Our Draft Prospect Watch articles covered everyone who was getting any mention for the Pittsburgh Pirates and even some players who were very similar to players getting mentioned. However, with just over 30 hours until the 2022 MLB draft, there’s a player who wasn’t covered in that series, and he’s getting some major attention at the top of the draft.
Kiley McDaniel at ESPN has a mock draft in which he has the Pirates picking Cam Collier. That’s a name you should know well by now. McDaniel also mentions that the Pirates could go for one of the top names if they drop, but then he mentions a savings pick getting attention, Zach Neto, an infielder from Campbell. That seemed like a bit of a reach and and a late name out of nowhere, but then the updated top draft prospects list from Fangraphs has Neto ranked fifth in the entire class. So we should probably take a quick look at him.
Neto isn’t a huge reach, he just never got a mention before for the Pirates and he’s never been among the top ten names. As an example, Baseball America had him 16th in their last update. That’s a mid-first round pick according to them. While they get a lot of their info from scouts, you can probably find a scout who has him rated much higher. The 21-year-old Neto is 6’0″, 185, right-handed hitter, who gets listed as a shortstop and second baseman. His scouting grades from BA give him 55 grades for hit, power and running, 50 for fielding and 60 for arm. Pipeline has him ranked 17th and his grades are different in everything except fielding. He’s a 60 hitter, 50 power, 50 running, 55 arm. Fangraphs gives him a 50 Future Value.
There seems to be some consensus that he’s an overall solid player who does everything well and puts a lot of effort into everything. His swing is big, but he cuts down with two strikes. He has put up big results in college and summer ball, helping his draft stock. He’s not a natural looking shortstop, but he’s very athletic and has an arm for the position, even though second base is mentioned a lot as a possibility. His swing needs to be seen, so let’s just get right into videos
This video shows his 29-game hit streak, so you get a little bit of everything and his first three swings look completely different
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4htrqLs8wRU
This one includes a little bit of fielding, batting practice and game action in a short video
