Baseball America posted a new mock draft on Thursday morning. The regular season in college ball is winding down, and some high school teams have already finished up their season. The draft is still almost two full months away though, so there is still time for movement at the top. The Pittsburgh Pirates will make the first overall selection when things start of July 9th.
BA went with LSU outfielder Dylan Crews for the first overall pick. That’s no surprise as he has been here either in mock drafts or rankings for almost everyone since before the season started. Two other recent mock drafts (here and here) also went with Crews.
Crews got off to a tremendous start this season, putting up a pace that was impossible to continue. We noted on Monday that he had a rough week last week, his first one of the season.
The mini-slump continued for Crews on Tuesday in the mid-week blowout of Northwestern State, where he went 0-for-2 with a walk. He’s still hitting .457/.607/.790 through 48 games. He was doing so well that his OPS dropped 87 points in the last four games, and he’s still nearly at a 1.400 mark.
The top of this mock draft looks very much like our weekly recap, where the eight guys we have been covering all year are listed in the #1-#7 and #9 spots. It’s an unusual draft (not in a bad way) where the top guys going into the draft all remained as the top players this late in the process.
Right now I think we can safely narrow the Pirates pick down to someone between Crews, LSU pitcher Paul Skenes, Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford and prep outfielders Walker Jenkins and Max Clark. All five have done better or as well as expected this year. Anyone else taken would be a lower tier of talent.
As a reminder, the Pirates have the highest draft bonus pool this year. With that in mind, we took a look at the strengths and weaknesses of this draft class.
