issue and he can scoop most groundballs with ease. However, he has some struggles charging in on balls in the dirt. The biggest detriment to his ability to play shortstop even in theory, is a probably below-average arm. His infield throw velocity has been horrid in every showcase event and it hasn’t looked any better in games.
However, he’s displayed big-time arm strength on the gridiron where he plays quarterback so it stands to reason that it might translate with some refinery- particularly mechanically. Alternatively, a shift to left field where his arm will likely play better as the mechanics are more similar to a quarterback’s from there could also make sense.
Regardless, of where Peyton Stovall winds up defensively and even if he provides no defensive value he will hit enough to be an everyday regular. The bat is the real deal and while there is some risk there is also a lot of upside. There are a lot of similarities with Stovall to last year’s #7 overall selection, Nick Gonzales. He won’t go as high as Nick Gonzales as a prep bat but the upside isn’t that far off from him. This might be a bold suggestion but I think that Stovall will be the first prep bat to reach the majors from this year's draft. The bat is just so advanced and a creative team will find a way to make that play.
16. OF/MIF Sal Frelick, Boston College
Usually, when a player’s scouting report starts with talk about their work ethic and grit they have underwhelming tools and aren’t very good right now. That is not the case with Sal Frelick. Sal Frelick has first-round caliber tools. That says a lot about the work ethic and unmeasurable qualities Frelick has. The makeup is apparently through the roof. I don’t really value that in my rankings as I don’t have a way of assessing it without getting to know the players myself but it’s for that reason that I would be perfectly fine with him going ten spots above where I have him ranked.
Sal Frelick can hit. That is the one thing you can not question about him. You can look at his results in his collegiate tenure to see that. He hit .359 this year and .347 in his career. He hit .377 in his time during various winter leagues. His hitting ability goes beyond the numbers too. This is a plus-hit tool, plain and simple.
Sal Frelick has one of the sweeter-looking swings in the entire draft. His swing is incredibly simple. He doesn’t have any movement really it’s very minimalistic with plus bat speed and a super direct path to the ball. His hands are lightning quick and he can get his hands to the ball. The barrel does stay in the zone, forever, and he has a very long window of opportunity which typically leads to a very balanced spray profile. He just squares everything up and hits with the barrel despite his swing path minimizing how long the barrel is on plane due in part to his attack angles.
That being said, it’s not all wow for Frelick. He tends to stiffen up at times and get robotic. He can struggle to make adjustments and cover the entire zone. That hasn’t really had an impact on performance at the lower levels and there doesn’t seem to be an obvious mechanical reason for those struggles so it’s possible it’s never an issue but it is a red flag. He does swing over the top of pitches down in the zone somewhat often as he struggles to steepen his VBA to get those ones. There is also some concern that in order to have playable game power, he might have to mortgage his hit tool.
Sal Frelick is a bit of a slasher and dasher. Power is not the focus of his game. So much so that he actually eliminated his leg kick altogether this year. He didn’t turn it into a foot tap or something instead of a cacophonous movement. His front foot literally does not leave the ground now. His front foot raises on its tiptoe before slamming back down to transfer his weight. Somehow, it is still incredibly efficient and the new mechanism has resulted in a career-high Max EV just north of 109 this year.
That max exit velocity would suggest average raw power despite his 5'9" frame and that is what I have him with. Most of his power is bat speed and core-centric rather than putting much pressure on his lower half to produce it. Some would like that to change, which would likely mean adding back a loud leg kick which could detract from the hit tool. Personally, I’m fine with his swing as it currently constituted.
Unfortunately, due to his struggles pulling aerial contact and his struggles putting the ball in the air, the power plays as below-average in games despite impressive exit velocities. I’m somewhat bullish on the eventual power getting close to playing up to his raw due to the feel for the barrel but the profile isn’t one geared for power. That probably is fine because he’ll get on base with his hit tool what it is. However, it does put him in some danger of being a tweener if the defensive skills slide at all.
Sal Frelick is a natural centerfielder with elite 70-grade speed who has randomly spent a lot of time in the right field for some reason. That speed should play in centerfield as he shows the speed and instincts mandated for a plus fielder at that premium position. He plays with reckless abandon in the outfield and shows no hesitation to slam into walls or layout to make highlight-reel plays. I’ll let you decide if that’s a positive or not.
Some scouts want him to play some middle infield as he did in high school. I get the argument and will never knock making players versatile. That being said, he should not be playing that spot exclusively under any circumstance. Second basemen are very plug-and-play in the shift-centric game today. Even first basemen have shifted to second base with enough success. The keystone is no longer a place for defensive stalwarts but the spot to hide a big positionless bat.
I think Sal Frelick can be good at second base. He has the athleticism at least. He apparently had good defense in high school too before he transitioned to the outfield. He probably has the athleticism to be serviceable at shortstop even. The arm strength is lackluster but he can play there in a pinch. I think the ideal long-term role for Sal Frelick is a super-utility player who rotates all over the field to give players days off with the bulk of his time should come in center field. That has value beyond what is quantified by stats like WAR.
I’m not sure where Sal Frelick will be drafted or even where I think he should be drafted. I’m as confident that he will have an MLB career of some sort with him as I am just about anyone in this draft. The tools are there even if they aren’t the loudest and he can contribute in so many ways. His supposedly off-the-charts makeup has him as a pretty good bet to exceed the tools. Sal Frelick is a bit of an unorthodox player but the value he provides probably warrants a selection in the top half of round one.
17. SP/RP Sam Bachman, Miami University of Ohio
I might have more mixed feelings on Sam Bachman than any other player in the draft. Sam Bachman has a lot of things going for him that are better than literally any other player in this year’s draft. He also has a few huge red flags that scare me off of taking him at all in the first round. The positives probably outweigh the negatives but this is a high-risk high reward college arm.
Sam Bachman can hit 102.3 MPH with his fastball. Despite that, I’m not a huge fan of the pitch. He doesn’t sit in the 100+ range, however, instead, he’ll normally sit 96–98 MPH. Obviously, that is premium velocity but it’s not next-level stuff like the max might suggest. His fastball plays a tick lower than that as he only gets 5.9 feet of extension on it. His velocity is the most remarkable trait about the turbo-sinker that holds a lot of similarities to the turbo sinker of Luis Castillo.
The sinker has a lot in common with Luis Castillo’s sinker. He throws it with a 2:00 spin axis and near-perfect spin efficiency. However, his spin rates are well below-average for his velocity as he’ll sit at about 2200 RPMs on the heater. The sinker has a very similar movement to Castillo’s as well with about 9 inches of induced vertical break and 17 inches of horizontal movement. Both Luis Castillo and Sam Bachman even throw their sinkers from a release height of about 5.3 feet. The pitches are almost completely identical. Seeing as Luis Castillo prior to this season had one of the best sinkers in the entire game, that would only appear to be a good thing for Bachman.
The slider also holds a lot of similarities to that of Luis Castillo. He throws the pitch in the same 85–88 MPH range that Luis Castillo operates in. Although there were a handful of starts where he was averaging closer to 90 MPH on the slider. Sam Bachman like Luis Castillo, throws his slider from an ~7:30 spin axis with just under 15% spin efficiency. Both Castillo and Bachman have near identical spin rates of about 2300 RPMs on it too. In the summer league this past year, Sam Bachman averaged 0.3 inches of induced vertical break on his slider. The exact same figure as Luis Castillo did in 2020. He averaged .2 inches more horizontal break. They are basically the same slider.
Okay well, they were basically the same slider last summer. This season he actually averaged 88 MPH on the slider. His spin rate was up to 2300 RPMs and his spin efficiency was sliced to an unreal 5%. The slider might literally be the mythical gyroball at this point. The slider is truly an exceptional offering.
The changeup is nearly identical to Luis Castillo’s too somehow. There are people who consider Luis Castillo’s cambio the best in baseball. They are wrong but the fact that there is a debate is obviously good news for Bachman. Both Castillo and Bachman throw their changeup with approximately a ~2:30 spin axis. Both Castillo and Bachman throw it at about 87 MPH. Both Castillo and Bachman sit at just about 93% spin efficiency on the offspeed pitch. The difference is that Castillo throws his changeup with about 200 more RPMs than Bachman. This leads to Bachman having two less inches of horizontal movement and two less inches of drop on his changeup. Less drop is good and less fade is bad so in theory, it balances out although the obvious edge goes to Castillo here. The changeup projects similarly to Luis Castillo’s changeup, in terms of shape and traits.
If you weren’t already convinced that Sam Bachman is Luis Castillo’s long lost twin, here’s some more evidence. Sam Bachman has a very similar batted ball profile to Luis Castillo. Luis Castillo consistently runs 90th percentile or better groundball rates in the MLB. Sam Bachman has a 100th percentile groundball rate in college baseball this year. Luis Castillo has above-average line-drive avoidance that creeps into plus territory every other year. Sam Bachman has elite line-drive avoidance that will likely fade into that range in the majors. Sam Bachman has a 12th percentile popup rate this season. Luis Castillo was in the 10th percentile in 2020. They are literally the same pitcher.
Except despite identical stuff and identical batted ball profiles, they are absolutely nothing alike in actuality. Luis Castillo also throws a four-seam fastball that he uses more often than the changeup. The four-seam fastball isn’t a particularly good one with well below-average vertical movement and just barely above-average horizontal movement.
However, the velocity and low release height still let it miss bats at an above-average clip. More importantly, it sets up the sinker and changeup with its noticeably different movement pattern coming out of the same tunnel. Sam Bachman doesn’t throw a four-seamer at all. He can add one that would probably play pretty well but he hasn’t and there are no signs that he ever will.
Luis Castillo thrives by throwing his changeup 30% of the time and commanding it around the strike zone. Sam Bachman uses his changeup maybe 10% of the time at most and can’t throw it for a strike to save his life. The changeup might have elite shape but it will never play in games like Castilo’s does unless he randomly develops great command over it. I still think the command will become passable enough that he winds up with an above-average changeup but it won’t be near the levels of Luis Castillo’s.
Sam Bachman thrives by doing the opposite of Luis Castillo. Castillo throws his slider 17% of the time and for a strike only 59.8% of the time in his career. Sam Bachman throws his slider at about a 50% usage rate and throws it for a strike just over 80% of the time. The shape is comparable to Castillo but he uses his slider a lot more because he has the command to make it very effective. He has no trouble spotting his slider in the strike zone, often even having better command over it than the fastball. More importantly, he can command the slider just off the plate to get whiffs regularly and force batters to roll one over weakly when they can’t square up a down and away slider.
This is actually amusingly enough the same approach that Luis Castillo takes with his changeup. He’ll typically set it up on that bottom right corner of the strike zone away from lefties. He’ll pound that one spot and force batters to be uncomfortable, they either take the strike looking on the edge or chase and fail to do damage on the changeup running away from them. Sam Bachman sets up in the same spot but on the other side of the plate to beat right-handed hitters.
I cannot express enough how utterly fascinating and simultaneously baffling it is that Bachman and Castillo have almost the exact same stuff and apply it completely differently. The potential here is three possible 70 grade pitches for the both of them. The reality is a 60 fastball, a 55 secondary, and a 70 secondary on both pitchers with a plus batted ball profile. Theoretically, Bachman (Or Castillo) could be the best of both worlds but in reality, it is unlikely that he finds enough feel for the changeup to get there. It all just goes to show that there is more than one way to skin a cat or in this case, to develop a pitcher.
Sam Bachman has some red flags beyond his mirroring of Luis Castillo. He has dealt with some shoulder soreness, and some forearm soreness this season. He’s pitched through it and been mostly fine (He had one start he topped out at 94 MPH) but it’s alarming to have any arm trouble this young even if it hasn’t resulted in surgery for him yet.
His arm action is long and a bit inconsistent. He tends to rush his arm action in part because he separates his hands early. His arm completes its spiral and is upright at a 90° angle before foot plant which is ideal but his arm is too early. This puts a lot of stress on the arm and his torso rotates even before footstrike. He flies open very early and it can lead to him going off the rails and missing spots. More importantly, it’s a violent motion that fatigues him quickly. Even in the Mid-American Conference, Sam Bachman only averaged 19 batters faced per game. He’s the textbook definition of a five-and-dive starter or else a high octane shutdown reliever. I think the command is actually average all things considered but the stamina is not and the injury risk is high.
Sam Bachman absolutely dominated college baseball this season. Even when you factor in the quality of his competition, there are not very many arms you can argue were more dominant. He punched out 41% of batters this season and as of May 24th was leading all potential first-round college arms in schedule-adjusted FIP. He also was leading them in CSW% at just over 38%. Those results are somewhat misleading and a result of him already being optimized more than his upside. While most pitchers are still trying to figure out how to deploy weapons other than their fastball and establish some command; Bachman has been spamming the slider 50% of the time which drastically inflates his results.
Sam Bachman is the most pro-ready arm in the draft. His stuff is largely optimized and he like Crochet last year could be a weapon for a team in relief this year down the stretch with his FB/SL combo. Alternatively, he could be developed as a starter where he is still the most advanced arm and could probably perform in AA right now despite it being a huge step up from the MAC. Sam Bachman should move quickly and make an impact. Presuming he can stay healthy, of course, which is the farthest thing from a guarantee.
Personally, I love the fit of him to the Rockies at #8 overall despite my ranking of him being more than double of their pick and think that he should be the top pitcher on their individualized draft board. His arsenal is perfect for Coors field. He has the low release, high velo fastball that doesn’t rely on vertical movement so it is largely unaffected by the difficulty of pitching in thin air. Gyro spin sliders like his see the least change in their movement profiles in high altitude (Aside from splitters) as well so the pitch would also probably translate.
His changeup would also lose horizontal movement and add extra drop at Coors. Neither of those things is ideal but he barely uses the changeup anyways so it’s not that big of a deal. Also, it’s possible that less movement enables him to throw the cambio for strikes. The strikeout rate will largely be unchanged by the altitude unlike most pitchers and his high groundball rates will limit the difference in contact quality as well. He is as close to the perfect pitcher for the ballpark as there is.
There is some risk with Sam Bachman that has him down on my board a considerable amount from where his talent likely warrants him being ranked. I think some team picking higher than this, likely in the top ten even will see the upside and pull the trigger early. I am perfectly fine with that and approve of the selection if they do because they know his medical history better than I do. Bachman will also be a top target for contending teams picking early in the draft as his arm could really make an impact out of the bullpen down the stretch this season ala Garrett Crochet. I expect to see Sam Bachman’s name called early on draft day.
18. SS James Triantos, James Madison High School
Usually, when a player walks more than they strike out, it’s considered an impressive feat that we ooh an ah over and get probably too excited about. James Triantos has not only walked more than he struck out this season, but he’s also walked more than he’s even gotten out. He also has hit nearly as many home runs (11) as he’s gotten out (15). Triantos hit .712 in 75 plate appearances this year. I can’t even find words for how absurd that is.
James Madison is a big high school too with multiple MLB alumni and not some small nowhere school where he faces dudes who throw 65 with no movement. This is an actually competitive school. Maxpreps has James Madison as the #21 High School in the Country this season. Baseball America has them #9. He is facing top-tier competition and putting up some of the best high school numbers we have ever seen.
He set the record for the highest batting average, OBP, and slugging percentage as well with a minimum 50 PA by any player ever in a 6A School. You can count the amount of 1A players who have a higher OPS than him in a season- ever on one hand. (Side note: Javier Báez hit .771 with a 1.807 slugging his senior season of High School ball when he walked zero times which is absolutely hilarious). There is the obvious caveat that due to the pandemic, his season was truncated and only 19 games long but it’s still absurd and smashes every record in the books. (Since 2006).
He had an incredible season on the mound as well where he posted a 1.18 ERA in 47.1 innings while going 9–0 with 62 strikeouts and only 14 walks. He was actually higher regarded on the mound entering the season according to most scouts. I’m only going to touch briefly on his pitching ability because he’s definitely going to be a hitter at the next level.
Triantos has also made major strides as a pitcher this season as well although he isn’t anywhere near as historically dominant on the mound. His fastball used to sit 89–91 MPH with a spin rate of about 2250 RPMs on average. He’s up to 96 MPH with unspecified spin this spring where he has been sitting 92–94. If we assume that his Bauer units are unchanged, that would have him averaging about 2350 RPMs on the heater which would be in about the 70th percentile of major leaguers (Likely higher post-crackdown on Sticky stuff). His fastball has good vertical life from a fairly flat angle up in the zone. It’s an above-average pitch but nothing exceptional.
His curveball might be, sitting at about 80 MPH with 75th percentile spin and awesome bat missing shape due to tremendous depth on the pitch and lots of topspin. He’ll also mix in a fringy slider and changeup that are probably below-average but show flashes. He has a very low-effort operation with a clean arm action and no major red flags. The command hasn’t been spectacular in High School- just average but the mechanics don’t suggest that those troubles are unsolvable or going to cause injuries down the line. He’s a legitimate prospect on the mound even if his future is very clearly at the plate. I have him with a 55 FB, 60 CB, 45 SL, 45 CH, and 50 control. He’s a 40 FV fringe starter/long reliever.
Now back to the offense. James Triantos put his name on the map with such a loud spring season and I never would have even glanced at him without such absurd results. That being said, this ranking of him is almost entirely independent of his production this year but instead based on his tools and projection at the next level.
It’s safe to say that James Triantos won’t ever hit .712 in the MLB. He probably won’t even hit half of that. He will likely be a plus hitter, however, at the MLB level in his prime. His swing is awesome at optimizing contact quality. Before we even get into the mechanical portion of it, there’s a batting cage session video posted by Eddie Kim of Triantos where he recorded at least 20 Batted Balls and had a 69% line drive rate during that session with a mere 17% groundball rate. I’ve seen nothing in the full games for his team uploaded to youtube that suggests it doesn’t work that way in games.
He abandoned switch-hitting this year after doing it his first few years of high school and now exclusively hits right-handed. He is a monster from that side of the plate so it’s obviously a positive development. He has an elite feel for the barrel and a very efficient hip hinge that gives him a steep VBA even on pitches up in the zone. He has amazing hands that let him line up balls and his attack angles appear to be optimal. He has a great extension at the point of contact that allows him to control his barrel and hit with authority before fully extending after contact. He has excellent hips that don’t leak and he doesn’t overrotate either. It’s just consistent authority unleashed on the baseball.
His contact rates might be the even greater selling point. He hasn’t struck out all season and he doesn’t whiff often if ever either. I’ve watched a full game and some change of his and he hasn’t whiffed once in them. He’s patient and takes pitches but doesn’t get into unfavorable counts and when he swings he makes contact- there are foul balls obviously but if it’s in the field of play it’s a hit. His contact skills are very advanced and his swing is simple and concise which doesn’t allow him to get tied up.
James Triantos has exceptional front leg stability and a powerful back half as well. His stride is authoritative and he gets low to the ground when he swings allowing him to generate power from his glutes. His hips and torso have visible separation and he rotates exceptionally well. His bat path is clean and direct now after making some changes over the last year without much-wasted movement and his upper and lower body are consistently in sync. He has good bat speed that is only improving and he utilizes his whole frame in his swing. His exit velocity in March topped out at 98.3 MPH on very soft toss BP (That exact pitch was 37.2 MPH) which is above-average even if not elite raw power. There is also room to add more of that as he grows into his frame as he is still only 6'1" and 170 lbs. This is an impact bat that should be flying up draft boards.
James Triantos is also a plus runner who is 23/23 on steal attempts across 19 games because of course, he is. I’ve clocked him at about 4.2 seconds on average down the first baseline. He’s without a doubt more athletic now than he was when he graded out as an average runner during showcase events last summer.
I also have Triantos as an average shortstop. He has really good actions in the dirt and has made a few plays that have me going wow. He covers ground quickly and has most of the actions and instincts required for the position. He reacts really well to balls off the bat and his first step is incredibly strong. His arm is even better as he’s thrown 96 MPH before off the mound which is obviously very good and can throw from multiple platforms to nail runners. He has some struggles when he rushes his footwork but he’s young and I’m not overly concerned by it. Triantos has got a good shot at sticking at shortstop although the bat will still play if he outgrows the position as he adds more strength.
James Triantos is also apparently an amazing leader with a limitless work ethic and all of his coaches rave about having him in the clubhouse. Here’s what his manager had to say about him:
“He’s smart, he’s unbelievably prepared, but I think the most impressive thing is I think he’s one of the best teammates I’ve seen. And the kids all say that. “ He went on to give an example. In Saturday’s 10–5 win over Centreville, the Warhawks had a poor defensive inning that drew the ire of Gjormand. But as the team jogged off the field after the frame ended, Triantos asked his coach if he could pull his teammates in and pick them up. “He came off the field and said, ‘Coach, I’ve got this, I got them’,” Gjormand said. “And as a coach, when you see that, you know you’ve got something special. He leads every day and he makes everybody around him better.”
If that wasn’t enough, James Triantos is also a tad young for the class, having reclassified after initially being in the 2022 draft. That reclassification is a large part of why he is so underrated as scouts didn’t look too closely at him before now. That combined with his season starting near the end of April, and him being a cold-weather bat has killed his stock from what it should be. Even still, I don’t expect him to last long on draft day. He’s firmly a first-round guy for me and possibly one in the top half of the first round. The tools are legit.
Triantos probably won’t go round one but teams like the Dodgers, Padres, Rays, Cubs, and Royals have all been connected to him in the second and third round. He’ll be a steal for whoever gets him, especially if he falls past the first round or signs for under-slot. There are few players who I have as much confidence in outperforming their selection as Triantos. I’m all in on the kid from Virginia.
19. SP Matt Mikulski, Fordham
Matt Mikulski is another guy who went undrafted in 2020 and now projects as a first-round pick after completely remodeling who he was to actually be a good pitcher. He was electric for the first time this season in the Atlantic Ten Conference. He struck out 46.8% of batters he faced and limited contact quality as well. His numbers are all elite and FaBIO has him as the #3 starter in College Baseball and DIGS has him at 6th, both numbers are adjusted for the opponents that they faced. This isn’t just a byproduct of a weak schedule, Mikulski has been outright dominant this season.
Matt Mikulski has remade his fastball entirely in the past year. His fastball velocity has skyrocketed to the point where he hit 101 MPH in one start according to synergy. More often, however, he is sitting 94–96 and topping out at 98 MPH. More importantly, he has remade his fastball shape this season. His spin rate was already a plus attribute and that hasn’t changed. He’s improved his spin efficiency as well to the point where he is consistently sitting at around 98%.
Matt Mikulski hasn't shifted his spin axis much but the improved spin efficiency and velocity to a lesser extent have him now showing plus vertical movement on the fastball. That is very encouraging for obvious reasons, and more so for Mikulski than most starters. Mikulski has also shifted some things in his delivery this year to drop his release height just below six feet. The drop in release height and increased vertical movement have led to a flat VAA on the high fastball up in the zone. The combination of velo, spin, and angle gives Mikulski one of the better fastballs in the draft.
Matt Mikulski is versatile with his fastball too. He can throw the pitch up above the zone to get whiffs when he needs the strikeout. He can jam hitters with the inside heat above the waist which leads to him also getting popups at an elite clip. He also can work the fastball down in the zone on occasion which has allowed him to post solid groundball rates despite the movement profile being contradictory to such results.
Matt Mikulski is far from a one-pitch wonder just overwhelming obviously inferior hitters with an overpowering fastball although he might post similar results in the A10 by doing so. Mikulski also possesses a complete collection of secondaries that makes him a safe bet to stick as a starter at the MLB level despite some major command questions.
Matt Mikulski’s slider is unquestionably his best secondary offering and for obvious reasons. He’ll sit in the mid-eighties with the slider and has great shape and versatility. At its best, Matt Mikulski has heavy sweeping action that misses bats at an elite clip as it runs away from hitters. However, he will consistently vary the shape of the pitch so it’s not always in the most effective form.
Mikulski also will deploy a slightly harder cutter variant and a spiked version with more of an emphasis on vertical movement. The lack of consistency might be due to a lack of feel for the slider in which case this grade is too high. However, in all my looks it has felt like a deliberate adjustment to the pitch shape. We can debate if his slider should have one consistent shape or multiple versatile options is better. Regardless, if the changes are deliberate then he could commit to the best variant and have it perform so it’s not much of a worry for me that the shape is wildly inconsistent.
Matt Mikulski also throws an above-average changeup that some scouts would swear is his best pitch. He throws the offering with heavy pronation which leads to a lot of horizontal movement to his arm-side. The change has decent separation from the heater and has a bat missing shape. His wrist does tend to get stiff with it, however, which can lead to some ugly floaters that bad competition hasn’t punished him for. The changeup could very easily wind up his best pitch but it’s high variance and needs refinement and consistency. For now, I only have it projected to above-average even if I very much believe it has the upside to be his best pitch.
Matt Mikulski will also mix in a below-average curveball. The slow floating curveball will sit in the mid-seventies with a solid shape. The pitch has above-average depth. That being said, I have concerns over the pitch’s viability at the MLB level. Slow curves are probably the least common pitch to translate up the ladder to the MLB and his is far from transcendent enough in shape for me to buy in. He has some tendency to slow his arm speed on the curve and that can tip what he’s throwing. The curveball has potential but right now it projects to be a below-average pitch.
The command is a big question mark for Matt Mikulski and there is a real reason to be concerned that it will never get better. His delivery is a bit violent, to say the least. Matt Mikulski has a violent delivery where his head goes flying off the rails and his release is inconsistent. Release point consistency isn’t all that it is cracked up to be as Reynaldo López was top three in the least standard deviation of his release point in 2020, and John Means was in the bottom twelve (Min 250 FB). As long as a pitcher is consistently inconsistent, they can be just fine with an inconsistent release. My command concerns don’t stem from the release issues.
They stem from the lack of in-game control he’s shown in his collegiate career. He walked 12.8% of batters (Counting HBP) this season against bad competition who chases everything. That is alarming and something that might rise at the next level. There is also, however, the amount of progress he made over the last season that should reassure you. In his career, prior to this season, he was walking 4% more batters so he’s clearly showed that progress is possible. I’m not sure I believe that much in the command progression but his command doesn’t have to be good to succeed as a starter at the MLB levels.
Matt Mikulski is probably second to only Sam Bachman in terms of blending bat missing ability and an elite batted ball profile in this year’s draft. Those premier out-generation skills limit the damage of the walks he allows and should let most of them continue to go unpunished. He gets groundballs at an average clip while simultaneously having one of the highest popup rates in college baseball and avoiding line drives like they are the plague. He doesn’t expect to be very homer prone because of the strengths of the batted ball profile and also has the traits to suggest that he will limit BABIP against him as well. He is going to get hitters out and while the walks will be irritating and limit his upside, I think the out generation skills are significantly more impactful. Unless he becomes Kyle Barraclough, the supplementary skills should be enough. I think the command matures from the 30/35 it is now to a 40 which makes him a fine starting option.
Matt Mikulski has not had any issue pitching deep in games or maintaining his velocity in spite of the violent delivery. That is why I don’t have much doubt that he can stick as a starter. He’s pitching deep into games regularly and the repertoire depth should be enough to turn the lineup over two and occasionally three times. The balance of performance and stuff is just too rare to pass up in the mid to late first round. The likely reality that Mikulski comes under slot is just the icing on the cake.
20. SS Colson Montgomery, Southridge High School
Colson Montgomery was the second most impressive prospect that I saw televised at the MLB combine. I believed in the bat beforehand but it was the glove that I came around on with such a good showing at the combine. I now believe that rather than him being a fringy fit at shortstop who might move to third base, he is an above-average shortstop. I honestly worry quite a bit that this ranking is too low for him now.
Colson Montgomery had the top time in the agility drill at the combine. Colson Montgomery posted a 10.52 second time in the drill. Second place was 10.68 seconds by Malakhi Knight. That isn’t just elite but significantly better than anyone else. The drill tested how quickly hitters could react to a moving green light and block it with their hands. The drill measured the quickness of a player's first step and their ability to move laterally in space. It also measured reaction times. Colson Montgomery was the best in the 170 prospect field at the combine. Colson Montgomery isn’t a burner. He only has a 6.91-second 60-yard dash. That is a very average time. He still has the best mobility and reactions in the entire draft, to the point where he had the best time in the agility drill despite the lackluster speed. We have measurable data that shows his instincts are that advanced defensively.
I’m not at all confident that Colson Montgomery retains his speed. I just don’t really think it matters. He has the lateral quickness and explosiveness to stick at shortstop even with below-average speed. The hands looked really good and during the fielding drills themselves, he showed no problems with charging in on balls and scooping them out of the dirt. He’s probably not going to be a gold glover but he has the ability to be an above-average shortstop. How the body ages will determine if he gets there, exceeds it, or is closer to just average. His arm is a tick above average with his throw velocity maxing out at 89 MPH across the diamond and good accuracy to boot.
Colson Montgomery can hit and that is the reason he will go in the first round, regardless of if teams share my newfound confidence in his glove. The bat is legit and one of the best in the entire draft. Colson Montgomery is incredibly short to the baseball. He doesn’t have any real length to his swing. His hands are high from a tall stance, he’ll use his lower half efficiently and really crouch into his swing as he coils. The bat stays in the zone for a long time and gives him a larger timing window for his swing than most. This mitigates some of the concern over him lacking the blinding bat speed you usually see in a first-round pick. There aren’t many whiff concerns due to the swing getting him tied up.
There are some concerns due to his struggles with changeups in just about all situations, and without much consideration for quality. However, he also has barely faced any changeups because he attends a 3A school in Indiana which is the farthest thing from advanced competition. I am more of the belief that the issues with changeups are because of a lack of exposure. He looks more lost than fooled if that makes any sense. He’s a smart kid who has aced his interviews and has a good work ethic. I have faith that with constant exposure he’ll patch that hole. If he does that then he might wind up as a plus-hit guy.
The contact quality is fairly optimal as well. His swing posture is great at the point of contact and it shows in the quality of his batted ball data. He is a heavy line-drive hitter with the ability to sting the ball the opposite way. He hits the ball hard and consistently. His launch angle tightness is impressive and the bat path is very good. He has solid attack angles and is very clearly going to do damage at the plate.
The power is his carrying tool in a profile that is loaded with tools that grade out as above-average. Colson Montgomery might not have the elite bat speed that the rest of his peers near the top of the draft have but he still belongs in that same upper-echelon of power hitters. His power isn’t generated by bat speed but by premium rotational ability and raw physicality.
His lower body is so incredibly efficient. He strides hard to shift his weight and crouches a tad to build his load. He explodes forward with his hips as the torso is dragged behind him. He has already posted an exit velocity of 112 MPH. He has lots of room to grow into his very projectable frame at 6'4" and 190 lbs. He has the broad shoulders and a high waist that are easy to dream on. He’s a lean and lanky guy with extremely long levers and the room to add potentially 25 lbs of good muscle. If he can add more strength to his frame we go beyond his already plus raw power to potentially elite levels.
Colson Montgomery’s swing is also already fairly optimized to put the ball in the air. He has some natural loft to his swing and his bat path creates implicit loft. He creates natural leverage with his swing and has no problem turning on pitches and driving them over the fences. His attack angles will get sloppy at times and leave him bashing a bit too many bally into the dirt but he has the swing shape to have impact game power just yet. I’m a believer that those irregular swings will be transitioned out given time and patience.
You could make a good argument that Colson Montgomery belongs in that top tier of prep shortstops. He has the same level of upside as the big four. However, there is considerably more risk with Montgomery due to competition quality and his issues with offspeed stuff. Montgomery has star potential and could go much higher than this ranking without any complaint from me. Anyone who offers an impact bat from maybe the most premium position deserves to go in the first round. There is the concern that he’s already 19.4 on draft day and is more than a bit old for the class but I absolutely still believe the bat will play. If he’s allowed to go to Indiana, he would be draft-eligible again in two years and might go #1 overall then. Don’t make the mistake of waiting for 2023 when you can have him now for cheaper and control his entire development.
21. CF Colton Cowser, Sam Houston State
In the months preceding the draft, I haven’t been a big Colton Cowser fan. I didn’t even have a first-round grade on him for the longest time. However, that changed in the last week and in the process of writing this blurb. I started digging really deep into him and got my hands on his batted ball data (Thank you, Matt Collier). I still think it’s mostly ludicrous to consider him as an under-slot option at #5 or anywhere in the top ten really but he might belong in the teens where he is most commonly mocked.
Colton Cowser stands out for his hit tool. His swing is very aesthetically pleasing and it’s easy to get caught up in euphemisms about it. Those aren’t just empty platitudes although they are slightly hyperbolic most of the time.
Colton’s Cowser’s stroke is hard not to fall in love with. There are no moving parts, it’s balanced and controlled from phase one. The transitions between the phases of his swing are completely seamless. Cowser’s going to make contact and the on-field results mostly support that. A 12.6% strikeout rate is good but how good? He plays in the Southland conference which is terrible and relative to his competition that strikeout rate is much less impressive than it sounds.
Colton Cowser has a very passive approach at the plate. He waits for his pitch to come to him and then will drive that one pitch rather than settling for just weak contact. This elevates his strikeout rate somewhat over what his whiff rates suggest it should be. His Whiff rate plus chase rate is only 12% which is obviously exceptional. I would like to see him swing at more strikes but he’s not chasing anything bad or whiffing on stuff that he does swing at. That is probably more important than high swing rates at strikes.
Colton Cowser has a pretty exceptional batted ball profile. Yeah, some of that is because of the quality of his competition but most of it is probably legitimate. Colton Cowser has some feel to put the ball in the air as evidenced by his 75th percentile groundball rate. More importantly, he has an 86th percentile popup rate and an 89th percentile line drive rate. Colton Cowser excels in all three major fields of the launch angle part of his batted ball profile.
Colton Cowser’s results are more mixed when it comes to spray direction. Cowser hits everything to the opposite field. On groundballs, an 87th percentile pull rate is absolutely ideal and lets him run a high BABIP on groundballs. The issue is that is also is largely responsible for a 28th percentile pull rate on flyballs. This causes his average raw power to play down some in games. I have a plus hit tool on Colton Cowser pretty comfortably with very little variance in that grade.
Colton’s Cowser’s raw power has been a point of contestation for me in the past. His hardest-hit ball ever is only 105.5 MPH which is horrendous. That number is lacking context, however. Colton Cowser doesn’t have a trackman available at home games or in 95% of his road games because he attends such a small school. The only time we see him with trackman is when he will rarely play a big school. That 105.5 MPH max doesn’t really matter because our sample size is about a dozen games. You can’t judge Colton Cowser’s power based on exit velocity.
Colton Cowser has good bat speed. His hands are quick to the strike zone and stay in the strike zone. He has a strong and efficient lower half. He strides towards home and really rocks into his front hip to build his load. There isn’t much hip-torso separation in his swing but he has the rest of it mostly down pat. With a few tweaks, it’s not hard to see Cowser unlocking more power.
There is also the obvious body projection with Colton Cowser that was pointed out to me by a friend while I was still slamming on his power upside. Colton Cowser is only 190 lbs at 6'3" with a moderately projectable frame. If he adds ten pounds of muscle then he could quickly have impactful game power. If the bat speed is there, and the elevation is there then it feels blasphemous to not believe there is at least average power potential for Cowser. I don’t love the power and don’t really have the resources to completely evaluate it but it’s certainly serviceable at least. There is some real punch in Colton’s bat.
Defensively Colton Cowser isn’t all that but he’ll likely be an above-average centerfielder. Colton Cowser is a plus runner with a quick first step. He can cover more ground than most centerfielders with his speed and he also runs solid routes. Colton Cowser also has that superhero gene where he will layout for a ball in the gap and do something impossible. He can struggle to backpedal on balls over his head but if he plays deep that won’t be much of an issue. His arm, however, is below-average although the accuracy makes up for some of that.
Colton Cowser has some tweener traits as a hit-first outfielder without premium speed, power, or a good arm but the tweener risk isn’t that significant. If his body does mature past the point he can play centerfield, it’s likely the uptick in raw power would be enough to make him profile as an everyday left fielder. Cowser is your typical high floor college bat except for the fact that competition quality makes this house built upon sand. The tools aren’t incredible but they are good. If he played in a tougher conference I might consider him in the top ten but for now, this is as high as I can put him.
22. SS Ryan Spikes, Parkview High School
I’ve tried so hard to find a logical reason that Ryan Spikes is not in some people’s top 200 and or why he fails to crack the top 100 on any of the four major publications draft boards. I am firmly of the belief that he is one of the best players in the entire draft and has been for a while. The only semi-logical reasons I can find to not consider him as such is because he only 5'9" and because some scouts are racist and let their opinion of his skin color reflect itself in his scouting reports.
Usually, a player being 5'9" would matter. The obvious suggestion would be that they would never develop impact game power. The problem is that Ryan Spikes already has some of the best present-day power in the entire draft and that certainly won’t regress. Not only that, his raw power is currently better than most big leaguers. That normal concern for scouts about small players is not at all applicable to him.
Ryan Spikes has hit a ball 98 MPH off a tee. That is 97th percentile exit velocity. That is his third most impressive feat of raw power this season. Ryan Spikes also hit a fastball at 109 MPH for a home run in a game on February 5th. He topped both of those already impressive feats by posting the second-highest single batted ball exit velocity at the MLB Combine. He hit a ball 110.4 MPH in soft-toss batting practice. That could in theory give him a max exit velocity of ~115 MPH when you adjust the pitch velocity to the MLB velocity standards. That would be elite raw power. Who cares if Ryan Spikes is a midget if he has that kind of pop? The answer should be no one.
The power appears to be mostly optimized so he should get to most of it in games as well. His swing path is inclined and his bat angle is steep. Spikes has an elite feel for barreling balls up and driving them in the air. His attack angles aren’t fantastic yet but they are a positive number so it’s not like he’s working against the swing path. There is a feel to drive the ball in the air and he consistently hits the ball hard. That usually results in good things. He hit a home run in 12% of his at-bats in his senior year at a 7A School for what it’s worth. There is obviously no further strength for Spikes to grow into but there doesn’t have to be. He already has elite raw power coming out of High School.
Ryan Spikes has a very strong lower half with some of the best hips in the entire draft. He strides hard, leans into his lead leg, and uncoils the hips with insane torque. He doesn’t overrotate the hips or let his body get out of sync. He keeps himself closed off and leakproof. The power comes from his lower body nearly, exclusively, and it is very hard to see how he could lose that in the next few years unless he decides to switch to catcher or something equally asinine. His power is undoubtedly the real deal that will translate to the MLB level, size be dammed.
The hit tool of Ryan Spikes is more questionable but I still think it is at least average, and it’s likely on the higher end of that spectrum. Ryan Spikes have had some whiff issues with a 14.8% strikeout rate in his senior year of High School this year. That isn’t as bad as it sounds, since he plays at what MaxPreps ranks as the 21st best high school and Baseball America is even higher on them at #13 in the entire country. The strikeout rate is a tad higher than you want but nothing unsurmountable.
His swing would seem to suggest that the strikeout issues are a mirage. His swing is lacking in any significant pre-pitch movement and his bat path is simple and concise to the ball. He has very short levers which also typically correlates to low whiff rates as it can be very difficult to tie up Spikes. There might be some underlying plate discipline issues that we can’t see yet but nothing to be horribly concerned over. He has the bat cover a lot of ground in the zone, 36 inches worth according to baseball factory and that gives him longer timing windows than most hitters.
What we do know is the contact quality is truly impeccable. Apart from hitting the ball hard, Spikes also hits the ball at optimal angles and consistently at that. His bat path and feel for the barrel leads to a tight distribution of launch angles in everything I’ve seen with most of his contact being line drives or else high groundballs. He doesn’t pound a lot of stuff straight into the ground or hit very many towering popups. The average bat speed is a quibble but not enough of one to make me at all concerned about the bat. The power is still very real and all signs point to him hitting the ball consistently and with authority.
Ryan Spikes was the single most impressive player at the MLB combine for me. On top of his 110.4 Max Exit Velocity which was the second-best at the event, Spikes also was fantastic in the field. In the same agility drill I already explained above pertaining to Colson Montgomery, Ryan Spikes had the fourth-best time of all combine participants at 11.14 seconds. That is less eye-opening for Spikes than Montgomery but still much more impressive than anything I expected from him.
Ryan Spikes is a plus or better runner right now despite a somewhat stocky build with a very short stride. His 60 yard dash time has topped out at 6.54 seconds which is firmly a 65ish time. He also went 17/19 on stolen base attempts during his senior season which spanned 36 games. I don’t think he retains all that speed as he ages with his build and winds up closer to an average runner but I and everyone else thought the same of José Ramírez who has a similar build and that never came to fruition. I have him in the middle at a 55 runner.
Ryan Spikes glove wowed me more in the fielding drills than even his incredible time in the agility test did. Ryan Spikes only started playing shortstop this year. In the fielding drills, he was up there with Edwin Arroyo as the most impressive defender at the combine. He had no trouble with any of the backhand plays, it was a smooth and natural motion where he would scoop balls up and make the easy play effortlessly. Ryan Spikes also showed no difficulty charging in on slow rollers in the grass. He made the off-balance throw and was easily the most accurate arm at shortstop based on what we saw on the broadcast.
Ryan Spikes had his warts. of course, he often took an extra crow hop after fielding before throwing it to first. He also double-clutched a few times. Spikes was far from perfect but his issues all appeared to be fairly easy to coach out. He displayed the core skills you want from a shortstop. Spikes has an elite first step, premium agility, and the actions to field the tough plays. Everything else can be fixed with time. He is a true shortstop who I have as an above-average defensive option there.
The arm strength might is only just a plus with a max throw velocity of only 90 MPH but it plays above that due to his precise accuracy. He’s also only consistently putting zip on his throws. You might question if he maintains that same velocity without the crow hop in his throw if he’s coached out of that habit and that’s a fair thing to wonder. Even still, he should have at least an above-average arm.
Ryan Spikes might be my favorite player in the entire draft. He’s flown almost completely under the radar for reasons beyond his control and he doesn’t deserve that lack of recognition. His tools are awesome and comparable to the top talents in the draft class. Spikes has mashed against some of the best competition possible in the high school ranks and put up raw data that measures up to anyone. I would like to imagine that some team out there is smart enough to see the blooming star that Ryan Spikes is and take a chance on him early in the draft but we’ll just have to wait and see. He’s young for the class at only 18.3 on draft day and is reportedly incredibly smart with a limitless work ethic to boot. There is literally nothing to dislike about Ryan Spikes. Put some proper respect on his name, please.
23. SP Will Bednar, Mississippi State
Will Bednar is one of the most electric arms in college baseball. He might lack blinding velocity but his combination of stuff and results in the SEC is nearly unparalleled. He also is very young for a college arm with his 21st birthday only coming a single month before the draft. He also has bloodlines going for him as his elder brother David is the Pirates' best reliever and his sister Danielle is a highly regarded softball prospect.
Will Bednar has a plus fastball and you could make a good argument that I am underselling the pitch by only grading it as such. His fastball sits 92–95 MPH but tops out at 97 MPH. He generates elite spin on the offering as he averages ~26.5 Bauer units on the heater. The spin efficiency is only moderate right now but he throws it with considerable backspin which leads to plus riding action on the heater. His vertical release point is lower than the average starter which gives him a fairly flat VAA with the vertical life on the pitch from an over-the-top arm slot. He also has an above-average extension which pads his perceived velocity a considerable amount.
Will Bednar might use his fastball as his primary pitch in most situations but the slider is his best offering and the one that will see him taken in the first round of the draft. His slider is just straight-up cheese- it has a real argument to be the best slider in the draft and is a genuine 65-grade offering. He throws it in the low to mid-eighties with high spin- topping out at ~2900 RPMs and averaging north of 2500.
The pitch has extreme gyro and then some with elite sweeping action and bullet spin that falls off the table. The pitch seemingly has very late-breaking action based on every camera angle which some idiots believe isn’t technically possible even though seam-shifted wake proves that it theoretically is. He has elite gyro so the possibility of him abusing seam-shifted wake is extremely high and it probably actually does break late. He has feel to manipulate the shape of the slider into a tumbling vertical breaking ball as well. The pitch shares a tunnel with the fastball for an awfully long time and misses bats at an absurd rate. I full-heartedly believe the pitch will play at the MLB level.
His changeup is nowhere near the quality of his other two pitches but it still projects as average. His changeup will sit 80–83 MPH with low spin rates. The pitch has parachute movement and some fading action on the best ones. He has some issues beyond the pitches shape, however. Bednar will slow his arm speed on the changeup oftentimes which can make it easy to recognize out of the hand. He also has issues commanding the changeup in the strike zone. The pitch shows some promise but it’s a stretch to call the offering anything more than average right now.
Will Bednar in terms of pitching mechanics might be the best pitcher in the entire draft. His delivery is as Mason McRae has pointed out, a combination of Justin Verlander and Walker Buehler. Bednar starts his hip hinge early and his hips are locked and loaded long before his foot is even close to touching back down. He rides down the mound as he closes his pelvis and readies his body ready to launch on foot strike. Will Bednar doesn’t start his arm action until after the lead leg has come down and he’s striding towards the plate. From there it is a short and plungy motion. He has no trouble completing his arm spiral before the foot strike and he’s not early either. His unwinding is natural with big-time hip shoulder separation as he pushes hard off of his drive leg. He doesn’t overrotate and maintains his balance after release. It’s a beautiful and efficient motion that grades out well both to the naked eye and biomechanically. There is as little injury risk for Bednar as just about any starting pitcher.
Will Bednar also offers plus command likely because of his phenomenal pitching mechanics. He only walked 8.8% of batters this season (Including HBP) and honestly, I think it’ll be even less in the future as his feel for the secondary stuff improves seeing as most if not all of his 8 HBP were on sliders that got away from him. He has no problems throwing the fastball in the zone for strikes and avoids bats with the natural traits while still throwing strikes. He’ll regularly hit the catcher’s spot exactly where they set up and he’s just an easy guy to catch because of how accurate he often is.
Stamina isn’t going to be a concern for a guy with the mechanical fluidity of Will Bednar either. Bednar averages 24 Batters Faced per start this season and has no issue pitching even 120 pitches deep into ballgames. Even past the 120 pitch mark, Bednar has had no issue retaining the same velocity. I’m not saying Will Bednar should ever throw that many pitches because I’ll never advocate for such a heavy workload but he can if it’s absolutely needed. I’m more comfortable pushing him deep than I am just about anyone in the draft or even the entire league.
Will Bednar’s kryptonite is batted balls. Will Bednar is an extreme flyball pitcher. One without the horizontal movement on the fastball to avoid line-drives at a decent rate. As he learns to more frequently elevate the fastball, it’s entirely likely that the fastball starts getting popups at a high clip but right now he is only above-average in that department. Will Bednar has a very weak batted ball profile that he will have to refine to be anything more than a back-of-the-rotation starter. Update: Bednar threw 6 no-hit innings on three das rest before being lifted at 91 pitches in the final game of the College World Series. Perhaps more importantly, he did it as an extreme groundballer. There might be more upside in the batted ball profile than I gave him credit for.
Will Bednar is an interesting prospect. He doesn’t have the same upside as the guys above him on this list or even a handful of the starters directly below him. His stuff is good but it’s not anything absurd. His command is good but control is significantly less valuable than the out-generation skills he lacks because of the batted ball profile. Bednar is ranked this high because I think he offers the highest floor of any starting pitcher in this year’s draft. He’s the safest injury-wise and that has significant value. This is an impact arm and a reliable one. He’s going to be a first-round pick and quite possibly a high one.
24. RF Joshua Baez, Dexter Southfield High School
Joshua Baez is one of the more fascinating high school bats in the entire draft. Joshua Baez has some of the best pure tools in the entire draft and that should see him taken fairly early on draft day. There is a fair bit of risk with Baez but the payoff could be more than worth taking that chance.
Joshua Baez is almost certainly going to be an outfielder at the next level but he’s also a moderately interesting pitching prospect as well who could have a future at the backend of a bullpen. Baez has hit 97 MPH off the mound with late-life and has an absolute hammer of a breaking ball that sits around ~2800 RPMs on average. If he were to start training as a pitcher there is a good chance he would develop a triple-digit heater with a plus breaking ball. He’s almost certainly not going to do that but he could be super interesting as a guy who starts eight innings in the outfield and then comes in during the ninth to close it out if a team is willing to take the chance.
As you would imagine with a guy who can hit 97 MPH on the mound, he has elite arm strength from the outfield as well. The same max velocity in fact which is in the 100th percentile of all perfect game showcase participants. He has fairly concise footwork as well and a long arm action that creates tons of carry on his throws. He is reasonably accurate as well although there are times where he’ll just let it rip and throw it twenty feet too far. This is the kind of arm that can play at any position and be a huge asset.
Joshua Baez has a non-zero chance to stick in centerfield as well even if I think right field is the more likely destination and as such have him graded as one. Joshua Baez is a plus runner at this current crux in time although it’s likely that he is at least a half grade slower when he is in the MLBHe’s a fairly explosive outfielder with strong jumps and good instincts. His tracking is advanced from what I’ve seen as well. I think he’s firmly a plus outfielder in a corner and if he can play in center field long term is entirely dependent on how the speed ages. There are some obvious body similarities to my preseason #1 prospect, Julio Rodríguez who I have a similar defensive assessment on.
There is a good argument to be made that Joshua Baez has the most raw power in the entire draft this year. He’s a complete gym rat who is built like an ox and loaded with muscles from head to toe. His power has been loud in the showcases. He put up a maximum exit velocity of 102 MPH off a tee which is in the 100th percentile. His bat speed is almost as loud as his max barrel speed of 78.5 MPH is in the 98th percentile. He has tremendous raw physicality that makes a big difference and lets him send baseballs into a completely different stratosphere.
Joshua Baez has a swing that appears to be designed to turn most of that explosive raw power into game power. He generates considerable loft with his swing path and has the ability to generate implicit loft as well. His VBA is naturally steep on pitches below the waist which simplifies elevating them but he can also flatten out on stuff up in the zone if he picks up on it. That ability to flatten out is crucial as it stops him from getting demolished by high heat.
Joshua Baez has some interesting quirks to his swing that could prove problematic later down the road. Baez employs a wide and open stance with high hands and rocks heavily into his back leg. There is a very notable drift to his stance during the pitcher's delivery which is something that has historically caused timing issues with hitters.
His hands, however, are quick and direct to the ball without any real hitch to his swing. That strong bat path has me optimistic that the contact skills should wind up somewhere around average. That combined with the feel for elevated contact and the power could make him a very exciting hitter one day with a chance at a good hit tool even if I can’t call it more than average right now.
Joshua Baez has one obvious flaw offensively from what I’ve seen and it’s a very big one. He struggles a lot with breaking balls. I’ve seen it suggested that it’s a timing issue due to the drift to his swing. He has to commit earlier than a lot of hitters because of that drift and if they pull the string and it’s not what he is expecting he is way off the mark. I tend to agree with that assessment rather than diagnose the problem as a pitch recognition issue. If that is the case, it could be fairly easily fixed and you could have one of the most talented bats in the class. If it’s a pitch recognition or tracking issue then you might have major problems. That is what keeps Baez near the back end of the first when the tools might suggest he belongs much higher on this list.
Joshua Baez has as much upside as just about anyone in this year's draft. There are quite a few similarities to a younger Julio Rodríguez both at the plate and in the field. The body is easy to dream on and the bat has loud potential. There is a high chance that we look back on this pick and see a complete steal where another cold-weather bat fell because we in retrospect ill-advisedly overreacted to competition quality and didn’t go out and see them enough because of the weather. There is a higher chance that he flames out quickly and all of our concerns are proved legitimate. Josh Baez is going to be a risk for whoever takes him but the potential payoff is more than worth it. Is it also worth the sky-high bonus he will likely command as a Vanderbilt commit? That is not my decision but I lean towards yes.
25. SP Kumar Rocker, Vanderbilt
Is this too low for Kumar Rocker? It feels too low. Then again, it also feels too high. I had Kumar much higher initially but then I learned that Vanderbilt’s trackman is broken and now I am extremely wary of Rocker. I still think he has impact potential and a higher floor than most college starters I just don’t know how high the floor is or if the ceiling is much more than a middle-of-the-rotation starter at this point.
How outlandish is it to only put a 50 on Kumar Rocker’s fastball? Had you suggested that grade for the pitch a year ago, I would have laughed at you. I was firmly in the belief that this was a plus or better pitch at that time. I no longer feel anywhere close to the same way.
Kumar Rocker’s velocity has been a rollercoaster this season. He came out firing on all cylinders as he hit 99 MPH in his first start and averaged close to 96 MPH. He maintained that velocity until his sixth start against Missouri where he averaged 90 MPH and peaked at 92. His velocity was way down in that range until April 16th where he brushed up against 98 and averaged 95. He was then touching 98 and averaging 94 in the next start as well. The next three starts were right in the middle as he averaged 92 and topped out at 96. His velocity was up again when facing Kentucky and down against Arkansas. His velocity has averaged about 93 and peaked at 97 from what I can find during the College Baseball World Series. Talk about a bumpy ride.
So where does that put his fastball? The average MLB fastball sits at 93.7 MPH in 2020. I have Kumar Rocker listed as averaging 93.2 MPH on the fastball. The maximum velocity might be a plus or better figure but the average velocity as a whole is probably more telling. This velocity has been consistently trending downwards as well. He was still touching 99 MPH in High School but was sitting more 94–96 MPH at that time when the Rockies failed to sign him in 2018. He averaged a whole tick higher in 2020 than 2021 as well as he averaged 94.2 MPH on the heater that year. The velocity is already below average and it will likely drop further when he pitches every fifth day instead of once a week. Velocity is not a positive here. He is firmly average in this regard.
His four-seam fastball has solid traits but nothing exceptional and the traits are directly contradictory. Like with Jack Leiter, the fastball release height is completely different on the road compared to during home games with the miscalibrated trackman. During home games, Kumar Rocker has an average vertical release height of approximately ~5.3 feet. That would give him an elite angle on the fastball. However, in road games that figure skyrockets to ~6.2 feet. That goes from elite angle to below the league average 5.93-foot release height on four-seam fastballs at the MLB level.
Kumar Rocker has above-average vertical movement on his fastball, averaging ~18 inches of induced vertical break this season but it is nothing exceptional especially for the collegiate level. The above-average vertical movement is entirely canceled out by his somewhat high release height, anyways. The average VAA of his fastball on the road is ~-4.8°. The MLB average this season is -4.9°. There isn’t a ton of room to improve in this regard either due to his limited spin rates and already high spin efficiencies.
Even if we assume his fastball movement profile doesn’t change at all switching to the MLB baseball, the pitch still only has an average profile outside of velocity. His velocity is also somewhere in the ballpark of average. He has great extension on the pitch at just about seven feet on average but it’s not enough of a difference-maker for me to bump a firmly average trait and velocity fastball up half a grade. It’s also worth noting that Kumar Rocker has well-documented struggles with commanding his fastball. Hopefully, you can now see why I might call the much-hyped fastball of Kumar Rocker only an average pitch. If you want to call it a 55, I won’t protest but it’s not anything more than that.
His slider, on the other hand, I have zero issues proclaiming one of the best pitches in the entire draft. The harder breaking ball variant is a true 70-grade offering and has the potential to carry his mediocre fastball if he chooses to take the Patrick Corbin route to success.
His slider will typically sit 85–87 MPH with a lethal shape. He throws the pitch with a very low spin rate at only ~2300 RPMs and almost no spin efficiency. The slider is almost exclusively a vertically moving slider with just under four inches of horizontal movement on it. Where the pitch separates itself is the stupid vertical break. The heavy gyro-breaking ball falls straight down out of the bottom of the strike zone in an instant to elicit chases on balls in the dirt. He shows a solid feel for commanding the slider and the pitch shape is obviously elite. Due to the lack of horizontal movement, the slider is nearly as effective against lefties as it is against right-handed batters.
When he is on his game, every hitter is helpless against his best pitch. When the velocity is down a tad, it plays more as a plus pitch than an elite one but is still highly effective. The pitch is shockingly consistent for a draftee and could probably perform in the big leagues right now.
The cutter is less often used for obvious reasons but it is another above-average secondary pitch. In terms of shape and pitch characteristics, the cutter is rather average in most regards. However, the cutter plays well above those natural traits due to the deception element. He throws it in a very similar velocity and spin range to the slider and has a very comparable horizontal tilt. However, the cutter instead of plummeting down through the zone hangs up there due to a somewhat inverted spin axis. This allows the cutter and slider to both miss more bats because they look so similar out of the hand and dissect the plate vertically.
The changeup has made major strides this season. I think the changeup should be an above-average pitch at the next level with the very real potential to become a plus offering. He throws it in the 84–86 MPH and can really kill spin on it as it’ll often clock in at about 1700 RPMs. He gets just a tad over 17 inches of horizontal movement on the pitch which is in about the 85th percentile of MLB starters this season. The changeup has a tad more vertical movement than I might prefer but it really works. There are a number of similarities to Stephen Strasburg’s changeup which is one of the best cambio's of all time.
However, Kumar’s offspeed offering has its warts. Command and consistency being the most obvious ones. His changeup will often get stiff and hang up in the zone. He also has trouble spotting it in the strike zone and when it is in the zone, it’s usually because the pitch didn’t move as it was supposed to. He also can have issues maintaining his arm speed on the changeup and will often slow his arm especially relative to the fastball on the offspeed pitch. More often than not, the changeup arm speed is just fine but these little instances build up and knock his grade. The changeup has the potential to be a very deadly secondary weapon behind the slider as it easily has plus shape but right now it’s his little-used fourth offering and it will take considerable effort to change that.
Kumar Rocker is a big dude who clocks in at somewhere around 6'5" 245 lbs. Most people tend to believe that frame like Rocker’s suggests a workhorse starter with that bulldog mentality who can pitch a full season, go deep into games, stay healthy, and maintain their stuff. What we have seen from Rocker suggests that is not entirely true. Kumar Rocker has had issues maintaining his velocity deep into games. He’s struggled when pitching on less than a full week’s rest and he will be doing that regularly at the next level.
Kumar Rocker has pitched fairly deep into ballgames, averaging 23 BF/G in his career and 24.5 this year. He’s averaging 3.88 Pitches per plate appearance as well which is right around the MLB average. The stamina hasn’t been fantastic by College Baseball standards but it hasn’t been bad either. The obvious caveat being how often he starts. That being said, with his velocity flagging so much late in games, I’m more than a little concerned and of the belief that he shouldn’t be pitching so deep.
Kumar Rocker largely has a clean bill of health in his career. To the best of my knowledge, Kumar has only ever missed one start with Vanderbilt. Of course, we don’t mention the fact that the start he missed was his last one of 2020 before the Pandemic shut everything down and if the season had played out he would have missed more. Why would that small detail be at all relevant?
That lone injury was a shoulder injury. Something the critics have been concerned about with Rocker for a while. Kumar Rocker has some mechanical quirks that are a bit troubling. He makes the infamous inverted W during his delivery that is accredited for ruining the once-promising career of Mark Prior. In recent years, we’ve come to realize the inverted W isn’t always bad. The inverted W is a symptom but not the disease itself. Tom Glavine made the inverted W and was one of the most durable pitchers in the game. The issue like with most things in terms of pitching mechanics comes down to timing.
Mark Prior’s pitching mechanics were bad because the inverted W elongated his arm action and made it impossible for him to complete his motion before foot strike. Carson Fulmer’s mechanics were worse because he maintained the inverted W even after foot strike. Kumar Rocker is not like either of those oft-injured players. Kumar Rocker has no problem completing his arm spiral before the foot strike. His arm is up when his toe hits the ground which is what you want and would suggest the inverted W isn’t something to be scared of in Kumar Rocker.
Except Kumar Rocker has more mechanical quirks than just the inverted W and I’m not at all certain of how they will synergize. Kumar Rocker opens his pelvis long before foot strike. Most guys won’t open their pelvis until they are right above the ground. Jacob deGrom is the definition of perfection, and he opens his pelvis when his heel touches down and is fully open when the toe comes down before the rest of his body unwinds and catches up. Kumar Rocker is different.
Kumar Rocker has his pelvis fully open and facing towards the plate by the time he is fully extended. His torso even starts to open up before his foot is fully on the ground. If you are measuring the timing of Rocker’s motion based on his pelvis rather than his foot strike then the arm is down instead of up and there is a major timing issue in his delivery that can cause serious damage to the shoulder.
I’m not an expert on pitching mechanics so I’m going to put more value on his track record than my concerns with the delivery but I don’t think he’s the durable tank we want to believe he is. There are health concerns that need to be answered. I do feel it is worth noting that there are people in the industry claiming that the biomechanical data for Rocker shows that the stress factors on both his shoulder and elbow are less than ideal.
There is also the simple fact of the matter that bigger does not mean more durable despite the common belief perpetuating the industry that the opposite is true. A study done by Zach Binney in 2018 about the NFL found that the heavier players at each respective position were more likely to be injured than the lighter ones. A study done in 2014 of the NBA found that since 2000, NBA Players who are over 6'8" have missed 5% more of their games due to injury than those who are under that threshold. Another study of soccer players found that taller players are 25% as likely to get injured. A study was done by Kitae Sohn in 2016 even found that taller people are more likely to both develop cancer and die from it. I can’t find a study for the MLB specifically, and maybe the MLB is different but most likely it’s not. Big doesn’t mean durable, if anything it probably means the opposite.
Kumar Rocker has control that is somewhere around league average. His command can waver from game to game but he has an awesome feel to spot his breaking ball. He also has a consistent delivery with a consistent release and solid athleticism. He hasn’t had many walk problems at Vanderbilt and while his command hasn’t been fantastic it hasn’t been bad either.
Kumar Rocker stands out for his above-average batted ball profile. A large part of this has to do with the heavy horizontal tail on his four-seam fastball. That fastball movement allows him to miss the barrel of the bat and avoid line drives at a well-above-average rate. He also can use his cutter to force groundballs when he throws it down in the zone and as such also gets those at a respectable clip. When he elevates the four-seam fastball, the pitch can be effective enough at the top of the zone to get popups at an above-average rate. Kumar Rocker doesn’t have any one standout characteristic when it comes to contact quality management but he does everything so it rounds out to above-average.
I understand why most people have Kumar Rocker in the top ten picks. I don’t even entirely disagree with their logic. A 70 slider and a fastball that touches 99 with two more above-average secondaries are incredibly attractive. If you think he will stay healthy and the stuff will bounce back he might be irresistible. This goes doubly so when you remember how highly regarded Kumar’s work ethic and leadership is. Kumar Rocker absolutely has the talent to make me regret saying this but I just think that he is more of middle or even back of the rotation starter than the Ace most believe him to be. More importantly, I don’t think he’s such a sure thing like Will Bednar is.
26. CF Jud Fabian, Florida
Jud Fabian entered the season as a mostly consensus top-five selection. He had a lot of ups and downs this season and now I have zero clues as to where he belongs on this list. On one hand, his tools are almost inarguably the best of any college bat in this year's draft. On the other hand, no player who hit under .285 or had a K% over 26% has ever gone in the first round. Jud Fabian hit .249 with a 29.4% K% this season.
Jud Fabian is the best breaking ball hitter in the draft. He’s the best lowball hitter in the draft and he also feasts on offspeed stuff when it’s down in the zone. His chase rates are some of the best in the draft class as he’ll very rarely expand the zone and go after unhittable stuff. He chases less than even a guy like Nick Madrigal or Austin Martin did in college and spoiler they never chased. The chase rates are mostly coming on high fastballs too. It’s less chase than a Spencer Torkelson either who went #1 last year with a whiff rate only 2% better than Fabian. Even at his worst he still whiffed less than last year’s #2 overall pick Heston Kjerstad did in College. You can easily see why he walks so frequently just looking at the minuscule chase rates he puts up. The eye is an obvious plus tool and he’s not just passive as he actually has averagish zone-swing rates as well.
The high fastball just absolutely wrecks him. There are two reasons behind this development. The first of which is his absurdly steep VBAs. His average VBA is nearly 40° which is absurd. That steep swing path has allowed him to feast on pitches down in the zone and given him some of the best-batted ball data we’ve ever seen at the collegiate level.
That same steep VBA leads to him having a very short timing window on pitches up in the zone and has often resulted in him functioning as a guess hitter where he has to sit fastball to hit the high heat. This means that if the hitter goes breaking ball in that situation his swing is already in motion and he can’t abort so he swings through even the hanging breaking balls or at best weakly rolls over one as he tries to slow himself down.
I want to be clear that this is not a velocity issue. Jud Fabian’s wRC+ as of March 21st, 2021 against FB at 93+ was 172. That’s again higher than Spencer Torkelson and higher than Austin Martin and tied with JJ Bleday and higher than just about everyone not named Adley or Vaughn. He has the bat speed to hit high heat regardless of velo, it was the location that’s the issue, not velocity.
Late this season, Jud Fabian made the very unorthodox decision to eliminate his stride entirely with two strikes. There isn’t a foot tap or a step or even a twitch. He just rests where he starts and twists back and then forwards. He has obviously less power with the new approach but it is exclusive to two strikes and has made him able to wait and see what the pitch is before reacting. He is still strong enough and has enough hip control to muscle balls over the wall to his pull side with this approach in two-strike counts.
Had you asked me a few weeks ago I would have said the approach was working. He then slumped to end the season, hitting just .158/.256/.158 with a 39.5% K% over his last ten games. Overall the season was a very mixed bag and there are still issues left unresolved.
If Jud Fabian can get his in-zone whiff rates to something resembling league average then he might wind up with a plus hit tool. He has every other element present that you might want in a hitter. His vertical bat angle is very steep, and he has some of the tightest sdLAs in the entire draft. He doesn’t put the ball on the ground and has premium power. He doesn’t pop up, he pulls groundballs at a below-average rate and he pulls flyballs at an above-average rate. His contact quality is exceptional. His plate discipline is exceptional.
All Jud Fabian has to do in order to be a plus hit guy is learn how to make contact in the strike zone. Perhaps his swing is grooved or something and it’s not a fixable issue. I don’t have any clue how to fix Jud Fabian’s issues. The team who thinks they might know how to fix the in-zone whiff issues will take him early- potentially very early. If no team is confident they can fix him then he’ll return to Florida for another season.
Jud Fabian has stupid power and elevates enough to tap into all of it in games. One of the best ways to measure raw power is to see who hits their mishits with the most authority. The answer to that question is Jud Fabian. Jud Fabian has multiple popups with EVs>100 MPH in his collegiate career which started in 2019. To compare that to MLB hitters only six players have 2 or more Popups with an EV>100 since the start of 2019. They are Joey Gallo, Miguel Sano, Nelson Cruz, Marcell Ozuna, Gary Sanchez, and Ronald Acuna Jr. That is some elite company to be in- especially when talking about hitting for power.
Jud Fabian has hit multiple balls at 110+ in his career and has hit more than half of his batted balls over 97 MPH. His average exit velocity is nearly 95 MPH in his collegiate career and that is elite even when you shave off ~4 MPH for using a metal bat as the average adjustment is roughly that.
The bat speed is absurd and his swing is very efficient at generating power with his entire body which is part of why he can just stop striding and still post above-average EVs. His torque is elite and he does a great job of keeping his hands back and inside outing the baseball. The entire body is involved from the stride to the torso control to how explosive and controlled the rotation of his hips are. It’s a beautiful operation that pulverizes baseballs.
He also elevates extraordinarily often because of the natural implicit loft his bat path generates. He doesn’t put the ball on the ground which minimizes the negative impact of his pull-heavy approach that only helps his in-game power output. His groundball avoidance is in the 96th percentile according to the hitter version of FaBIO. The explicit loft isn’t near as elite but he’s going to get to all of the raw power because it is frequent elevation from a pull-heavy bat. That is an impactful profile that results in just as much if not more game power than raw juice.
I am a big fan of elite speed in centerfield. Most of my fielding grades are centered around it for outfielders. It’s why I have Jordyn Adams as a 70+ glove despite his error-prone ways. But occasionally there is a guy without elite speed who I still go wow wow wow watching them in the field.
Jud Fabian is that guy. He’s a plus runner out of the box with good straight-line speed and agility but lackluster jumps on the base paths so it plays down to a 55 on the base paths. Where it plays up, however, is in centerfield.
His burst is incredible. Contact is made and he’s instantly flying towards the ball. He explosive and accelerates near-instantly with great closing speed to boot. Jud Fabian is incredible at tracking the ball in the air and while his routes could use some polishing, they are still good for his age and experience. He doesn’t always look smooth making tough plays and will often stumble after the catch but he makes them. He’ll layout to make the tough plays and has the springs to leap over the wall and bring back home runs.
His arm strength is above-average- having been clocked as high as 93 MPH on throws and he’s fairly accurate too. If you want to call it a plus I wouldn’t protest but he can be slow to get the ball out and it’s a fringe plus if it is one already so I have it as only above-average. I really don’t say this about non-elite speed guys in centerfield but I truly think Fabian has a chance to be one of the best defensive outfielders in the game in his prime.
Jud Fabian has the talent to make every single team regret passing him up. The tools are loud and exciting. The upside for Jud Fabian is a five-tool superstar who contributes in a big way in all parts of his game. He might be the highest risk-reward college player in the draft. I think he’ll be the first .250 hitter in the first round because someone will believe in him and that they can fix him. I wouldn’t completely hate it if he went as early as #5 overall. I also wouldn’t hate if he went undrafted altogether. I have zero ideas what to do with Jud Fabian. He’s an intriguing talent who screams boom or bust.
27. SS Edwin Arroyo, Central Pointe Christian High School
Edwin Arroyo is the next high school shortstop I have a first-round grade on in the best crop of high school shortstops ever. Unlike most of his peers, it is Edwin Arroyo’s glove that has me so high on him.
Edwin Arroyo is the best defensive shortstop in the entire draft, in my evaluations. He is a true plus defender at the six. His actions are incredibly slick and easy. He moves incredibly well in space with elite lateral movements and has zero difficulty making tough plays on slow rollers he has to charge in on or even snagging hard line drives. His springs are some of the best in the entire draft as an elite 11.3-foot broad jump can attest to. He has no trouble leaping into the air or diving in the gap to make truly spectacular plays.
Edwin Arroyo has elite range at shortstop that is largely because of his premium speed. Edwin Arroyo is a 70-grade runner who has posted a 6.53-second 60-yard dash and had the second-best 30 yard dash time at the PDP Premier Florida&Puerto Rico. He can absolutely run both straight down the line and has the ability to change his directions. More importantly, he has an elite first step and is explosive on contact. He might lack the agility of some of the shortstops above him but his athleticism absolutely plays and he has all the actions mandated by the position down pat. It’s also worth mentioning that Harold Reynolds called him an amazing leaner during the baserunning drills in the MLB combine.
Edwin Arroyo also has a cannon of an arm. He has been clocked as high as 96 MPH from shortstop on throws across the diamond. That is in the 100th percentile of all Perfect Game showcase participants. He’s hit 97 MPH on a crow hop into a net which is also a top-tier result. Oh and he’s thrown 95 MPH off the mound… from the left-handed side. There isn’t much utility in his ability to throw from the left-handed side as a shortstop and he won’t play two-ways at the next level but it’s still a cool fact. The arm is a 70-grade tool that is going to be a difference-maker. He’s a surefire shortstop who should be a plus or even better there and that glove makes him very likely to contribute at the MLB level one day.
The glove will get Edwin Arroyo to the MLB but it’s the bat that has the potential to make him a star. There is a real chance that Edwin Arroyo is an above-average hitter at the MLB level in his prime. Edwin Arroyo is a quick-twitch athleticism with twitchy bat speed. He can whip the barrel through the strike zone in an instant with his lightning-fast hands and strong wrists.
Edwin Arroyo has advanced bat-to-ball skills, especially when you consider his lack of exposure to some of the more advanced arms. He demolishes pitches down in the strike zone, in large part due to a somewhat steep VBA and that includes breaking balls. More so, it is due to the barrel accuracy that he displays when his swing is steep. He has an awesome hitting posture and a controlled body.
Edwin Arroyo's feel for the barrel is very notable. He has a rare knack for squaring balls up and taking them the other way. The combination of his proclivity for barreling balls and hitting stuff down in the zone gives him a mostly optimal batted ball profile that is very aerial contact centric. There are always questions on how barrel accuracy will translate when switching from aluminum to wood and we can’t answer that question yet with Arroyo.
Edwin Arroyo has impact bat speed, a somewhat efficient lower-half, and some advanced feel to put the ball in the air. Those factors combine to make him fairly easy to project average power on. He’s posted a 96.3 MPH exit velocity off of a tee which isn’t elite but isn’t anything to sneeze at either. There is a considerable projection left in his 6'0" and 170 lbs frame. Depending on how much power you believe he’ll grow into, you could put above-average or even plus power on Arroyo. I lean more towards there only being a small amount of power growth to come.
Edwin Arroyo probably won’t wow you with the bat but he should be somewhere in the ballpark of average at the plate if he develops fully, likely a tick above. As long as he isn’t a complete liability on offense, Arroyo will likely be an average regular because of his premium defense at shortstop. I don’t really expect Arroyo to go in the first round or even get first-round money in a later round but I think he should. The bat is good enough and the defense is incredible, in my opinion, those two things make for a very enticing player.
28. LF Ethan Wilson, South Alabama
Ethan Wilson had a lot of hype early in the season and despite loud results this year has lost most of that hype with most people now viewing him as a second-round talent. There are very good reasons for the lack of hype now and the profile has undeniably shifted from the preseason expectations for him by now. I still believe he belongs in the first round, albeit the back half of it.
Ethan Wilson sold out for contact this season as he cut his strikeout rate by more than half down to a mere 8.3%. His newfound contact skills were not born of an overly aggressive approach either but of a newfound inability to whiff. He not only maintained his 11.7% career walk rate but improved upon it as he walked 13.1% of the time this season.
Ethan Wilson’s contact skills are advanced but I’m not sure I have near the same confidence in projecting his plate discipline to the next level despite him walking so much more than he strikes out. The obvious point of reference is the fact that he is only walking 3.5% more than the league average hitter while playing in the not that competitive Sun Belt Conference. His chase rates haven’t been bad but they’ve been less than good. He’s an average approach guy for me.
From what I can tell, the way that Ethan Wilson cut down on swing and miss was not an approach change or a mechanical change but instead, it was him wrecking his bat path. Ethan Wilson prior to this season had one of the steepest VBA’s in the entire draft. Due to the implicit loft created by that swing path, Ethan Wilson had an average launch angle of 18.3° in 2019. I don’t have the data available to me to back this conclusion up, but based on the eye test, I would estimate that his average VBA has dropped at least 5° and his average launch angle likely has as well.
The flatter bat path comes with its own obvious pros and cons. Mostly the latter option. The obvious benefit is contact frequency spiked drastically. The more impactful drawback is that it hurts his contact quality considerably. Not in terms of his exit velocities but in terms of his launch angle.
A flatter bat path means a lot more groundballs usually, it also typically comes with more popups, and oftentimes even fewer line drives. In other words, more often than not, flatter bat paths are objectively worse in every way to steeper ones in terms of contact quality. This is backed up by Ethan Wilson’s career AB/HR being cut in half, his BABIP dropping nearly .050, and his wOBAcon dropping by .148 from his freshman season. You could make a fantastic argument that the hit tool was better before he sold out for contact.
Less elevation obviously means less game power which is very unfortunate as Ethan Wilson has maybe the best raw power of all college bats in this year's draft. In the opening round of the Sun Belt Championship, Ethan Wilson blasted a ball into another plane of existence. That home run went 495 feet with an exit velocity of 115 MPH according to trackman. Prior to that, he had done just over 113 MPH as his best. The raw power is clearly present and it is very loud.
Ethan Wilson generates his power by executing a highly efficient lead leg block. He generates lots of torque with his swing and the ability to block his rotation and control his upper body puts it all together. He doesn’t let power go to waste. He has great extension with his swing and a very effective armbar. Ethan Wilson’s lower half tends to fly open a bit early and that can cause him some issues but it’s not anything I’m overly concerned about.
The bat path change has unfortunately led to a huge decrease in-game power. Prior to this season, Ethan Wilson would have had plus or better game power from me. However, his increasing groundball-heavy approach and contact over power style have me skeptical it will be more than above-average despite the loud raw juice. If I had my way, Ethan Wilson would go back to who he used to be and prioritize contact quality over contact frequency.
Ethan Wilson provides little to no defensive value which is why it might be difficult to take him where the bat would warrant it. He’s only an average defensive option in left field without any real chance of fitting in at a different spot. Ethan Wilson is an average runner with an average arm and unexceptional instincts in a corner. This is a LF profile which means he will absolutely have to hit in order to play every day.
Ethan Wilson is one of the weirdest profiles in a draft chock-full of them. He’s a bat only player who should hit. The question is just how he hits. Is he the 50 hit/65 power guy he used to be? Or is he the 55/55 guy he showed this year? Or perhaps he sells out even more building on the trends from this year and becomes a 60 hit/50 power guy. There is even a small chance that he combines the best of both worlds and regains the game power without losing much of the contact frequency. I don’t know how Ethan Wilson will hit but I know that he will hit enough to play every day even as a left-fielder. He’s one of the most surefire everyday players in this year’s draft. That has value.
29. CF Michael Robertson, Venice High School
As a rule of thumb when grading out the power of a player, I don’t allow myself to use a gap greater (Or less if you inverse it) than 15 between raw and game power. Michael Robertson makes me really want to ignore that rule because the difference between his raw and game power is the difference between night and day.
Michael Robertson has easy plus raw power potential and you could argue that it should be even higher than that. Michael Robertson has some of the best pure bat speed in the entire draft. As in his max barrel speed of 83.4 MPH is in the 100th percentile of all draft prospects. His impact momentum and max acceleration are also in the 100th percentile. The bat speed is elite which tends to lead to big-time raw power. His hands are quick to the baseball and he can really whip the barrel through the strike zone.
Michael Robertson has solid swing mechanics as well. I would like to see more separation between his hips and torso sure but what he gets is enough. He has powerful hips and a very efficient weight transfer. He manages his front half well and stops his rotation with a sturdy lead leg block. His arms don’t overextend and he’s not a T-Rex with zero extension either. He tends to collapse his back half a tad early which is an issue but it shouldn’t be such a large one. His swing mechanics could absolutely be better but I could say the same about just about anyone. His swing mechanics shouldn’t be the huge roadblock that they are. Perhaps there is some huge biomechanical red flag waving over his head that I can’t catch with my eyes but I just don’t see it.
Yet, the hardest ball that Michael Robertson has ever hit off a tee only had an exit velocity of 90 MPH. That is just pitiful for a guy with his bat speed and largely just in general for a prospective early-round pick. There are two obvious culprits for why his exit velocities are so much worse than his bat speed but I’m not sure either provides a full explanation for it.
The first and most obvious reason being that Michael Robertson is built like a tumbleweed. He’s extraordinarily thin and looks much lighter than his listed 170 lbs in a 6'1" frame. He’s lean and lacks the physicality right now to really hit balls hard. There is obvious projection in a kid as light as him but not as much as the frame would suggest. He has a high waist so he should retain his speed with whatever mass he grows into. His shoulders aren’t very broad or sloped for that matter and I’m skeptical he’ll ever have that much muscle in his upper half. I think he’ll get to the point where the power will be plus raw but not much more than that despite the elite bat speed and solid mechanics.
The other issue plaguing Michael Robertson is an aversion for pullside contact. I use the term issue lightly as you could argue that it is a positive. His bat speed doesn’t play as 82.4 MPH even if he might have hit that in showcase events. It plays way below that because he makes contact so early. Most power hitters make contact out in front of the plate which leads to them having the time to build up their bat speed and as such hit for more power. It also leads to them pulling the ball more because they are swinging late.
Michael Robertson is the opposite. He makes contact back by his back hip before he has any time to build up his bat speed and that leads to him going the opposite way a lot. If Michael Robertson wants his raw power to be made apparent by his exit velocities, he has to move his contact point out in front of the plate.
Even if Michael Robertson fills in his frame, and moves his contact point to maximize bat speed and pull the ball; I’m still not at all confident that he has even average game power. This is because Michael Robertson reportedly has an average launch angle of -15° in most events according to Prospects Live. That is hilariously bad. The only player in MLB history with at least 25 BBE in a season and a lower launch angle is Chad Bettis at -17.5° in 2016. The lowest ever by a position player was Yandy Díaz at -7.9° last year. -15° will not play at the MLB level and that needs to be changed.
Michael Robertson also has some of the worst attack angles I’ve ever seen. He follows the advice of the old school baseball fan who didn’t actually watch baseball during the “glory days.” Michael Robertson tends to say fuck that launch angle bullshit and literally swings down on the baseball. Despite what many analysts will tell you, that has never been and never will be a good thing. He pounds everything into the ground and tends to miss the barrel, not because of his swing path which is just fine but because his approach is that of an early 1900s slasher.
Admittedly, Michael Robertson has a lot of elements that would suggest he can be passable at the plate even with slash and dash profile. He’s an extremely opposite-field heavy hitter who won’t be shifted on. He has advanced contact skills and can make contact at an above-average clip. Moore importantly for his current profile, he is an 80-grade runner.
Michael Robertson has some of the best speed in all of baseball. He has been clocked as fast as 6.3 seconds flat on the 60–yard dash. A time that ranks in the 100th percentile of all Perfect Game Showcase Participants. I’ve seen people (MLB Pipeline) claim that his speed doesn’t play that way out of the box and he’s only a 70 runner which is completely asinine. Michael Robertson was clocked at a 3.8 second time on a home to first (I had him at an average of 3.77 on five attempts clocking the run) on a non-bunt. Fangraphs considers 3.9 seconds on a home-to-first from a left-handed hitter to be an 80-grade time. Robertson has absolutely smashed that and then some.
That speed doesn’t quite work at such a high level in centerfield but it is still a huge asset that makes him almost certain to be a plus defender or better in centerfield. Michael Robertson might lack that explosive first step I heavily covet but he checks just about every other box. He’s a smooth route runner with big-time long speed and premium athleticism to lay out and make the spectacular plays. He’s going to compete for gold gloves out there in his prime.
The arm is also a plus tool even if not to the same extent. Michael Robertson has been clocked as high as 94 MPH on throws from the outfield. He has good carry on his “line drive” throws and can really let it rip to hose runners. I like his footwork and from what I’ve seen the accuracy is there as well.
Michael Robertson is going to be a project for whatever team if any drafts him and commits seven figures to lure him away from Florida. He has real star potential at the plate with loud offensive tools that need a lot of refinement. What puts him above the other project prep bats and into the first round for me, is the high floor provided by his defense. Even if he never figures out the offense there is a high chance that he can still contribute as a 4th outfielder, pinch-runner, and defensive specialist.
Michael Robertson has plenty of time to figure out what he’s doing at the plate too as he’s just under 18 on draft day. If he’s allowed to go to Florida I think he’s at the top of round one in three years. I would rather get him at a discounted price now in the second or even late first round to develop him myself.
30. SP Gunnar Hoglund, Ole Miss
Gunnar Hoglund got Tommy John Surgery which might cause him to fall down boards a fair bit but that’s not why he’s so low for me. I was never that high on him before Tommy John and he didn’t really drop at all after undergoing the knife. There was always a risk and TJS hasn’t really added that much more, just provided confirmation to suspicions I already held.
Gunnar Hoglund is the jack of all trades master of none pitcher in this draft. He has four average or better pitches without a ton of variance in the profile to pair with above-average control and an above-average batted ball profile. The fact that Hoglund can kind of do everything makes on paper him one of the higher floor arms in the entire draft but I’m entirely uncertain of how high his upside ultimately is or how high the floor actually is for that matter.
Gunnar Hoglund has elite spin rates on his fastball- kind of. He averaged ~2600 RPMs on the riding four-seamer this season. Gunnar Hoglund is likely abusing pine tar to boost his spin rates which is no longer going to fly at the MLB level. He throws the fastball with a 1:00 tilt and mid-tier spin efficacy. As such, the fastball has above-average vertical movement due to how much spin he puts on the ball but not an extreme amount. That might change in either direction as the loss of substance could bump him down and cost him vertical movement, alternatively, Hoglund could improve his spin efficiency and bump that movement up. The horizontal tail is also above-average due to the spin rates but it’s not as important as his vertical movement.
Gunnar Hoglund for most of his collegiate career sat 89–91 MPH and topped out at just 93 MPH. This year he kicked it up a notch or two. He started throwing his fastball considerably harder, more often than not sitting 92–95 MPH and topping out around 97 MPH. There is some risk that he won’t maintain his velocity over a full season; especially when you realize he only showcased that improved velocity for 11 starts. Then you remember that Tommy John can cost pitchers velocity and you are back to being somewhat concerned about Hoglund.
On the other hand, there is real room for further mechanical optimization that could help take his velocity to new heights. His pelvis leaks really early. This is due primarily to a rather ineffective lead leg block. If he can keep his pelvis closed by modifying his stride then he could see another velocity spike. I have the fastball as a plus pitch but it is a loose one with room to shift in either direction.
Gunnar Hoglund’s best secondary is probably an above-average slider. He throws the pitch in the 84–87 MPH range with a solid but unspectacular shape. Hoglund has a more vertical slider than most pitchers do, for better or for worse. He has some sweeping action but the draw of the pitch is the tremendous vertical depth on it. The slider plays off his fastball really well coming out of the same tunnel and misses bats at a high clip. However, Hoglund has the bad habit of throwing hanging sliders that stay at the top of the zone, far too frequently. Those hanging sliders are almost always punished in the form of loud contact. The good news is that the vertical depth on his slider still allows him to get groundballs even if it gets hung at times.
Gunnar Hoglund also features an average curveball. He throws in the upper seventies with decent shape. The pitch has good vertical depth and Hoglund does a good job generating topspin on the breaking ball. The curveball is more of a show-me pitch than anything right now but it does have some upside.
Gunnar Hoglund’s changeup is his second above-average secondary pitch and there is a decent argument that it is the best one. The changeup is most often thrown the 83–85 MPH bucket with low spin rates. He gets above-average movement on the pitch across both planes which has its pros and cons. On one hand, the pitch has bat missing shape due to the movement profile but on the other hand, it can be fairly easily picked up due to the huge difference in shape from the fastball and axis from the slider. He does do a good job of recreating fastball arm speed on the cambio so even if he might lack in tunneling and in conviction, I’m still fairly confident that the changeup will be an above-average pitch.
I’ve seen people slap a 70 on Gunnar Hoglund’s command and call it the best in the draft but I don’t really see it all. I only have him as above-average although it was plus before Tommy John Surgery and perhaps it still should be since the control doesn’t come back after the operation myth has been debunked by Baseball Prospectus.
There is a rare lack of effort in Gunnar Hoglund’s mechanics. His delivery has quite a few similarities to Kyle Hendricks who is well known for being a durable control specialist at the big league level who has thrived despite having no velocity. An aesthetically pleasing delivery is awesome but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything at all about how performs. Gunnar Hoglund has been roughly an 80th percentile control guy his entire career at Ole Miss (Control meaning Walks+HBP+WP). That is good but not 70 grade stuff.
Additionally, aside from the risk that he is not the same pitcher after Tommy John surgery, there is more command risk. I talked about earlier how I wanted to tweak Gunnar Hoglund’s lead leg block and keep the pelvis closed longer. So much of command is muscle memory rather than the ability to repeat a delivery like is commonly preached. Anytime you tweak a delivery at all, there is risk that the command backslides some. I think in the long term adding extra velocity will be a beneficial tradeoff but it’s never going to be a no drawbacks just throw harder thing.
On top of already having Tommy John Surgery, I am more than a little concerned about how durable Gunnar Hoglund might be. Gunnar Hoglund failed his physical when the Pirates took him #36 overall in 2018, and didn’t sign him because of medical issues. That is a red flag. Additionally, there are some delivery concerns that have me skeptical of his long-term health outlook.
Gunnar Hoglund has a flat arm at foot strike which is a minor warning sign as his arm lags behind the rest of his motion. The more telling thing is how early the pelvis leaks which leads to his arm actually just being down during the loading phase. He has a major timing issue that I think could cause him problems down the line. I think they are probably fixable issues but there are red flags which along with the lackluster history of medical evaluations from Hoglund is a big red flag to me.
Gunnar Hoglund on the surface is one of the safest pitchers in the draft. He has a complete arsenal of pitches that are highly advanced and is already close to his ceiling. He pairs above-average command and a strong batted ball profile with that advanced arsenal. He’s a relatively safe do it all kind of pitcher. In reality, I’m not sure he’s actually all that safe. He’s coming off of Tommy John Surgery and he provides a serious injury risk. He also doesn’t have the upside of most of the arms above him as he probably lacks a true out pitch. He’ll show flashes of a plus offering that can be that but there is no one pitch I’m confident can truly be that go-to weapon at the big league level. He’s a weird pitcher who I’m not entirely sure where to rank or where he should be drafted.
31. CF Will Taylor, Dutch Fork High School
I’m entirely certain that I’m missing crucial chunks of info on Will Taylor. I have very data on him- possibly the least of anyone in my top 50. Everyone seems to love him and some people I trust think he’s a top 10 player in this draft. I don’t have reason to rank him any higher than this based on what I’ve seen and even this might be a stretch so this is where he is. I fully expect that he’ll likely move up once we get to see more of him in the minors. Due to my lack of confidence in this ranking and data on him, this blurb will be much shorter than the rest of them.
So what do I mean by a lack of data on Will Taylor? Due to his obligations as a football player, Will Taylor didn’t participate in any Perfect Game Showcase events. Or the Baseball Factory ones. (Events not games to be clear). He also doesn’t have any of his athletic testings, batted ball data, or blast motion data in front of the PBR paywall. He also didn’t participate in the MLB combine. To make matters worse, his statistical performance isn’t tracked by Max Preps for whatever reason. I haven’t been able to find any of the missing data in hours scourging Twitter for it. Stupid common names that are difficult to search for. All I have to go off of when scouting Will Taylor is pretty much the eye test.
What I’ve seen from Will Taylor with the naked eye I like. Will Taylor has a loose compact stroke from the right-handed side that is just effortless and looks completely natural. He shows a knack for finding the barrel and driving pitches from what I’ve seen in limited repetitions. His hands are quick to the baseball and he can really turn on a pitch and drive it the other way. Taylor is a bit of a slasher right now with a flat VBA and will frequently put the ball on the ground but that appears to be a coachable flaw from what I’ve seen. Will Taylor has a very efficient swing for creating power with his lower half so there might be plus raw juice in his future. He’ll have to tweak the swing if he wants it to play that way in games.
I’ve seen Will Taylor’s run grades range from 60 to 80 and since I don’t feel qualified to render a verdict on his speed, we’ll just opt to split the difference on that. As you would probably imagine, a 70 runner is likely going to be above-average in centerfield. I think it is maybe a plus if his explosiveness as a wide receiver is any indication of how good his burst is in centerfield. Taylor has average arm strength from what I’ve seen- maybe a tick above as he spent considerable time as a quarterback in High School.
There’s really not much for me to go off of here. I think Will Taylor has upside and all five tools to some degree but I don’t know anywhere near enough to accurately say where he’ll go. I’m not sure I’m comfortable putting him on here at all with my lack of information but I don’t want to be lambasted for snubbing an almost entirely unknown quantity again.
32. SP Jordan Wicks, Kansas State University
Jordan Wicks is according to most people the best lefty pitcher in the draft. I disagree because Gage Jump and Matt Mikulski are awesome but he’s at least in the conversation. He’s one of the safest arms in the draft and if the trajectory of another soft-tossing lefty, Reid Detmers is an indication he might have more upside than I’m giving him credit for.
Jordan Wicks goes to Kansas State which is awesome. This is awesome because Kansa State has the most awesome Twitter account (Except for LSU), @KSU_Analytics. This godsend of a Twitter account gives us access to the spin rates, and velocity of a good chunk of Jordan Wicks’ pitches. There is no data shortage with Jordan Wicks at all whatsoever.
Jordan Wicks will typically operate in the 90–92 MPH range and has topped out at 94.7 MPH. He also has slightly below-average extension so it actually plays below his raw velocity readings. The fastball has plus spin especially relative to his velocity, at least as he averaged ~2350 RPMs on the heater. A high spin efficiency leads to slightly above-average vertical movement and slightly above-average horizontal movement. The VAA, however, is still largely underwhelming due to his average release height and bad extension. Despite the solid movement profile, it’s hard to look past the velocity and VAA concerns to call this pitch anything more than average at this point.
Jordan Wicks throws two separate slider variants although they can bleed together at times. His cutter variant will sit 85–88 MPH with decent drop and some run to the pitch. He gets enough gyro for it to work but not enough for it to really have an impactful movement profile. The pitch plays decently off the fastball. His more slurvy slider is only a tick slower with more sweep to it and more drop. The pitch has better shape but almost no deception and he struggles to spot it in the strike zone oftentimes. I think the slutter is the better version of his slider but both of them are below-average pitches.
So far Jordan Wicks doesn’t even sound like a guy who belongs in the first five rounds but that all changes with the final piece of his arsenal. Jordan Wicks has the best changeup in the entire draft and one of the best in the entire minors. This is a pitch that can get big league hitters out and carry what is a completely mediocre arsenal outside of it into a potentially above-average one.
Jordan Wicks generally will throw his changeup in the 81–84 MPH range from the left-handed side. He does a fantastic job killing spin on the pitch as his average spin rate on an offspeed pitch is typically nearly 800 RPMs lower than that of his heater at about 1550 RPMs. That is 90th percentile spin killing and only the tip of the iceberg for Jordan Wicks.
Deception is one of the most important factors in how effective a changeup is and Wicks has that element down pat. He throws his changeup with conviction. He manages to replicate his fastball arm speed on the changeup on nearly every repetition. His arm action is short and hides the ball behind his torso. It kind of explodes out of nowhere and looks near identical to the fastball until the pitch reaches the plate. I’ve even been told that his fastball and changeup have the same seam orientation which is just unfair.
The changeup also has an elite shape on its lonesome. He throws the cambio with a fairly unique circle change grip as described in an interview with Prospects Live he did in November. He makes the circle as tight as possible which gives him real dive-bomb movement on the changeup. He throws the pitch from a 10:00 spin axis with a relatively high spin efficiency (~90%) and kind of drives the ball down into the ground. The high spin efficiency on the changeup should mean he’s less reliant on seam-shifted wake to create movement and as such it’s much easier to project the pitch remaining just as effective when changing the baseball.
The result of this is almost no Magnus movement on the changeup which means it plummets down through the strike zone. Jordan Wicks also has the rare ability to cut his changeup. I’m not sure of how the exact science behind a 10:00 changeup cutting works but he does it. Here is how Joe Doyle described it:
“He gently supinates the ball off his middle-finger at release, creating that 10:00 dead-ball saucer rotation orientation you’re seeing in the gif below. That supination actually results in a bit of cut on the baseball instead of the conventional fading action most changeups exhibit.”
He’ll locate the changeup to his glove side and it’ll display similar movement to that of a slider despite having the absurdly low spin-rates of the cambio. Kyle Hendricks has a similar movement profile on his changeup although it has much higher spin than Wicks’ changeup. To say that Kyle Hendricks has had an effective changeup feels like an understatement. Cutting changeups are weird but I think his projects really well at the next level and I’m far from alone in that opinion.
Jordan Wicks is one of the few pitchers in this draft that I don’t really have any complaints whatsoever about their delivery. His delivery is effortless and mostly efficient. His arm action is awesome both in terms of deception and timing. He has a very effective lead leg block, a substantial change from high school. Would I like to see more hip-shoulder separation? Of course. But as currently constituted it’s a boring and safe delivery that is low risk. Wicks averaged 26 BF/G and while that isn’t wise to keep him on such a heavy workload, I don’t really have that much of a problem letting him go deep into games. This is a very safe arm without much injury concern or stamina concerns.
There is still some minor relief risk due to repertoire depth. He only really has one pitch that projects to be above-average at the MLB level. Is his changeup good enough to face a lineup a third time? Honestly probably not. It’s hard to see what is effectively a one-pitch pitcher succeeding that third time through the order. Then again Lance Lynn does it with 95% fastball variants so never say never.
I think even if Jordan Wicks can’t face the lineup a third time, he should something close to a league-average starter. He’s the safe #4/5 starter profile that always goes very high on draft day. I’m not sure how high the upside is on a pitcher with only one good pitch but that one pitch is a hell of a foundation. He has solid skills across the board and a safe delivery. You don’t need much improvement just better optimization to see him as a big leaguer. His college results haven’t exactly been Cy Young caliber which is a mild red flag but I think that’s probably just a lack of pitch optimization that can be fixed. There might not be a less exciting first-round pick this year but make no mistake, Jordan Wicks will be one.
33. SS Alex Mooney, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Preparatory
At long last, the endless stream of first-round caliber prep shortstops is drawing to an end. Alex Mooney is the 9th prep shortstop I have a first-round grade on and I think there’s a decent chance that Peyton Stovall is announced as one as well. There have never even been five prep shortstops taken in the first round. Some of my first-round shortstops will be over-slotted in the middle rounds but I feel pretty confident saying that the record will be broken this year regardless.
Alex Mooney is a very tooled-up prep bat with the potential to make an impact in every facet of the game but it might take some work to get there. However, there is also a level of uncertainty in Mooney due to the fact that he went to a 1A school where the competition was so lackluster that his school actually went 43–1 this season. Additionally, Mooney is old for the class as he turns 19 just five days before the draft so there is additional risk based on age-relative competition. I believe in the tools and he was for the most part great in showcase events but there is a distinct lack of certainty with Mooney that keeps him a bit down the board.
Alex Mooney’s hit tool is quite impressive. His swing is simple and concise without a lot of extra movement that doesn’t contribute. His leg kick is mellow and he’s not slow to the ball. His hands are quick to the ball and they get in the zone fairly early although they don’t linger too long. There’s not a lot of variables in Mooney’s swing and it’s easy to see him making contact at a high rate at the next level. He only struck out 6% of the time in his senior season of High School. It’s kind of a high number for the competition quality which gives me some pause for a second but it probably is largely because he is working counts as a 20.5% BB% can attest to.
I don’t have access to batted ball data for Alex Mooney but there are a number of reasons to believe it probably is very good. He has a very steep VBA which typically has a direct correlation to contact quality due to both the topspin he generates on batted balls and the increased implicit loft. He has a predominant hip hinge that gives him the flexibility to cover the whole zone and I really like his posture at the plate.
His attack angles are according to every report very good. Attack angle has a strong correlation to launch angle, barrel rate, and line-drive rate so that is very encouraging as well. If he’s hitting balls at the optimal angle and with an optimal swing path that optimizes their launch angle, chances are the batted ball will frequently be very high quality.
Alex Mooney apart from the already mentioned feel to put the ball in the air has impact raw power. I almost wonder if I am underselling it by only calling it a 55 but I question his lack of physicality at the plate. Alex Mooney has elite bat speed that ranks in the 98th percentile of all Perfect Game Showcase participants. His max exit velocity of 98 MPH off a tee is in the 99th percentile. He has impact raw juice and while you can debate how much room he has left to grow, it is already at least average power. He’ll get to that power in games too because he already knows how to elevate.
Alex Mooney is also quite an impressive athlete. He’s an impressive basketball player in his own right although the majority of his skills obviously lie on the baseball diamond. He has tested really well in most athletic events. I have Alex Mooney as a 65 runner with 70 speed now but he’ll lose a step as he grows into his frame a bit more.
Alex Mooney’s speed plays at shortstop where he regularly will showcase plus range. He has a quick first step and plus lateral agility. There are some things that need to be ironed out defensively but his range isn’t one of them.
However, he is very very error-prone as a .755 Fielding Percentage in his senior year of high school can attest to. Errors are a stupid stat. Poor field maintenance is a very plausible explanation for error-prone high schoolers or even players in rookie ball. That being said, a .755 fielding percentage is just bad regardless of what excuse you can make up to justify it.
His actions are fine and he actually has average hands but a tendency to rush his throws. He has easy plus arm strength as his max throw velocity of 94 MPH across the diamond can attest to. That isn’t the question with his arm. The question always has been and always will be arm accuracy. His footwork is often sloppy and rushed. He needs to figure out his throwing mechanics and learn to slow the game down if he wants to play shortstop long term. If he can’t do that, he’ll wind up at second base despite his plus range and plus arm.
Alex Mooney has all five tools. There is a risk but there is more upside. He has some notable kinks to work out and too many things to prove for him to be in that top tier of shortstops but he’s still a first-round guy. The upside is very much present and he could be a star one day. Obviously, the likely outcome is significantly less than that.
34. CF Christian Franklin, Arkansas
Christian Franklin has quite a few similarities to Jud Fabian who is only a few spots above him. There are quite a few things he does better and a few worse but the core issue is largely the same- in-zone whiffs. If he can fix them he has star potential. If he can’t then he’s probably not making it past AA. The upside is worth a first-round flier for me but I completely understand if you disagree.
Christian Franklin has an interesting hit tool. He has major swing and miss issues as supported by a 28.4% strikeout rate in the SEC this season. Unlike Jud Fabian, Franklin is not the perfect breaking ball hitter with only one weakness in terms of making contact. He has his struggles with spin. He is better against fastballs than Jud is although he still has subpar contact rates against them.
The reason why I’m so quick to point out the similarities to Fabian is that both Fabian and Franklin showcase plus plate discipline. They very rarely will chase pitches out of the strike zone and make smart swing decisions consistently. That pitch recognition and approach gives hope for the long-term progression of his ability to make contact.
Christian Frankin drops his elbow early during the loading phase of his swing which allows him to create a steeper VBA than most hitters. He will typically sit at about -33° but can get steeper or flatter which is somewhat dependent on pitch location. The real reason Christian Franklin does so good at batted balls is due to how exceptional his batted balls are. This isn’t because of some really advanced feel to elevate. His groundball rate was only 59th percentile in the SEC (Higher being better).
No, Christian Franklin thrives on contact because he is one of the best line-drive hitters in the entire SEC. He hits a lot of line drives which is the best kind of contact. While part of those line drive rates is probably due to the bat path, more of them are due to his exceptional attack angles. More importantly his consistent attack angles. There are some major warts in Christian Franklin’s hit tool but I think the contact quality should still make it playable.
Christian Franklin has loud and impactful power potential. In 2020, his average exit velocity was 97.1 MPH which was second to only Spencer Torkelson among drafted players last year. His exit velocities are also absurdly consistent as he only of the lowest sdEVs in the country with how consistent the power is. He doesn’t post blinding 115 EVs like you’d expect a 65 raw dude to do but it’s just consistently loud power that gets him there. And it’s not like a 109.5 max EV is anything to sneeze at.
His swing is extremely rotational with lots of torque and hip-torso separation coming from his somewhat diminutive frame. His hands are explosively quick with a whippy barrel and enough spinal tilt to naturally create loft. His front half is very stable with a lead leg block that is somewhat reminiscent of Mookie Betts (This is not a comp they are completely different players). He gets great extension out in front of the plate and barrels balls with authority. There are some issues to clean up with his follow-through but I really like the swing.
Christian Franklin is an easy plus runner and maybe more who posts plus run times quite frequently and is even better in open space. He has good range with premium athleticism and can do the spectacular in centerfield. I don’t really think he’ll lose speed or athleticism as he grows into his body but I need to be right on that for him to be even average in centerfield. The first step isn’t fantastic and his routes are less than perfect so I only have him as above-average there even though it’s easy plus or more upside if he retains the athleticism like I think he will. He truly is a joy to watch field the position right now. The arm strength is above-average and bordering on plus but his accuracy is horrible so the arm plays down to average projection and like a 40 or 45 now.
This is a potential five-tool star but there is considerable risk in the profile that the hit tool could bottom back and he won’t contribute at all. I think the Ks hold him back but the upside is still stardom and I think the likely outcome is an average frustrating regular who will be streaky and flash greatness. There are also very stark reverse platoon splits to contend with. Christian Franklin won’t go round one because of the risk and lack of an obvious fix but the upside is as high as just about any player in this year’s draft in him.
35. C Matheu Nelson, Florida State
Matheu Nelson had one of the best seasons in college baseball at the plate this year. Nelson hit an incredibly robust .330/.436/.773 in his breakout campaign. That strong season has buoyed his draft stock to the point where he has some buzz at the back of the first round- even if his more likely destination is in the second.
Matheu Nelson has some similarities to Jud Fabian in that they are highly flawed players who go above and beyond at the other stuff that makes them incredibly successful despite a huge hole in their game. Nelson’s issues and strengths are actually the inverse of Fabian’s.
The cause of Matheu Nelson’s career season is not that hard to spot. The cause of his breakout is him moving his contact point, Mat Nelson used to make contact way in over the plate and as such, his power output played down as he consistently hit to the opposite field with little authority. This year the script has flipped. He’s moved his contact point out in front of the plate and is barreling balls with breathtaking authority to his pullside much more frequently. Most of his contact is now pulled and more of it is aerial than before. That is the only change he made and boy was it an effective one.
There is the obvious negative tradeoff, of course. More pullside contact is also true on groundballs. Pullside grounders leave him vulnerable to the shift and greatly decrease his BABIP on groundballs. Fortunately, that isn’t much of an issue for Mattheu Nelson as he has an 84th percentile groundball rate. He doesn’t put enough balls on the ground for that tradeoff of higher quality contact to be anything but a positive.
Aside from a minor pulled groundball issue, Matheu Nelson has an exceptional batted ball profile. His popup rate is only 75th percentile which is basically slander when you see the rest of his batted ball data. Matheu Nelson hits line drives at an absurd rate as according to Prospects Live, 61% of his batted balls this season were line drives. Even more ludicrous is his alleged 39% barrel rate. Somehow those numbers are not typos. He’s crushing the ball consistently and doing it to his pullside as a 93rd percentile pull rate on flyballs can attest to.
Matheu Nelson will get to all of and then some of, however, much raw power he has in games with a batted ball profile like that. Mat Nelson actually has plus raw power too. The raw juice is at least a plus and very possibly more than that. He’s a very physical hitter with a high torque swing that does a great job utilizing his raw strength and unleashing it on baseballs.
That has resulted in multiple batted balls with an exit velocity exceeding 110 MPH and oftentimes they come at optimal launch angles. If you wanted to argue he’s a 70 game/65 raw bat you wouldn’t hear any complaint from me. My lone question is if he’ll maintain the power while catching.
Matheu Nelson’s hit tool is interesting, to say the least. He’s a monster against fastballs- especially those up in the zone regardless of velocity. He’ll punish them and then some with low whiff rates and elite damage on contact. Against breaking balls and changeups down in the zone, however, he’s a bit of a wreck who whiffs frequently.
On the bright side, his chase rates are average or even a tick above so it’s not as if he’s a complete zero against secondary stuff. He just makes his living off of fastballs. As long as he mashes those as he has then that’s not a complete detriment. Even in the majors, fastballs are 60% of all pitches anyways. You could argue that Matheu Nelson should have an average hit tool with how exceptional the batted ball data is but I feel obligated to be cautious with how exceptional the batted ball data truly is.
Matheu Nelson is not a great defensive backstop. He has very limited mobility behind the dish and his hands are not the greatest. However, what should probably sell you on him as a catcher is the fact that he is by all accounts revered by his pitching staff as a game caller.
With electronic strike zones coming, the hands won’t matter anymore and blocking is whatever. He has a plus arm and calls a good game. I don’t need much more from a catcher once framing foes the way of the dinosaur. He’s probably a below-average defensive option but only just.
Mathe Nelson is one of the most potent power bats in the entire draft. He skews more than a little bit one-dimensional but power from the catching position like he has is rare and extremely valuable. This only a 45 FV guy for me albeit a very high one because even if I think he’s likely to be a regular at the big league level, a loss in power would completely crush his game and make him immediately profile as an offensive-minded backup at best. As a catcher, that possibility will always loom over his shoulder. I fully approve of taking him as an under slot first-round pick.
36. SP Ryan Webb, Georgia
In hindsight it was stupid but shortly before he tore his UCL, I had Ryan Webb as my #2 college pitcher in the entire draft. I was overreacting to a small sample and being aggressive because he was fun and had a lot of helium but the logic behind that aggressive ranking wasn’t baseless. Even now, I have him just outside the first round when he had half the season wiped away by a poorly timed UCL tear. Ryan Webb is very much so a potential impact arm with both floor and upside.
Ryan Webb’s arsenal is led by an above-average fastball that might be his worst pitch. Ryan Webb might only sit 91–94 MPH on his fastball and top out at 96 MPH but the pitch projects as an above-average offering at the big-league level. He gets plus spin rates on his fastball as he averages ~2350 RPMs on it with a mostly vertical axis and high spin efficiencies. This leads to Ryan Webb getting plus vertical movement on his fastball with ~20 inches of induced vertical break.
Webb also throws from a sub-six foot release height which gives him a good VAA when he pitches up in the zone. Like most Georgia starters, Ryan Webb will frequently throw the fastball down in the zone despite if having traits that suggest it should play up near the top of it. Due to the commonality of the issue in Georgia pitchers, I’m fairly confident the lack of elevation on the heater is because of a philosophical issue rather than some flaw in his delivery. If he makes that tradeoff we might see some regression to what typically has been a very strong batted ball profile as typically change in fastball height means more popups and fewer groundballs.
His lead leg block is very efficient and keeps his pelvis closed off so he can generate velocity with his lower half. I think there is even more velocity for Ryan Webb to unlock if he can improve a very lackluster hip hinge. He doesn’t get very deep into his glutes as he strides forward and it limits the impact of the loading phase of his delivery. There is more velocity in the tank with some mechanical optimization.
Ryan Webb mixes in three above-average secondaries on top of that promising even if unexciting fastball. His slider is Webb’s best secondary sitting in the low 80s with heavy gyro and good side spin. He’ll backfoot it to right-handed bats and makes lefties go fishing for it. The pitch has plus shape and he can throw it in the strike zone (62% of the time). If he can add some velocity to it, it might wind up an elite pitch. It’s a plus without as his 64% whiff rate this year would indicate.
Ryan Webb’s curveball is another potent weapon. The curveball has a lot of spin behind it as he averages ~2800 RPMs and has actually touched 3000 before. The pitch has an 11–5 shape with really good vertical depth and solid sweep to it. He throws the curve soft enough at 75–78 MPH that it rarely will bleed together with the slider despite its somewhat similar shape.
Ryan Webb needs to improve his spin efficiency on the curveball for it to mature into a great pitch but it has that upside. There are some issues with throwing the curveball for strikes that hold it back. A number of people believe that the curveball is Ryan Webb’s best pitch and it’s not hard to see why. It has much more viability against right-handed hitters than the slider even if it’s still not a great pitch against them.
Ryan Webb’s changeup is another above-average pitch that has the potential to be his best pitch in a few years. He’s used it sparingly to date and never against left-handed hitters but it has real out pitch potential. He throws the changeup at ~85 MPH with good arm speed on the pitch to fool hitters are the changeup that comes in ~10 MPH slower than the heater.
The changeup has above-average movement on both planes- especially horizontal where it gets ~18 inches of horizontal movement and he shows an elite ability to spot it for strikes with shocking regularity (72% of the time!). The pitch also had a 58% whiff rate and a 48% chase rate this year before he got hurt. The only reason I don’t have it as a plus pitch just yet is that he uses it very sparingly and exclusively against RHB. I think it has the traits to possibly be somewhat viable against LHB which would make it a plus but until we see it do so I’ll hold off. As he gets more comfortable throwing the cambio with conviction it is entirely possible that this grade improves to a plus.
Ryan Webb has somewhat interesting mechanics. The delivery looks soft and repeatable but there are some warning signs that might have been responsible for him needing Tommy John. The arm spiral is fine but there is some abnormal shoulder abduction in his delivery that might cause issues long-term- maybe. I don’t have much issue with his mechanics in terms of health although TJS is a red flag that I might be missing something.
I am, however, concerned about Ryan Webb’s stamina and that is why he just barely misses a first-round grade. Especially after Tommy John Surgery which is known to cause issues in that regard. Prior to this season, Ryan Webb was nearly exclusively a long reliever. He would throw approximately three innings in an outing and be done without facing the lineup a second time. He has the repertoire depth to handle facing the lineup multiple times but pitching deep into games is more than that.
I have concerns about if Ryan Webb can go that extra mile. In the rotation this season, Ryan Webb averaged just under 22 Batters Faced per start. A rather lackluster figure for a college starter. He didn’t pitch past the seventh inning even once in his eleven starts. I think part of that is him slowly being stretched out to start but it is a real warning sign. Tommy John really doesn’t help stamina concerns.
Despite the awesome four-pitch repertoire of Ryan Webb and his all-around supplementary skills being strong; there is real relief risk here. A relief risk that is only magnified by the TJS. I think Ryan Webb will be a starter at the next level and has a lot more upside than most give him credit for but he’s not a safe bet to start by any means. That puts him a tier below the first-round arms albeit barely.
37. 2B Ryan Bliss, Auburn
Ryan Bliss hit .365/.428/.654 in the SEC this year but he still doesn’t get the respect he deserves from most scouts. In his lifetime he has hit .328/.397/.514 across 134 SEC games. That elite production is largely ignored. There are good reasons to not entirely buy into the production as translating to the next level. Even still, it is hard to not believe it’s at least partly the industry seeing a 5'9" black guy and writing them off due to pre-conceived and mostly subconscious biases.
Ryan Bliss is a fantastic fielder who has all the actions and the golden hands to not only be a shortstop but a good one. Unfortunately, his arm strength is well below-average so he’ll likely be a second baseman at the next level. He might compete for gold gloves at second base, however, as he is a natural shortstop in everything else. He can range in all directions and is explosive in the field with great hands and really clean actions. He just lacks in arm strength. That is basically it. He’s a plus and maybe more at second base who will slide to shortstop in a pinch and not be a complete liability there.
His bat is where he’ll make waves, however, and rightfully so as he is one of the best hitters in the college crop this year- actually the entire draft altogether. The dude can flat-out rake. His approach is horrendous. He constantly will chase bad pitches and it just doesn’t matter. He just doesn’t whiff, even on out of the zone pitches and his wOBAcons are near identical regardless of if the pitch was in the zone or not. Is that going to translate to the next level? Probably? Maybe? Idk.
There are players who just hit everything regardless of location at the big league level, Vlad Sr. being the most notable example historically with less comparable approaches working in the modern game. In the Statcast era, of every player to have at least a 250 PA, only six have an above-average wOBAcon on pitches out of the zone. One of those plays in Coors. Two of those play in GABP. The other three are Giancarlo Stanton, Yoenis Cespedes, and Kris Bryant who obviously have a lot more power than Bliss.
Scooter Gennett is the primary name I want to highlight because, in terms of offensive skillsets, I think he is a pretty perfect comp for Ryan Bliss. They are even built very similarly although Scooter is a lefty and Bliss is right-handed. They both employ a loud leg kick with considerable bat waggle. Both players chase an absurd amount and whiff rarely despite that- even outside of the strike zone.
Neither Scooter Gennett nor Ryan Bliss is the most rotational player and both have below-average raw power. Scooter still hit 27 homers in 497 PA one season and Bliss has that same upside if he were to play in GABP with juiced balls. He’s more realistically, an average power guy.
There are differences, Scooter has a much steeper VBA as he’ll sit at ~31° and Bliss is sitting closer to 25° but it’s entirely possible that Bliss could still learn to steepen his VBA or even that Bliss just won’t need to because his supplementary skills are so good that VBA isn’t really that much of a factor for him just like it wasn’t really one for Scooter. Some similarities to José Altuve as well but more in common with Scooter.
So why was Scooter successful at the big league level when all his metrics really said he shouldn’t have been? Elite bat speed and near-perfect barrel accuracy. For the same reasons, I believe Ryan Bliss will likely be successful. Bliss is a master technician at the plate. He has a whippy bat that he gets in the zone early and keeps in the strike zone. He’s heavily reliant on his hands to put the barrel in the optimal hitting position and he does it superbly. Everything he hits is barreled up. He hits balls on the button frequently and drives them with authority.
Consider the following, in the SEC this year he had a 39% XBH% which was 22nd in the SEC min 200 PA. His 6.33 HR% was 7th in the league with the same requirements. He might not have raw juice but it’s consistent juice that plays because of its consistency. There are guys with below-average Max EV who are among the league leaders in HH% due to their tremendous barrel accuracy. Bliss could fall into that umbrella.
Ryan Bliss has a great feel to put the ball in the air with frequent aerial contact and more so, his GB have higher LA’s so they’re more likely to be hits as high grounders are lethal. He also has an optimal spray profile like Scooter did as he’s oppo reliant on GB but pulls the aerial contact at an above-average rate. Even his mishits where he gets under a pitch are still hit with authority due to the fact that it’s still hit with the barrel of the bat. Some of his hardest-hit balls apparently come at very high launch angles. That is a rare trait to see in a hitter, especially one with such lackluster raw strength.
There is risk in the bat. A metal bat has a larger barrel than a wooden one so it’s easier for him to have barrel accuracy because of it. He might find it hard to make adjustments to the smaller target and could easily fizzle out. We don’t know and he could also be just fine. It is that distinction that has me just outside the first round with him, however, as everything else suggests he is a first-round talent.
In a normal season, this isn’t an issue as the Cape Cod League is played with wooden bats and could answer this pressing question. Except that was canceled this year so we have to go exclusively off of BP and metal bats. I think he’ll probably be fine but it’s a risky selection of no fault of Bliss himself but the pandemic. Ryan Bliss’s elite plate coverage is enough, you’re still looking at a role player as a contact-oriented infielder even if his barrel accuracy suffers in the transition but he’ll probably be fine.
The other concern is how quickly this skill set can atrophy. Scooter Gennett was out of baseball by 30. Will the same happen to Bliss? It’s possible for sure. This skill set in general is not one that ages well. If his bat speed diminishes, he might be toast. If his mobility diminishes and he can’t square up balls as frequently, his bat might lose its punch. His skillset once it starts aging will likely decline fast. But that is perfectly fine. He’s only 21 and has the makings of an impact talent in the front end of his career. Worry about what comes next when it comes. Right now Ryan Bliss projects as an impact bat at the front-end of his career with plus defense at second base. That sounds like a really good player to me who should be gone in the first two rounds.
38. SS/3B Alex Ulloa, Calvary Christian Academy
During the MLB Draft combine, Harold Reynolds dropped the most hilarious comp I’ve ever seen on Alex Ulloa. He compared Ulloa to Nick Madrigal. There is no planet where this comparison makes any sense whatsoever. There are three traits that define Nick Madrigal. Not striking out, having zero power, and having too weak of an arm to stick at shortstop. Alex Ulloa struck out 19.6% of the time in his senior year of High School, has elite raw power, and has a plus or better arm with his speed being why he might not stick at shortstop. They are closer to complete opposites than an accurate comp like Harold claims.
Fun anecdotal note aside, I really do believe in the upside of Alex Ulloa. Every year there is one guy who puts up elite showcase numbers in terms of raw tools and yet their tools are frequently graded as below-average. That is Ulloa this year. He has posted a max throw velo of 94 MPH from shortstop and 99 on a crow hop into a net. That is in the 98th percentile. Yet PL thinks he’ll have to play second base due to a lack of size and arm talent, and MLB Pipeline only has a 55 on the arm. There are some mechanical flaws in his motion but even still, third base is the better defensive fit if he shifts off shortstop.
I’m not convinced he will move off of shortstop at all. His speed is only average but he has an explosive first step with good lateral quickness and clean hands. He didn’t struggle much with the fielding drills at the combine and while he didn’t wow he looked solid. I think he could be a below-average shortstop who might get to average because of the arm strength.
Alex Ulloa gets no respect for his loud raw power for some inexplicable reason. Alex Ulloa is 5'11" but so what when you’ve posted measurables as absurd as his are. His lower half is very strong and he does a great job leveraging his core to post insane exit velocities. Alex Ulloa has a maximum exit velocity of 103 MPH off a tee. That is in the 100th percentile of all prep bats. His bat speed is just ethereal.
At a Baseball Factory showcase event, Alex Ulloa registered a Max Barrel Speed of 86 MPH. That surpassed Benny Montomgery for the best bat speed of all prep hitters. His impact momentum of 32 is second to only Montgomery. His max acceleration is also in the 100th percentile at 51 G’s. This is blinding bat speed and blinding exit velocities. People (MLB Pipeline) still have 45 on his power for some reason.
Alex Ulloa doesn’t really get to his stupid raw power in games but it is there. The reason for the lack of evident game power is two-fold. Part of it has to do with his swing shape. His swing path is direct to the ball without any looping or hitch to it. Additionally, his bat head is flat which limits the implicit loft he creates. More so than the swing shape issue, however, is an attack angle issue. Alex Ulloa has a negative attack angle on average. That means he is swinging down on the ball. He has too much power for such an approach to work and not enough speed to even fake it. That lack of feel for elevation severely limits the impact of his raw power in games.
Alex Ulloa’s hit tool is conflicting. After showcasing a good feel for contact on the showcase circuit he forgot how to hit in his senior year of High School. At a 3A school he struck out 19.6% of the time in 71 PA. This was likely not just because he was passive at the plate either as he only walked 8.5% of the time. It’s a shocking departure from who he has always been prior to that one weird spring. It’s possible that he made a swing change to try to turn his raw power into game power and that is the culprit for the swing and miss regression. Regardless, I’ll lean on the track record and not be too harsh with his hit tool but I have to put it as below-average after he struggled so much against garbage competition in his most recent games.
I like Alex Ulloa quite a bit and wouldn’t hate drafting him in the first round. He has loud tools and a lot of upside. His ugly spring against subpar competition is a red flag but his track record and swing both suggest an above-average hit tool. No one except Harold Reynolds will ever mistake him for Nick Madrigal but he is still an impact player. He’ll cost seven figures in the middle rounds but he is absolutely worth the gamble.
39. SP/SS Bubba Chandler, North Oconee High School
Bubba Chandler is the top two-way player in the draft. He’s also arguably the best two-sport star as he happens to be a four-star recruit at Clemson to be Will Taylor’s quarterback. He has a lot of the same issues when it comes to scouting him as Will Taylor does. He missed a lot of showcase events and as such, I have a distinct lack of data on him- particularly offensively.
I am firmly on the Bubba Chandler is a pitcher train (Assuming he doesn’t do both) but he is likely a good prospect at shortstop as well. He’s an above-average defensive shortstop with a rocket of an arm. A true plus or better runner to boot. He has big-time bat speed and projects for plus power in the future. I know very little about his hit tool because finding data on his offense is near impossible. I’m glossing over his offensive capabilities because I’m largely clueless about any of them. His tool grades above are very rough estimates and should be taken with a heaping of salt on the side.
Bubba Chandler has a lot of upside on the mound, and I wouldn’t protest at all if he went in the first round, even if I might have him graded just outside of it. He’s very clearly a talented arm with loads of potential- probably as much as just about anyone in this year’s draft.
Bubba Chandler’s fastball is an above-average pitch and you could argue I’m selling it short by describing it as such. Honestly, I don’t know. This grade is almost entirely dependent on eye test evaluations. I don’t have spin rate data on him, or pitch movement data, or measurements of his release height and extension- just the good old-fashioned eye test because he didn’t participate in showcases. Some orgs might know more than me but the public does not so we have a very limited scope of information to judge him on.
He also has elite arm speed and strength that should translate to more velocity with more mechanical optimization. And that is without considering his projectable body. He currently sits 92–95 with the fastball, touching 97 with some sink and running action on it. The pitch has velocity and a vertical slot that suggests he could potentially change to a vertical fastball but its movement profile to the naked eye seems subpar so I’m not sure I’m comfortable calling it more than a 55 even if he might eventually regularly pump triple digits with optimal development. The sink could just be an illusion born out of a high release height or poor pitch location for all I know.
His slider is the better of his breaking balls at least right now. It sits in the low eighties with heavy sweeping action but somewhat limited depth- still if he can add more velocity to it then it should project as above-average. His curveball is more inconsistent but he can absolutely rip it. The pitch has 11–5 shape and sits in the high seventies with lots of movement on both planes. There is a real chance that it gets to a plus pitch although I’m slightly lower due to how slurvy it can get frequently. His cambio is his best pitch according to me. He throws it with elite arm speed and can throw it for strikes. The pitch will flash elite arm side tailing action and should miss bats at a high clip. All three secondaries look like above-average offerings according to my eye test.
Bubba Chandler is an impressive athlete which could suggest good things about his control. His delivery looks smooth and repeatable without any major mechanical flaws. I have him with a tick above-average control.
On a completely irrelevant note, Bubba Chandler actually threw an inning left-handed this year… It was an immaculate inning. He’s probably not going to be Pat Venditte in the MLB and switch-pitch but it’s still cool that he’s at least somewhat competent as a left-handed pitcher.
Bubba Chandler has four potentially above-average pitches with above-average control. It’s not hard to see why he has a lot of fans. I just don’t know enough about him to count myself as one of them. I’ve said this repeatedly but take all of these grades for him as a loose estimation. I don’t know enough to accurately assess him. I just know that he is too good to not have on this list so here he is.
40. C/RF Mason Strong, Snow Canyon High School
High school catchers are an ugly demographic historically and I generally try to avoid them like the plague in the early rounds. However, the ones who are athletic enough to play the outfield and should move there the moment they are drafted are much more to my liking. Mason Strong is one of those catchers.
Mason Strong flies completely under the radar because he plays High School in Utah. Utah is a wasteland of MLB talent as only 30 players born in the state have ever even made the majors. The best of them is a one-time All-Star in Bruce Hurst. Ed Heusser is the only other player born in Utah to even acclimate 10 career rWAR and he only had 10.1. This state is not one that scouts have ever or will ever flock to see baseball in.
To make matters worse, Mason Strong only went to a 4A High School so on the rare occasion someone did send a scout to Utah, Strong’s school was rarely the game they would watch. Luckily for Mason, he had the data to make a name for himself even when scouts wouldn’t give him a single glance. He wasn’t even invited to the Perfect Game Showcase events or the Baseball Factory ones. We have his PBR showcase results as our primary source to go off of which thankfully are mostly not blocked by the paywall. He did attend the combine but the results don’t appear to be available to the public for some reason and they didn’t televise him at all.
Mason Strong as his name would imply is strong- freakishly so even. He consistently will register plus velocities from all over the diamond with his arm and that combined with above-average speed should make him a good fit in right field. Admittedly, he will likely lose a step as he ages. He’s stocky at 6'0" 200lbs and doesn’t look as agile as he apparently is. However, for the time being, he is posting plus run times with shocking regularity. He’s got good pop times but the bat shouldn’t be jeopardized by catching and I worry about his long-term mobility.
Where his Strongness is really apparent, however, is at the plate. He has tremendous physicality to unload on baseballs but it goes well beyond that. This is a premium power threat. He generates extreme amounts of torque with incredibly powerful and controlled rotation of his hips that haven’t yet been broken by having to catch and hopefully never will.
Mason Strong utilizes a small foot tap to engage his weight transfer and that allows him to not get tied up in the length of his swing while still managing to coil effectively-albeit briefly. His hands are lightning quick which leads to an elite 77.7 MPH max bat speed and averaged 74.7 MPH in one of the only showcases he was invited to. That is again elite.
Mason Strongman has a good feel for the barrel and high attack angles that lead to optimal launch angles and optimize his consistent hard contacts damage. This is a guy who is going to get to all of his power in games because it’s elite ability to consistently put the ball in the air.
That contact quality is the key to Mason Strong’s hit tool. He is a heavy line-drive hitter from everything I’ve seen who also hits a high quantity of towering flyballs. Obviously quality of competition is a factor but Mason Strong had an absolutely ludicrous .661 BACON his senior season and a still-impressive .517 BACON in his prep career. Strong’s batted ball profile is by all accounts exceptional. Aerial contact without popping up will always be effective and that is who strong is. His steep VBA backs up that point some more.
Mason Strong has a swing that looks like it should result in frequent contact. His swing is simple and very much low maintenance. He’s quick to the baseball and doesn’t have any over-exaggerated movements that could cause him to get tied up. His limbs are fairly short which typically correlates to low swing and miss rates as well.
For some inexplicable reason, none of that has played out in Mason Strong. Mason Strong has had swing and miss issues in his high school career. Strong had an 18.8% strikeout rate in his high school career despite only playing in a 4A school in Utah. There might be a pitch recognition issue here or perhaps he’s pressing at the plate. I don’t know what’s going on that leads to alarming levels of swing and miss. Perhaps it is fixable or perhaps it isn’t.
What I do know is that the contact quality is so exceptional that even if he striking out 30% of the time an average hit tool isn’t out of the picture. There is big time upside in the bat. Mason Strong is the kind of prep bat who doesn’t get much attention now but after three years at BYU, he would be a first round talent. I have no problem with skipping the three years of stalled development and taking him now for seven figures. Hopefully, a team agrees with my assessment of him.
41. SP/SS Spencer Schwellenbach, Nebraska
Spencer Schwellenbach is one of the most fascinating and divisive players in the entire draft. Very few people agree on what position he belongs at in the majors. Even fewer still agree on where he should be drafted. I’ve seen mock drafts where he goes as high as #15 and mocks where he falls out of the second round entirely. There is a lot of questions with him that change his perception greatly. Schwellenbach might be a high-risk high-reward prospect.
I think Spencer Schwellenbach will be a starting pitcher at the next level so like we’ve done with every two-way player, we will start this report off with a much more abrupt summary of his capabilities on the other side of the ball.
Spencer Schwellenbach as you might expect from a guy who throws 99 MPH off the mound has at least a 70-grade arm at shortstop. Spencer Schwellenbach is more than just a rocket arm at shortstop, but also an above-average defender. He lacks elite range as only an average runner but he’s still a really slick fielder. He has great instincts and hands with smooth actions. He’s capable of doing whatever is asked of him and with some refinement could be a plus defender at shortstop.
Spencer Schwellenbach’s bat lacks the same impact. He’s an interesting hitter with upside but it is hard for me to envision him being anything more than average at the plate. He is a bit whiff prone but he never chases pitches and should run high walk rates. He strikes out more than he should because he is so passive and rarely swings but his tool still projects as solid average.
He has some punch to his bat and should have average raw power that might mature into more if he commits his body to hitting. There is some gorgeous uppercut to his swing that would suggest impact game power but it hasn’t shown up in games- probably due to an attack angle issue. He’s instead been a heavy groundball hitter more often than not. There is some upside in the bat and the glove will play so purely as a bat he’s probably worth a third-round pick or something in that range.
Spencer Schwellenbach is much more exciting as a pitcher. He pitched exclusively in relief with Nebraska, despite that I think he projects as a starter at the next level. There are always going to be questions about stamina with conversion arms but Spencer has the repertoire depth and the athleticism to potentially be stretched out and face the lineup two or even three times.
Spencer Schwellenbach has an easy plus fastball. He will most commonly operate in the 94–97 MPH range out of the bullpen and touch 99 MPH when he needs to reach back for some extra juice. He throws his fastball with average spin rates for the velocity at ~2350 RPMs and has high spin efficiency on the offering.
He throws the heater from a fairly low vertical release height and that gives his fastball a solid VAA despite meh shape. His fastball is more tail than rise but it is still a fairly average drop when he elevates it up in the zone. Perhaps more importantly, that tailing shape lets him miss barrels and avoid quality contact. He might not miss the most bats with the fastball but he doesn’t have to because his secondaries can bridge that chasm.
Spencer Schwellenbach’s most often used secondary is an above-average slider. He throws it in the lower eighties with heavy sweeping action and not a lot drop to it. His spin on the pitch will typically sit around ~2600 RPMs with some gyro spin on it. The pitch can break a bit early and the shape is somewhat inconsistent but it’s an above-average pitch with plus upside very much possible in the future.
My favorite pitch of Schwellenbach’s is the less frequently used changeup. The pitch is a plus offering in all of my looks and I think it is what will make him thrive as a big-league starter. He throws his changeup in the mid-eighties and does a fantastic job of maintaining his fastball arm speed on the offering. He just sells it so well with near-identical mechanics and releases to the fastball.
The changeup has heavy dive-bombing action with some fade away from left-handed batters. He obliterates spin on the pitch as his spin rate even dropped just below 1500 RPMs on a few of them during the combine. The pitch has a real bat missing shape and the deception element is just as impressive. I really do believe that the changeup will mature into a plus or better offering in a few years.
Spencer Schwellenbach might be the riskiest pitcher on this list. He has only thrown 31.2 innings in his collegiate career. He has never started a game in his career. If you draft him early the plan is almost certainly to start him with the possibility of using him off the bench in his off-days. All signs might point to him being able to start but baseball isn’t played on paper. Schwellenbach has the upside of a first-round arm- possibly one who belongs in the top half of the first. He is just much less of a known quantity.
42. CF Lonnie White Jr., Malvern Preparatory
Lonnie White Jr. is another multiple sport star who is expected to be expensive on draft day to buy them away from the other sports. Lonnie White Jr. is a four-star wide receiver recruit committed to Penn State to play Football and Baseball. He also played basketball in High School but he’s narrowing in on Baseball and Football in College.
Lonnie White Jr. like most multi-sport stars is an incredible athlete. Like with the other football players in the draft, we don’t have many athletic testing results at showcase events to judge him off of. The extent of athleticism measurables I have on Lonnie is that he ran a 6.58 60-yard dash… in 2018. Yeah, that’s not at all helpful. He’s commonly graded as anywhere from a 55 to 70 runner. I’ll just split the difference and call it a tentative 60.
However much speed Lonnie White may have, it should play in centerfield. His skills at wide receiver translate to the outfield. He is a crisp route runner who makes clean cuts and is great at changing his directions. He has a strong first step and knows how to make catches in stride. He should definitely be an above-average defensive option in centerfield.
He also has above-average arm strength and the accuracy is even more impressive. His arm action is that of a quarterback which he played some in high school. He can really air it out in the outfield and gun down runners. I think even if the strength is only above-average it will play up to a plus due to the accuracy and clean mechanics.
I have Lonnie White’s hit tool as average which might be slightly controversial. I really like his setup at the plate. His swing is simple and compact. He has very little noisy hand movement aside from some pre-pitch bat waggle. His leg kick is calculated and efficient. He locks himself in early and then swings. There’s no hitching or dragging the barrel. It’s a very direct bat path. He can get flat with his swing and needs to work on contact quality but I think there’s the potential for an above-average feel for contact.
The caveat is that Lonnie White Jr. struck out 16.4% of the time during his senior year of high school against very weak competition. That is not encouraging but I’m not as worried about his struggles in that regard as I would be with just about anyone else.
Lonnie White Jr. is raw and inexperienced as a result of him not committing all his time to baseball. He played on the Summer Circuit only once. He excelled there against the toughest competition of his life. He has shown some feel to hit spin and velocity. Yes, there are times when he will get in a rut and struggle badly. That is to be expected with the lack of experience. I’ll look at the long term in this instance, and ignore most of his short-term struggles.
Lonnie White Jr. has some of the best raw power in the entire draft class. During the area code games, Lonnie White hit a homerun off of Luke Hayden to dead centerfield with an exit velocity of 113.5 MPH. That is elite raw juice especially for what was at the time a 17-year-old.
I do think that there is limited room for his exit velocities to further improve as he is already very physically mature. His swing is also just amazing at creating power. His lower half is very efficient and he creates a lot of torque with his leagues of hip-torso separation. When you combine all that with plus bat speed the result is typically fabulous. Lonnie White Jr. is no exception.
Lonnie White Jr., is unlikely to get to that 65 raw power in games, however. His bat path is somewhat lackluster at creating loft. He tends to operate at the top of the zone with a flat bat head and not much slope in his swing. He’s a line-drive hitter right now who hits two many groundballs for my liking. He needs to improve his barrel control as well if he wants his average exit velocities to correlate to his max. Right now I find it hard to call it more than 55 game power even if it might eventually reach a 60 with some tweaks to his swing in the right organization.
Lonnie White Jr. has the upside to be a five-tool superstar. His athleticism and power are rare and should make him a contributor in some capacity as long as the hit tool is halfway decent. Whoever takes Lonnie White Jr. will probably be waiting a long while for him to arrive but in the end, he could be more than worth it. He’ll cost first-round money to buy away from Clemson and I don’t have much problem giving him that. I might not have a first-round grade on him but I’m missing information and all that I’ve seen is encouraging. There are warts and risks with Lonnie White Jr. but the upside is immense.
43. SP Roman Kimball, P27 Academy
Roman Kimball is or at least (hopefully) was a Trevor Bauer super fan. The pinned tweet on his Twitter is him mimicking Trevor Bauer’s celebrations. He started a vlog in the mold of Trevor Bauer’s. He follows Trevor Bauer’s pregame routines. He has similar cooldowns after the game. His attitude isn’t too dissimilar and there are also a lot of mechanical similarities between the two of them. That is a lot more of a negative now than it was a week ago. I don’t think it really matters much for Kimball but it still is slightly offputting.
Questionable judging of character aside, Roman Kimball is one of my favorite pitching prospects in the entire draft and he has as much upside as just about anyone. However, his extremely unorthodox delivery has him ranked outside of the first where he probably belongs in terms of talent alone.
Roman Kimball on paper has quite good mechanics actually. They are very similar to Trevor Bauer. He starts his delivery the same way as Bauer with his hands bridging down and out. Bauer has a better posture where Kimball is loose and has his arms extended but it’s the same motion. They have that same reach-back flat arm action that they complete before foot strike and get the arm up and into the optimal position. Bauer keeps his pelvis closed a bit more at foot strike and does a better job with his core but it’s similar actions and it’s easy to see similar results with further optimization.
Except there is one thing that Kimball does differently and I’m not at all sure that it’s entirely legal. During his stride, Roman Kimball kind of just hops off the mound. He pushes hard off of his drive leg and glides past the rubber so his feet are here at foot strike.
Kimball is probably at least a foot away from the rubber at footstrike. Carter Capps was a similar distance from the rubber at the footstrike when his motion was declared illegal. There is some controversy over if his issue was the fact that he was jumping or not pitching off the rubber. I’m not sure what the official ruling was. The official rule clarification when Capps delivery is as follows:
An addition to Rule 5.07 formalizes an umpire interpretation by stipulating that a pitcher may not take a second step toward home plate with either foot or otherwise reset his pivot foot in his delivery of the pitch. If there is at least one runner on base, then such an action will be called as a balk under Rule 6.02(a). If the bases are unoccupied, then it will be considered an illegal pitch under Rule 6.02(b).
Kimball’s delivery appears to have more of a toe drag so it might be fine if the issue was the jumping part. If that’s the case then he won’t have to change anything. It’s also possible that his delivery is indeed illegal and he’ll have to work on keeping that backfoot planted which I can’t imagine will be easy. It’s a risk taking a pitcher with an unorthodox delivery that has very questionable legality. I’m completely uncertain if sliding off the mound counts as resetting his pivot foot.
Roman Kimball’s fastball is special. Sure he might only sit 91–93 MPH and top out at 95 MPH but it is an easy 70-grade pitch at the big league level. He does a great job producing backspin on the high heat which leads to just over 19 inches of induced vertical break. As you would expect for someone with his unorthodox delivery, he gets over seven feet of extension on his fastball which lets it play above its natural velocity.
What really separates his fastball from the pack is how exceptional the angle on it is. Roman Kimball rides very low to the ground. Like to the point where his back knee is nearly touching the ground right before release. (Image below). That combined with his 5'11" height means that even from an over-the-top arm slot, Roman Kimball has one of the lowest release heights in the draft at just over 5 feet. When you combine his absurdly low release height with plus vertical movement you have a truly elite VAA. A VAA that has given his fastball a whiff rate hovering around 60% in showcase events. This is an elite offering that is the foundation of any arsenal.
Roman Kimball will also commonly demonstrate a plus curveball. Roman Kimball throws a very high spin breaking ball in the upper seventies. The curveball has a lot of similarities to pre-substance Bauer’s curveball. He’ll sit at about 2600 RPMs and touch 2800. He throws it with heavy topspin action and a high spin efficiency which leads to big drop and solid sweep as well away from batters. He hangs them more too often and has to work at consistently getting on top of the pitch and pinpointing it down in the zone but there is obviously plus potential here.
He throws a similarly high spin slider in the 83–85 MPH range. The pitch is less effective than the curveball but it still projects as above-average. His slider has good sweeping action and there is some feel to flatten out the pitch and keep it from dropping overly much. His arm slot can droop a tad on the pitch and it can bleed together with the more potent curveball but it has potential.
Roman Kimball also features an average changeup. His changeup like most prep arms isn’t the most well-refined pitch but it will flash greatness. He throws the changeup in the same velocity bucket as the slider with a somewhat inverted movement pattern. He will flash heavy fading action on the pitch although it’s more diagonal than horizontal movement. That combined with some arm speed issues can make the pitch somewhat easy to detect out of the hand. You could pretty easily arguably that Kimball has an above-average changeup but I’ll err on the side of caution and project it as average.
Roman Kimball is one of the most unicorn-esque players in the draft. His strengths are primarily unique and his biggest concerns are equally unique. He’s an oddball with an eccentric character and an obvious love for the game with a high work ethic. Thanks to his vlogs, I actually can tell you that the Reds, Cleveland, and the Padres are among the team interested in his services although the common belief is that he will be a tough sign. He’s widely believed to be firmly committed to his Notre Dame commitment. He’s young for the class and I would absolutely give him seven figures as long as his eccentricities are not as chaotic and self-destructive as his role models.
44. SP Ryan Cusick, Wake Forest
Ryan Cusick had a lot of helium at the top of the first round heading into the year. He had a bit of a rough season and most people have in the sandwich round now. He’s a two-pitch guy who definitely has a future in high leverage relief. The question is if he can start and if he needs a third pitch in order to do so.
Ryan Cusick has what some people consider to be the best fastball in the entire draft. I very much disagree but it’s an easy 70-grade pitch. Cusick has thrown the hardest pitch ever tracked by a trackman in a division one game when he threw a 101.7 MPH bullet to Henry Davis. More commonly his velocity will sit around the 94–97 MPH range. He gets over seven feet of extension on the heater so it plays above his already superb velocity.
Ryan Cusick’s fastball is so much more than just pure velocity too. He throws it with a spin rate that sits around ~2400 RPMs. He also has a high spin efficiency and throws it with a vertical spin axis which leads to just over 20 inches of induced vertical break. He also throws his fastball from a sub-six-foot release height which gives him one of the flattest VAA’s in the entire draft.
The lone thing holding his fastball back is his lack of command over it. He throws it with no clue where it’s going. He struggles to consistently elevate the pitch and couldn’t paint it on the edge if his life depended on it. He actually has more feel for spotting his curveball in the strike zone than he does the fastball. The fastball command needs to be better if he wants to be a starter.
The curveball is a plus pitch. He used to throw an average slider in its place but the newer breaking ball is infinitely better. He sits 82–85 on the pitch with 12–6 shape and incredible bat missing bite. He tends to struggle to repeat his release on the offering consistently (and line it up with the FB) and he’ll frequently hang the breaking ball but when it’s on it is lethal. His command on the curveball isn’t great but it’s better than the fastball and he’ll occasionally spot one in the zone to steal a strike.
Cusick’s changeup is very fringy with very limited usage at the collegiate level but it does show some promise. He sits 86–88 MPH on the pitch he kills spin on it with only 1600 RPMs of spin which is typically a good thing on changeups. It has a very bland movement profile, however, with almost no horizontal movement and only average vertical break.
Cusick will also frequently slow his arm speed on the pitch and has had some trouble tunneling it with the FB. There is room for optimization and the lack of usage suggests that it definitely has room to improve with more reps but it’s projecting as well below-average right now. Fortunately for Cusick, he is much less dependent on developing that third pitch than most starters as his power curveball is equally as effective against LHB and he shows no real noticeable platoon split.
The batted ball profile is fringy across the board with average rates in just about everything against low-level competition which isn’t ideal and is actually really bad (Prior to 2021 don’t have data from this year yet). That being said, there is an obvious route to optimizing both the IFFB/LD elements on the profile at the expense of some groundballs (Curve still gets a handful). If he can consistently elevate the fastball so it’s not as doom and gloom as the profile looks at first blush but it’s definitely sub-optimal.
I’ve seen it suggested he’s an ideal candidate to add a cutter to get groundballs, and a quality third offering with glove-side movement to add repertoire depth and it’s an assessment I mostly agree with but as far as I’m aware he hasn’t done so yet.
It’s premium stuff but right now it’s only two pitches and trends extremely one-dimensional. There’s a chance that he can start but he’s more likely to be a reliever or else a five-and-dive starter even in the high-end outcome. He’s more than a bit one-dimensional l but the upside is tantalizing and quite possibly will see him taken in the first-round.
45. SP/RP McCade Brown, Indiana
McCade Brown has a strong argument for having the best pure stuff in the entire draft. The issue is he falls short in just about every other area of his game. How many bats do you have to miss in order to compensate for awful command an awful batted ball profile? McCade is looking to answer that question.
McCade Brown’s fastball will sit 91–94 MPH, topping out at 96.6 MPH with room for further velocity optimization if he can further delay his pelvis rotation. His fastball plays above its natural velocity due to the fact that he gets just over seven feet of extension on it.
The fastball averages 2602 RPMs from a 12:30 spin axis both figures are obviously elite and he has a very high spin efficiency on the pitch as well. This leads to absolutely absurd vertical movement- like he tops out at 23.7" of induced vertical break and averages just north of 20".
The heater has a very steep VAA coming from a high vertical release point ala Verlander or Karinchak that creates a tough downhill plane on the pitch. It won’t ever miss bats at the rate of the flat VAAs of a Leiter or Kimball but it will play down in the zone due to the angle and up in the zone due to the movement. The pitch is a versatile weapon that can be deployed in a number of situations where it’ll remain highly effective.
McCade Brown also mixes a pair of plus or better breaking pitches. The curveball is an extraordinarily high spin pitch with spin rates topping out just north of 3000 RPMs. He also throws the curveball hard as his will typically function in the 80–83 MPH range which is premium velocity to go along with premium spin from a curveball.
The curve’s shape could definitely stand to be improved as it is often very slurvy right now. He throws it with ~60% spin efficiency which is that ugly middle ground of not enough sweep to classify as a slider but not enough vertical to be a wipeout curveball. The pitch is more of a diagonal breaker that can be recognized and hit hard. I would love to see him improve the spin efficiency on the slurve by bumping his spin efficiency up closer to 100% and adding that extra element of topspin to give it a more distinctive shape.
The slider is the better of McCade Brown’s breaking pitches. Despite the curveball being a little slurvy, there aren’t any major issues with the pitches bleeding together because of how unique his curveball often is. Like the curveball, the slider of McCade Brown is a very high spin pitch albeit slightly less so.
He throws the slider harder than the slurve, most frequently operating in the 84–86 MPH band. Where the curveball thrives on velocity and spin with the shape being what holds it back, the slider is in some ways the opposite. His slider has a fantastic shape.
McCade Brown throws his slider from an 8:15 spin axis which is the same spin axis as Adam Ottavino throws his hellacious slider from. McCade has a very low spin efficiency on the offering with heavy amounts of side spin on the pitch. The result is a truly electric movement profile. He will get 15+ inches of horizontal movement on the offering without a lot of vertical drop. This is an elite bat missing offering. The only thing holding this pitch back from a 70 is his inability to command it or repeat the pitch shape consistently.
The changeup is a much more fringy fourth pitch. He doesn’t really create any velocity separation from his fastball with it. You could argue it profiles more like a sinker than a changeup. He throws it in the 88–90 MPH bandwidth most frequently and that is only 3 MPH slower than the fastball. On the bright side, that lack of difference in velocity means he has zero trouble replicating the arm speed of his fastball on the changeup.
He throws the changeup with a 1:30 spin axis which gives it a typical two-seam fastball tailing shape. Then the low spin efficiency on the pitch creates sinking action and you basically have a slow sinker. It has above-average vertical and horizontal break for his velocity, but it’s nothing remotely good. Sitting fastball more often than not means a hitter will hit the changeup. The two pitches aren’t distinct enough for the changeup to be effective. This is a pitch that needs to be completely rebuilt from scratch.
McCade Brown has a plethora of mechanical issues that might need to be tweaked. The result has been atrocious command. He walked over 20% of batters in his tenure at Indiana. The result has not been bad stamina. McCade Brown averaged 24 Batters Faced per game this season. He topped 100 pitches in a third of his starts this year. It’s not great stamina but it’s not awful surefire reliever stuff either.
McCade Brown is one if not the riskiest pitcher on my draft board. The command is atrocious, the batted ball profile is flimsy and there are some health question marks. He’s likely a reliever at the next level. The stuff is as good as anyone, however, and I think it’s worth the gamble to take him in the middle rounds and try to fix the command and/or batted ball profile. He’s going to miss a lot of bats and that is a good foundation to try to build a competent MLB arm.
46. SP Calvin Ziegler, TNXL Academy
Calvin Ziegler was draft-eligible last season and might have gone pretty high without the pandemic. As a Canadian athlete, Ziegler wasn’t seen early in the season as most scouts wait until the Junior National Team travels to Florida in the spring to see them. That never happened last year and as such many of Canada’s top prep talents were hardly given a second glance. With the pandemic still in effect, Ziegler moved to Florida this year and attended TNXL so he wouldn’t go undrafted again as he nears his 19th birthday.
Calvin Ziegler has a nasty fastball. He will consistently sit 93–95 MPH on it even in the final inning of his starts. He can reach back when needed as well and touch 98 MPH in a pinch. He also can generate big spin rates and averages around ~2400 RPMs. More importantly, he has 100% spin efficiency on most fastballs so none of it is going to waste. His spin axis isn’t perfect but the combination of high spin and high spin efficiency still results in plus vertical movement up in the zone with good tailing action as well.
Arguably more important than the velocity and movement on the fastball is the angle and deception element of the pitch. Calvin Ziegler throws his fastball from a low release height which gives him a very flat VAA on the fastball up in the zone. He also adds to that deception element with a Max Scherzer-esque short abrupt drop-down arm action that hides the ball and really helps it explode out of nowhere.
There is some debate over what exactly Calvin Ziegler’s breaking ball is. Some scouts think it a curveball, some a slider, and some think they are too distinct individual pitches. Whatever he throws, it’s nasty. The slurveball sits in the low eighties and he has the feel to manipulate the pitch’s shape. He will throw a version with impressive vertical depth and a stiffer variant at the same velocity with considerable sweep. It’s a plus pitch that plays really well off of the fastball, particularly the more vertical version.
Calvin Ziegler hasn’t used his changeup much and it’s highly unrefined. The pitch will flash plus movement but is frustratingly inconsistent. Normally that would mean a below-average grade on the cambio but there are lots of reasons to be optimistic with Ziegler’s. As I already touched on, in terms of stuff, Ziegler has a fantastic arm action. His arm action hides the ball and is so short that any difference in arm speed is practically indecipherable. The pitch has a good angle and is very difficult to pick up on. Max Scherzer has one of the best changeups in the game in part due to that same arm action. Ziegler’s offspeed pitch has serious upside and it’s not hard to see him developing a good one with his mechanics.
Although the arm action is a huge positive for Ziegler in terms of stuff, in terms of injury risk and command the mechanics are much more negative. In prior years, we would have looked at his delivery, narrowed our eyes in disgust, and branded him as a reliever. We did the same thing to Max Scherzer when he came up with similar mechanics. There were good reasons for that even if Max Scherzer went on to become a multiple-time Cy Young winner.
Calvin Ziegler exhibits a lot of the same motions as Scherzer does. The way he rotates his back knee inwards as he strides to create velocity is Scherzer to a tee. The way he has his front elbow pointing up with his extreme shoulder abduction on the throwing arm with his arm flat is also very Scherzer. There are differences, of course, no two pitchers are exactly alike. Ziegler has significantly more trunk tilt at foot strike as he leans back into his drive leg to create hip-torso separation instead of just twisting. I’m not entirely certain if that is an issue.
The issue with mimicking Max Scherzer’s mechanics is he’s previously been a unicorn. There is just about no one who can make his mechanics work like he does and stay healthy. There are all sorts of red flags that could cause injury, command, or stamina troubles. Scherzer dodges all of those landmines by every frame-perfect timing in his delivery that makes those issues more of cosmetic quirks than problems.
Can you realistically expect the same from Calvin Ziegler? Of course not. Can you expect that he has good enough timing to not be abnormally injury-prone? I think so, using the limited frame-rate video I have. His mechanics can get out of sync. Timing perfection is really hard but he’ll show starts where everything is synced perfectly and he has pinpoint command. He’ll also have starts where he gets out of whack and can’t throw any strikes. This is a high-maintenance delivery that he will consistently have to work on. I think as a whole, he is somewhere around average but there is a lot of variance in that grade.
I really love Calvin Ziegler’s stuff and think on that alone he should be getting some first-round buzz. I’d pop him in the second round for a pretty big bonus because of that stuff even if I wouldn’t take him in the first with the questions posed by his delivery and unorthodox mechanics. There is risk like most players on this list but with good development, I believe he can tap into his immense upside and I would gamble in order to find out.
47. SS/2B Maxwell Muncy, Thousand Oaks High School
Before you ask, he has no relation to the Dodgers star by the same name. He does have some freakish similarities to a High School Max Muncy, however. They were both 6'1" and Muncy II is only 5 pounds lighter than Max I was in High School. They both also had an 87 MPH max throw velo across the Diamond in High School.
Even crazier still, as of the time of me writing this, Max Muncy I is walking 18.9% of the time for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2021. Max Muncy II walked 19.0% of the time in his senior season of High School. The similarities in their stat lines don’t stop there. Max Muncy I has 31 XBH out of 61 hits. Max Muncy II also has one more XBH than singles as he has 23 of them out of 45 hits. Maxwell Muncy II not the same player as his namesake despite some surface-level things in common.
This Maxwell Muncy actually has a chance to stick at shortstop although I expect that second base will be his long-term home defensively. His arm is only average and maybe actually below that but he has the rest of the fundamentals needed to potentially play shortstop. His hands are sound and he has good actions. He can barehand balls and scoop them even on tough hops. There are some range concerns with only average speed but that won’t be an issue if he slides to second base.
Like his namesake, Maxwell Muncy makes his name at the plate. Muncy has solid-average bat-to-ball skills. He has a wide and open stance with an aggressive stride. He tends to drop his back elbow which creates a bit of a hitching motion in his bat path and could need to be coached out of him if it gets him tied up in the future. Right now his contact rates are average or a tick above as evidenced by a 12.7% Strikeout rate in a 6A High School that Baseball America has as the 29th best School in the country.
Max Muncy is pushed up to an above-average hit tool due to his high contact quality. Muncy has a steep swing with an inclined VBA on pitches down in the zone to drive them but will flatten out his bat on pitches up to get to those as well. The barrel of his bat is constantly in flux and that allows him to square up anything he can pick up and track. He hits a lot of line drives and doesn’t hit popups all that often.
This tendency to barrel balls up and make optimal contact helps him out in the power department. He can consistently put the ball in the air and drive it with authority as he projects for at least above-average raw power.
Muncy has an aggressive swing that is very rotational and physical. He kind of boxes out his hips to create a hinge to rotate around. When he unwinds on the ball and his torso comes unfurling towards the pitch, he will collapse his back half and drive hard off of his back leg. Muncy pairs that powerful swing with 95th percentile bat speed. This is easy above-average power both raw and in games, with some tweaks, you could potentially bump this up to a plus. If you think he has significant growth left to do into his frame then you could definitely bump it up to a plus.
Max Muncy isn’t the most exciting player in the draft but he kind of just does everything well. He could be an above-average bat if he develops well with either league-average defense at shortstop or more realistically, a plus glove at the keystone. Muncy is advanced in most areas of his fame and should be one of the quick-rising prep guys through the minors who has a chance to be the first to reach the majors. Muncy might get day one buzz in a weaker class but with how good the prep infielders are this year he’s pretty clearly a day two selection who may or may not sign with a strong commitment to Arkansas.
48. SP Ky Bush, St. Mary’s College of California
After ping-ponging between three schools, Ky Bush finally established himself as a good D1 arm this year and is looking to ride that newfound status into a reasonably early draft selection. He now looks the part of a somewhat unorthodox back of the rotation arm.
Ky Bush has an interesting fastball that projects as at least above-average but I’m not entirely certain of how it should be optimized to reach that projection. Ky Bush will sit 92–95 MPH and can reach back for 97 MPH. He throws his fastball from a pure backspining axis at 12:00 on average. This should lead to a lot of vertical movement on the fastball. He’s a high over-the-top arm slot guy with a very high release point that makes the high fastball with elite vertical movement less viable. Even still, it’s likely going to be at least an above-average pitch on the combination of velocity and vertical movement from the left-handed side.
I’m actually slightly more interested in taking a different path to optimize his fastball. I think he could be the ideal seam-shifted wake sinker pitcher. He throws his vertical fastball with low spin efficiency and heavy gyro spin which is ideal for creating SSW. With how steep his VAA is and how much downhill plane he generates, the fastball plays best heavy, down in the zone.
As such, rather than focusing on “improving” spin efficiency, I’d rather he shifts his spin axis laterally and makes it an ideal pitch to contact sinker. In a perfect world, he would split the sinker from the four-seam vertically moving fastball. That was he would still have that weapon in his arsenal to throw up in the strike zone when he needs the whiff.
Regardless even as currently constituted based on the fastball traits, I feel comfortable assuming that the batted ball profile is at least average with very easy above-average or better projection to it. High gyro pitches- even four-seam fastballs with a vertical spin axis like Spencer Turnbull, Jimmy Nelson, and Brad Keller do regularly post strong wOBAcons against the heater. If he can shift his spin axis more laterally and add a sinker that already strong base for a batted ball profile can be bolstered significantly more.
Ky Bush also is heavily gyro-dependent with his slider. He doesn’t have the most optimal spin axis on the pitch at ~2:30 which causes rather lackluster horizontal movement. What he does have is extreme gyro spin which leads to the pitch missing bats. He’ll spin it like a bullet as it plummets through the zone and its effectiveness only increases as he gets really tough angle on it from the high release that makes it seem like it’s falling further. He throws the pitch in the mid-eighties which I have no complaints about. You could pretty easily convince me that the slider is a plus pitch although I have it as only above-average.
Ky Bush also throws a slower curveball that I think is a below-average pitch. His curveball is equal parts topspin and gyro spin. As such, as of right now, it primarily functions as a slower and more inefficient slider. The two pitches will frequently bleed together and only one of them misses very many bats. The curveball does have potential by virtue of his high release alone but it needs to be reshaped to become a standalone effective pitch.
Ky Bush’s changeup is again a heavy gyro seam-shifted wake pitch and despite infrequent usage, very arguably his best secondary pitch. He has a tendency to supinate instead of pronate his release on the changeup that limits his horizontal movement despite a very lateral tailing axis. Instead, it gives the pitch more of a vertically diving changeup shape. The vertical changeup needs some command to work but at its best, it’s highly effective as a bat missing offering. I think it can be an above-average or even plus pitch with further development.
Ky Bush has a rather smooth delivery. He has no issues repeating his motion and there isn’t any notable effort to his motion. He completes his arm spiral perfectly on time and sequences his upper body really well. There aren’t any real mechanical red flags as far as injuries go. His lower, half could be more efficient as he struggles to engage all of it in creating velocity so there could actually be more velocity in the tank. Even still, he’s already hitting 97 MPH with some regularity so whatever else gets squeezed out is just icing on the cake.
I hesitate to call the command anything more than average despite my love for the mechanics and his mere 7.1% walk rate this season (including HBP). This is because his track record of throwing strikes is so short. Prior to this season, Ky Bush had a career 13.2% walk rate in D1 play. If he can throw strikes down the stretch in Low-A after being drafted I’ll bump it up to above-average but for now, 78 innings isn’t enough to completely flip the script.
Ky Bish is different from most of the arms I tend to like as he is on this list for his high floor as a back-of-the-rotation starter. That being said, he also has significant upside. He’s a safe arm with three good pitches and strong supplementary skills who could be an all-around contributor. He’s not MLB ready or even particularly close as he has considerable development left for all of his pitches. What he is, however, is a well-rounded profile who can survive running into roadblocks in his development and still be a major leaguer in spite of them.
49. RF/CF Jackson Linn, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School
Jackson Linn attends one of the most prestigious High Schools in the country. This school has produced famous actors, Governors, Judges on the Supreme Court, literal terrorists, world-renowned poet EE Cummings, NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing, multiple Gold Medal Olympians, and even some former record holders in Olympic events. This school has no shortage of stars in just about every field. Except for the MLB where their best product is Eddie Waitkus. Hopefully, Jackson Linn will be their first true superstar at the MLB level.
Jackson Linn is infinitely better as a hitter and will almost certainly play there at the next level but he’s also a legitimate pitching prospect. He can touch 98 MPH off the mound and will more often operate in the 92–94 MPH range. He has a vertical over-the-top arm slot that lets him create plus vertical movement on the high-velocity fastball. He also has a hard and snappy but often firm slider that should be an above-average pitch at the big league level if he develops on the mound. His delivery is a bit awkward and he’s probably a reliever but there is a fringe chance he can start.
Moving onto the more exciting side of Jackson Linn, we have Jackson Linn the tooled-up outfielder. Jackson Linn is a good athlete with a fringe chance to stick in centerfield. He ran a 6.69 60-yard dash in February which is a plus time. His 30-yard dash, broad jump, and CMJ Height were also all top three at the PDP Premier Northeast. He clearly has good athleticism. There is the question of if he’ll retain all of his speed as he grows into his 6'3" 190 lbs frame. I think at peak maturity he’ll likely fade into only a 55 runner.
Jackson Linn should be an above-average and maybe even a plus defender in right field. He’s a solid route runner with good hands. There is some lack of initial burst that is slightly alarming but he still has more than enough speed to play a corner spot. More importantly, Jackson Linn has a cannon instead of an arm. He has thrown as hard as 98 MPH off the mound and 95 MPH from the outfield. His throws have some arc to them and really carry. He can gun runners out at home from the wall with his strength and be reasonably accurate when doing so.
Jackson Linn also has some of the best raw power in the entire draft class. He does have the best game power in the entire draft class (Ignoring hit tool as this is ISO, not HR dependent). He has 70-grade bat speed as he topped out at 77.1 MPH at the PBR New England ProCase back in February. He has made that raw power evident in other ways and then some.
Off a tee, Jackson Linn has posted a maximum exit velocity of 99 MPH which is in the 99th percentile. That pales in comparison to his 107 MPH BP maximum exit velocity in the PBR ProCase. That is microscopic in comparison to his 111 MPH max exit velocity in soft-toss batting practice during an individual workout back in January. That is premium raw juice from Linn.
Jackson Linn creates his power that leads to breathtaking exit velocities by combining premium bat speed with premium physicality and a swing optimized for creating big-time power.
Jackson Linn stands really far back in the box and away from the plate. His front foot before foot strike is way back behind the plate. (Image above). He then strides forward so his front foot is in line with the point of the plate while keeping his front foot closed. His pelvis then flies open as he rotates his hips by collapsing his back half. As the torso unwinds he opens up that front foot and spins on the heel to create additional power. The entire kinetic chain is effective and involved in generating that big-time power we so frequently see from him.
Although his power is definitely made as good as it is by his swing, Jackson Linn’s violent and powerful rotation has some negative effects on his hit tool. There is some uncontrolled violence to his swing that makes it hard for him to control the bat and consistently put bat to ball. His front half is also very stiff when he swings which can lead to him having trouble adjusting if he guesses the wrong pitch. He has a long reaction window due to how far back in the box he stands to react to the pitch but he is still largely functioning as a guess hitter.
This is probably not very important but Jacoby Ellsbury had similar positioning in the batter’s box. It’s probably not a coincidence that he is the all-time catcher’s interference leader when he crowds the catcher so much, Jackson Linn is the same way. He’ll earn a handful of free passes that way in his career and probably break a few hands in the process.
Jackson Linn should tap into most of his power in games. He has a very steep swing path with a natural loft to its shape. Additionally, he has a very dominant hip hinge that allows him to have an absurdly steep VBA even on pitches up in the strike zone. Those two things in tandem often result in a lot of flyballs as he creates implicit loft with his VBA and explicit loft with his bat path. Unless his attack angles are complete garbage, it’s not hard to see him reaching all of his raw power in games. 70 power would play even with a highly suspect hit tool.
Jackson Linn projects similarly to a player like Hunter Renfroe. Loud power and an elite arm with good defense in right field. He might not hit for much average or even walk a bunch like a Joey Gallo but what he does do is enough. Plus defense and elite power has made Hunter Renfroe a 2.3 rWAR/162 guy in his career despite a sub .300 OBP. That is a fairly reasonable outcome for Linn. If his hit tool gets even close to average then he might be a true superstar talent.
I’m skeptical that Jackson Linn signs unless he is taken very high. He’s going to cost seven figures at least and probably more than that to buy out of a Tulane commit. Jackson Linn’s academics are just as impressive as his baseball skills. Both of his parents went to Harvard and he likely would have followed in their footsteps if he wasn’t playing baseball. (Harvard has never had a player drafted in the first 30 rounds).
Instead, he is attending Tulane with an eye towards both academics and baseball. I can’t imagine that it’ll be easy to convince him to neglect his education in favor of playing baseball a few years early. He is more of a guy to watch for 2024 than this season. However, I don’t factor in bonus demands to my rankings so he is on this board.
50. SP Anthony Solometo, Bishop Eustace Preparatory School
We finish off my draft board with one of the players who I have gone back and forth on a few times. Anthony Solemeto does a lot of things that would warrant taking him in the first round. However, he’s just so unorthodox that there are questions that don’t have an answer yet with him.
Anthony Solometo has a circular arm action that mirrors that of Madison Bumgarner and basically no one else who has found any success at all. I’m not sure if that’s because no one else who is good has ever attempted such an unorthodox arm action or if it’s just because Madison Bumgarner is a unicorn. If Madison Bumgarner is a unicorn then Solmeto belongs lower than this. If it’s simply because Bumgarner is (was) unique and this is replicable and a revolutionary arm action then Solometo belongs much higher than this. I lean towards it being the first option that is more true.
Solometo’s arm action is weird like Madison Bumgarner’s as he retains extreme shoulder abduction at foot strike with his elbow at a ~150° angle. His arm then kind of whips around and rotates around his lead leg with him hardly moving his elbow in the process. That is abnormal and may be dangerous. It looks dangerous to my eye but I don’t know enough about the biomechanics to render a proper verdict. Madison Bumgarner again suggests that it’s not the huge injury risk it appears to be.
I’ve had it pointed out to me that the arm action is not actually causing any timing issues. He gets scapular retraction by dipping the arm down and windmilling it. He lands wih his pelvis closed off like you would want and his arm appears to be on time. I might be overstating the risk and it is mostly just unorthodox rather than dangerous.
I will say that the arm action does have some positives to it. Mainly that regardless of what the health, command, or stamina risks may be; it greatly enhances the deception on all his stuff. It’s a unique look arm with a weird angle from the low 3/4 slot. He pairs the unique arm action with a very high twisting leg kick that only further serves to mind fuck hitters. His delivery is so unorthodox that even if you can see the ball and recognize what he is doing there are still a plethora of timing issues with such a weird motion.
Anthony Solometo rarely uses his changeup and has never displayed much feel for the offering. Even still, I am willing to project the pitch to be average at the MLB level in large part due to the deception of his delivery. His changeup will flash solid movement and the arm slot is also conducive to creating a tailing shape which makes it easier to project on as well. This pitch is all projection right now but I’m cautiously optimistic that it could wind up being something in the not-so-distant future.
Anthony Solometo should have an above-average fastball on traits that I’m bumping up to a plus because of the deception that his delivery offers. Solometo throws his fastball in the 91–94 MPH range and can touch 96 MPH on a very high spin fastball that averages ~2400 RPMs. However, his low arm slot causes some issues with projecting too much on the fastball.
The lower slot makes it very hard for Anthony Someto to throw his fastball with a vertical spin axis as it’ll naturally have a more tailing shape. That is especially unfortunate as his low release height and high spin rates would make it an elite pitch if he could get backspin on the high heat. Sadly unless he is secretly Chase Petty or Josh Hader it is extremely unlikely that he will ever manage to have a backspinning four-seamer. This leaves him with a heavy tailing shape two-seamer that will likely be just as effective up in the zone as down due to the angle on it.
Anthony Solometo’s best pitch is his slider. The slider is your somewhat stereotypical high spin sweeper that averages ~2600 RPMs while sitting in the upper seventies/low eighties. The slider has heavy sweeping action that misses bats off of the plate. However, the drop can be inconsistent and at times it’ll bleed into a more slurvy offering. Solometo needs to get firmer with the pitch and add more velocity for it to reach the plus upside that it obviously possesses but I have little doubt he’ll be able to do so. Like with all his pitches, the deception of his delivery helps too.
Anthony Solometo is yet another high-risk prep arm with a wide array of outcomes. He is unquestionably unorthodox with both the arm action and leg kick in tandem. That has its benefits and disadvantages. The stuff is probably first-round caliber but there is certainly an element of uncertainty here. I’ve seen him getting a lot of buzz as the Blue Jays selection at #19 and I’m probably fine with such a selection. Even if I personally have him in the second round. This is a fun and exciting arm who a progressive organization might be able to turn into something special.
Thank you so much to like the five of you who read this entire behemoth of a blog! If you have any questions about a player’s rankings or my thoughts on a guy who wasn’t on the list don’t hesitate to ask me. I’m always happy to talk prospects with anyone interested. Special thanks to the member Nojay on Grand Slam Amino who designed both this thumbnail and the one on my top 100 Prospects list for me.
