Inbox: Looking ahead to ’22, ’23 Drafts

The start of the college baseball season has brought just a mild case of Draft fever in these parts as we got to see how the top college Draft prospects performed last week during their opening weekend. Combine that with some early high school action, and it’s exciting just to think about the scouting industry buzzing and crisscrossing the nation as the evaluation process for this summer’s Draft is really underway now. That’s why two of the three questions in this week’s Inbox at least touch on the Draft.

If Dylan Crews, Jacob Gonzalez and Max Clark were ‘22 draft eligible where would they rank compared to Druw Jones, Elijah Green, Termarr Johnson, Chase DeLauter, etc.? — @RealRadkisson

We had some fun digging into this one in this week’s MLB Pipeline Podcast and hopefully we’ll remember it for our 2023 Draft coverage, not to mention future top 100 lists or even other comparison-type stories we like to run.

For the uninitiated, Crews and Gonzalez will both be eligible as college players in 2023, Crews at LSU and Gonzalez at Ole Miss. Clark, a high school outfielder from Indiana, is likely the best prep player in the Class of 2023, if not the No. 1 overall player once we get to ranking that class.

Where would they rank in this year’s class among the big three high school bats (Jones, Johnson Green) at the top of our current Top 100 that came out in December, along with the depth of college bats, including DeLauter, right after those three? Without trying to sound like we’re straddling the fence here, both Jim Callis and I came up with some version of “right in that mix.”

Currently, we have Jones at No. 1, Johnson at No. 2 and Green at No. 3 on the Draft Top 100. Clark belongs in this conversation for sure. If forced, we might put him in at No. 2, behind Jones, with Andruw Jones’ kid getting the edge because of his ridiculous tools and upside, combined with some certainty he’ll reach that ceiling. Johnson is a better pure hitter than Clark and, well, just about anyone, but because he’s likely a second baseman, we’ll put Clark and his center-field potential a sliver ahead. Truth be told, there isn’t that much separating Jones and Johnson now.

The next five players on our Draft Top 100 are college hitters: Jacob Berry (LSU), Brooks Lee (Cal Poly), Jace Jung (Texas Tech), Brock Jones (Stanford) and DeLauter (James Madison). Our general feeling was that Berry might be a special enough hitter to stand on his own, and could very well end up the No. 1 overall pick this year. But then we agreed Gonzalez could be next, right after Berry, on a list like this. He had a big freshman year (.355/.443/.561) and assuming a natural progression, he should have a big junior season offensively. And the fact he should play shortstop for a long time gives him the edge over Lee, who most feel will move to third at the next level.

As for Crews, he had a very solid freshman season as well (.362/.453/.663) at LSU after opting out of the 2020 Draft. The bat is for real, but while he plays center right now, the jury seems to be out on whether he can stay there or (more likely) moves to a corner. The offensive profile will get him drafted high, but he’d probably go in the Jones-DeLauter range if we had to place him right now.

Both Luken Baker of the Cardinals and Mason Martin of the Pirates were left exposed to the Rule 5 Draft despite being on Top 30’s and the potential of a universal DH coming.  Which do you think could stick now and who is a better long-term prospect? — @ballsandgutters

The first part of the question is a little easier to answer (and we answered these on the podcast as well), as we think both would have trouble sticking right now, which is perhaps among the reasons why the Cardinals and Pirates didn’t protect them from the Rule 5 Draft. Baker might get a slight edge since his approach was a bit better last year than Martin’s, but not by much.

Both sluggers spent most of 2021 in Double-A and have legitimate power. And they both have considerable swing-and-miss in their game. Baker’s strikeout rate was 26.4 percent in 2021, an increase from previous seasons, though he hit 26 homers and slugged .530 in 93 games. Martin hit 25 homers and slugged .488. In 2019, he had exploded with 35 homers and a .908 OPS. He struck out a bunch in 2019 (30.2 percent) but also drew a bunch of walks (12.2 percent). That took a step backward last year and he finished with a 171/39 K/BB ratio in 498 plate appearances.

They might be the same player, albeit from opposite sides of the plate, when all is said and done, including wanting to take advantage of being a hitter only. I’m going to give Martin a very slight edge in terms of long-term prognosis because he’s more than two years younger than Baker and was playing at the same level. He’s always going to strike out a lot, but if he can rediscover his discipline to his 2019 levels, I see him getting to that power consistently in the big leagues.

Who do you like in the Nats current system that isn’t being talked about a ton but likely will be? Where do you think they likely look with the #5 pick in this upcoming Draft? — @NatsFanatic82

I phoned a friend for the first part of this, asking Sam Dykstra for an assist, since he does our Nationals’ Top 30, and he threw out an intriguing name: T.J. White, who was not on the team’s Top 30 at the end of 2021. White was the Nationals’ fifth-round pick in last year’s Draft, a South Carolina high school outfielder who signed for a slightly over-slot bonus of $400,000 and had a solid .283/.356/.547 debut in 15 Florida Complex League games last summer. There are questions about how his hit tool will play, but there is a ton of raw power for him to tap into. If it clicks, he could really go off, and his FCL debut provided some hope it will happen.

I’d like to file the second part of the question under the “way to early know” category and the Nats don’t provide many clues in terms of a huge preference in first-round picks (2021: high school hitter; 2020: college pitcher; 2019: college pitcher; 2018: high school pitcher). Suffice it to say, as discussed earlier, the strength of the Draft is most certainly hitters. The very top are high school guys and there are a whole bunch of college hitters as well. The Nats could just pick whichever hitter in either group they think is the best available when they pick at No. 5.

Now, if they wanted to go with high school pitching, right now Dylan Lesko is the only one who fits in the conversation, with a lot of baseball to be played. The college pitching crop has been hit with injuries left and right and no one really fits as a top-of-the-Draft type, though I might keep an eye on Mississippi State closer-turned-Friday-night-starter Landon Sims, who was lights out in his 2022 debut.