I know Spring Training is just getting underway, and trust me when I tell you we will have a ton of prospect-related coverage from Florida and Arizona in the coming weeks, but I have to admit … I have an early case of Draft fever.
There’s already been amateur baseball going on — junior college schedules have started, for example — but there’s something about the start of the four-year college schedule that really feels like the start of the Draft season. With Major League Baseball’s Desert Invitational being played this weekend in the greater Phoenix area, featuring seven schools and 13 total games (check out MLB.com and MLB Network all weekend for games being streamed and/or broadcast, and keep a special ear out for the dulcet tones of MLB Pipeline’s Jim Callis), it really feels like the starting line.
With that in mind, this week’s MLB Pipeline Inbox has a decided Draft flavor.
Currently the very top of the ‘23 Draft seems college heavy whereas the ‘22 Draft top was high school heavy. How would you stack the top of the Drafts on an arbitrary draft board? — @ballsandgutters
You’re not wrong in terms of the top of the Draft, at least as of now. While our Draft rankings will change between now and July, the top of this year’s class will undoubtedly be college heavy. Currently, the top five, eight of the top 10 and 11 of the top 15 all hail from the college ranks. (Another shameless plug for the Desert Invitational: Two of that top 10, Chase Dollander from Tennessee and Grand Canyon’s Jacob Wilson, will be playing there.) Last year’s top four, by contrast were all high schoolers, led by Druw Jones and Jackson Holliday, though it started skewing younger a little after that.
So what would a top 10 look like if I combined the lists, as asked? Here’s a stab at that, something that might be fun to revisit when we’re closer to Draft day. Like with our rankings, I’m not basing this on who should go where in the Draft, but rather where I think they fit talent-wise.
1. Jackson Holliday, SS (2022)
2. Dylan Crews, OF (2023)
3. Druw Jones, OF (2022)
4. Chase Dollander, RHP (2023)
5. Wyatt Langford, OF (2023)
6. Paul Skenes, RHP (2023)
7. Max Clark, OF (2023)
8. Termarr Johnson, 2B (2022)
9. Elijah Green, OF (2022)
10. Walker Jenkins, OF (2023)
The 2023 class ended up with a slight edge, 6-4. And I went high school heavy overall, with the top four prepsters from 2022 as well as the top two from this year’s class.
2023 Draft lookahead — just by looking at the tools, Wyatt Langford seems to have better tools than Dylan Crews despite being ranked #3. How big is the gap currently, and when’s the last time there was two 60 FV college bats to lead off the year? — @2000sSports
We tackled this one on this week’s MLB Pipeline Podcast, so check that out for a fuller answer. Both Jim Callis and I agreed there isn’t much separating the two college outfielders as they have very similar toolsets. A couple scouts in the fall told me they wouldn’t be surprised if Langford ended up going ahead of Crews; only time will tell that. Crews, many think, has a better chance of staying in center field, and that’s one of the small separators. Jim, because he’s extra like that, also pointed out that there’s not that much separating the top two arms, Chase Dollander and Paul Skenes, or the top two high school players, Max Clark and Walker Jenkins.
It turns out it’s not so rare to have two college bats with an overall 60 grade on the 20-to-80 scouting scale at the top of our Draft lists, though it is a bit of a cautionary tale:
2020: Spencer Torkelson and Austin Martin
2019: Adley Rutschman and Andrew Vaughn
2015: Dansby Swanson and Alex Bregman
2013: Kris Bryant and Colin Moran
As a Pirate fan, I want to know who you would take at #1? — @LeeFoo9
I wasn’t sure if you were asking me to make the pick as a Pirates fan or you were asking because you’re a Pirates fan. Then I checked your Twitter bio and it says “Love the Bucs,” so now that we have that settled …
As we get set for the 2023 amateur season to get underway in earnest, we know that performances will lead to movement up and down our Draft rankings. But when we did our Top 100 in December, there was a clear three at the top in Dylan Crews, Chase Dollander and Wyatt Langford, and all three of them should figure into the conversations with the Pirates and the No. 1 overall pick. If Paul Skenes throws like he did in the fall, he has to be in the mix as well, and it wouldn’t shock me if Max Clark or Jacob Gonzalez play their way into the discussion
But you’re asking who I would take, not who I think the Pirates would take, though I’ll try to put myself in their shoes in terms of what they’re doing in their farm system currently (but not thinking about how they might find someone from the above group they really like and can save a little money on). So, as of this moment, I think I would take Dollander. If he lives up to his advanced billing, we’re looking at one of the best college pitching prospects in a long time: As our report says, he might be the best one since Stephen Strasburg in 2009 and Gerrit Cole in 2011. Cole, as you remember, was Pittsburgh’s pick at No. 1 that year and he was in the big leagues in 2013, the first of three straight playoff appearances for the team. Dollander is the kind of arm who could get to Pittsburgh in a hurry and front that rotation.