Since it’s always draft-evaluation season, I thought it might make sense to start this post-draft notes column with some names for future draft classes. It’s too early to really rank these guys with any depth since we (and scouts) will be seeing all these players over the next couple months, so they will shuffle themselves a good bit this summer, but we definitely have a sense of who the top tier of talent is in the amateur ranks. These names are all in order of preference within the group in which they are identified.

2019 MLB Draft

For the 2019 class, there is a top tier of five prep standouts, while the college side is very deep in hitters. College pitching is very shallow at this early juncture, however. On the prep side, we have SS C.J. Abrams (Georgia), SS Bobby Witt, Jr. (Texas), LHP Hunter Barco (Florida), 3B Rece Hinds (Florida), and RHP Brennan Malone (North Carolina).

Atop the very deep college hitter class, we have SS Bryson Stott (UNLV), C Adley Rutschman (Oregon State), SS Logan Davidson (Clemson), C Shea Langliers (Baylor), SS Greg Jones (UNC Wilmington), RF Michael Toglia (UCLA), 3B Josh Jung (Texas Tech), RF Michael Busch (North Carolina), RF Matt Wallner (Southern Miss), and SS Braden Shewmake (Texas A&M).

As for that second tier of college bats, we have 3B Drew Mendoza (Florida State), 1B Andrew Vaughn (Cal), SS Will Holland (Auburn), CF Kam Misner (Missouri), 2B Chase Strumpf (UCLA), CF Wil Dalton (Florida), SS Will Wilson (North Carolina State), 1B Spencer Brickhouse (East Carolina), and 2B Nick Quintana (Arizona). All of those college hitters have top-two-round type profiles and the depth of the class means Team USA and the Cape will be deep with bats to watch this summer. There isn’t a clear top college pitcher, and none project for the top 15 picks at this point.

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Click here for American League recap.

Below is a collection of notes on each National League team’s draft class. We’ve tried to touch briefly on the players each club selected through the first five rounds or so, with observations on players selected after that at our discretion. Generally, these are the prospects we think both (a) have a chance to appear on a team prospect list sometime in the near future and also (b) are likely to sign. The number in parentheses after each player’s name is the round in which he was drafted.

For more details on many of these players, consult THE BOARD, which has tool grades, links to video, and various information about the players.

Arizona Diamondbacks
Link to Draft Selections

SoCal prep 2B Matt McLain (1) is a smaller guy with a plus hit tool and the speed/hands to play somewhere up the middle… Virginia CF Jake McCarthy (CBA) missed most of the spring with a broken wrist but has average raw power, plus speed, and feel to hit, though he’ll need a swing adjustment in pro ball… Illinois prep CF Alek Thomas (2) has a long track record of hitting and has good feel for the game but slipped because of concerns about a lack of physicality. That won’t matter if he hits like proponents think he will… Kansas RHP Jackson Goddard (3) is a power arm who flashes electric stuff and likely lands in relief… Wright State RHP Ryan Weiss (4) shows solid-average stuff, has a back-end-starter profile… Oregon RHP Matt Mercer (5) is a Driveline guy who throws with high effort up to 97 mph. He has four pitches, but the changeup is way ahead of the breaking balls and he may end up in relief… Florida prep RHP Levi Kelly (8) is maxed out and is a fringe athlete, but he’s up to 96 mph and flashes a plus slider at times… Florida State LHP Tyler Holton (9) had Tommy John surgery this spring but flashed solid-average stuff and feel when healthy… Florida prep SS Blaze Alexander (11) has power, a 70 arm, and a chance to play shortstop but has had swing-and-miss issues against good pitching… Kentucky RHP Justin Lewis (12) is ultra lanky, sitting 89-93 mph with an above-average changeup and enough breaking ball to stick as a starter.

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Click here for National League recap.

Below is a collection of notes on each American League team’s draft class. We’ve tried to touch briefly on the players each club selected through the first five rounds or so, with observations on players selected after that at our discretion. Generally, these are the prospects we think both (a) have a chance to appear on a team prospect list sometime in the near future and also (b) are likely to sign. The number in parentheses after each player’s name is the round in which he was drafted.

For more details on many of these players, consult THE BOARD, which has tool grades, links to video, and various information about the players.

Baltimore Orioles
Link to Draft Selections

Every year, a few of the high-school pitchers sitting in the 88-92 range the summer before their draft year have a huge uptick in stuff over the winter. This year, Baltimore first-rounder Grayson Rodriguez (1) was one of them, and he can really spin a breaking ball… Teams offered Oregon State SS Cadyn Grenier (2) seven figures coming out of high school but couldn’t quite cut a deal. His bat hasn’t developed as hoped in college, but he does have at least average raw power, is a plus-plus runner, and can play short… Arkansas righty Blaine Knight (3) was draft-eligible last year. He sits 91-93, will flash a plus slider, and could be a No. 4/5 starter… Prep lefty Drew Rom (4) has feel for three pitches and will touch 93… Iowa OF Rob Neustrom (5) is a corner-only guy with great control of the strike zone and above-average raw power… UCF RHP J.J. Montgomery (7) worked 92-96 this spring with an average changeup and fringey slider… UNC C Cody Roberts (11) is just an okay hitter but has a howitzer and is solid behind the plate… UCSB SS Clay Fisher (12) looked like a second-round pick last spring before multiple injuries sidetracked him and sapped his athleticism, hopefully just temporarily.

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Below are brief recaps of each team’s selections on day one of the draft. Remember, there’s more information concerning each of these players on THE BOARD, including video, tool grades, and other ephemera, like top-100 ranking for the elite players. We have some thoughts on each club’s first-day picks, some more than others, as well as our best available players at the end of the post.

We ranked 130 players in order, then ranked them just within their demographic groups for the next tier; those players are denoted as “3-5,” while the only player we didn’t rank at all yesterday, Michael Grove, is an NR (not ranked). You can also look at the FV of each prospect and approximate where he will go on their organization’s prospect list by clicking over to the minor-league side of our rankings here.

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Our previous mock went two full rounds and you can see that here. Remember, you can learn about the players we talk about here on our 2018 Draft Board.

1. Detroit Tigers – Casey Mize, RHP, Auburn

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Episode 817
This past Friday, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel published version 3.0 of their mock draft. On Monday, the draft itself is scheduled to begin. This edition of the program was both recorded and published on Sunday. Discussed: the greatest shifts between v 2.0 and v 3.0 of Longenhagen and McDaniel’s mock draft, the players (like USF left-hander Shane McClanahan) for whom team evaluations seem to differ greatly, and a scenario in which Detroit doesn’t select Auburn righty Casey Mize with the first overall pick.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 7 min play time.)

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Below is what will probably be our final full-text mock draft for 2018. Unless, over the weekend, something happens that necessitates longer explanation, a final mock on Monday will probably just have names and skeleton text. We think Casey Mize remains the favorite to go first, with the only potential pitfalls being a Mize injury at regionals or that Detroit reaches a breaking point with Mize’s bonus demands. We don’t think that scenario is likely, but that it has something like a 5-10% chance to happen at this point, so we’ve included the way we think the dominoes fall if it does happen, which ends up being only four picks changing. Remember, you can learn about the players we talk about here on our 2018 Draft Board.

1. Detroit Tigers – Casey Mize, RHP, Auburn

Less likely alternate scenario: Joey Bart, C, Georgia Tech

If something happens with Mize, then we think the pick is Joey Bart, but ultimately we think Detroit will pick Mize and sign him for a bonus between $7.4 million (slot at 2) and $8.1 million (slot at 1), likely toward the lower end of that range. The Tigers have been tied to Georgia prep center fielder Parker Meadows, Pennsylvania prep center fielder Mike Siani, and Mississippi prep righty J.T. Ginn for their second pick. Wisconsin OF Jarred Kelenic has been mentioned as a name they’d like to move back there as well, but we don’t think that’s feasible as he seems signable and has too many suitors between here and Detroit’s next pick.

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The 2018 Draft is unusual. Not in terms of talent, mind you. No, the 2018 Draft is unusual because we have a genuinely unprecedented situation: a potential high-round draft pick with perhaps the most serious baggage a person can possibly have. From THE BOARD, courtesy of Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel:

**Luke Heimlich

Heimlich is a Level 1 sex offender in Oregon… Heimlich was projected to go in round two last year, when he was a junior. Shortly before the draft, The Oregonian reported court documents that showed Heimlich plead guilty to sexually assaulting his niece. Court records showed the victim reported multiple incidents of molestation between 2009 and 2011, when Heimlich was 14-15 years old and the victim was 4-6. He plead guilty to one count which included a handwritten admission and the other count was dismissed as part of a plea bargain.

After this information surface[d], Heimlich spent the rest of the spring of 2017 away from Oregon State and went undrafted. He returned for his senior season and has pitched well while, amid intermediate media attention, he and his family (except for the immediate family of the victim) denied he committed the crime and say Heimlich plead guilty so the legal proceedings would end more quickly. This situation is abnormal, there’s no precedent for it and it’s unclear why/how a team would go about clearing Heimlich for employment, though ownership would certainly have to be involved.

Let’s take a look at what this means.

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Today we’ve rolled out the 2018 MLB Draft version of THE BOARD, but rather than just point you to an article explaining how the minor-league version works, we’ll take a second to go over the differences between the draft and minor-league versions.

Obviously, the amount of information we have for these players is different than what we have on minor leaguers, so we think the presentation of our information should reflect that reality. While you can look at a pro prospect’s stat line and get a quick idea of how advanced they are, amateur stats (particularly outside of the top couple college conferences) often don’t tell a coherent story. This, along with the varying types of prospects in the draft, means that we need to be more specific about the indicators of projection rather than just our median tool grades. We capture that, in the minor leagues, with ‘variance’; for amateur players, however, we felt we needed more detail so that it’s not necessary to memorize every report to quickly compare players.

This is manifested in the columns marked Athleticism, Frame, Performance, and Delivery. All four apply to pitchers and the first three apply to hitters. Every player is graded on a five-point scale of either —, -, +, ++ or neutral (blank). In addition to age and some other factors not captured here, these factors are influential for us when attempting to craft the rankings. It should help better establish, at a reader’s glance, the relative strengths and weaknesses of each player. Sometimes that’s necessary, as the tool grades often end up so close to 50 that it’s hard to differentiate these players without breaking down mechanics on video or memorizing all the small separators in our reports. This also more closely mirrors how big league draft rooms work, with selective categories (like 95+ mph fastball, scoring well on a mental skills test, etc.) getting their own stickers put on specific draft magnets so that separating qualities beyond tools can be identified more quickly after the first few rounds.

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It’s been almost a month since our last (partial) mock draft, so it’s probably time to collect all of our notes and take another try at this. Updated, expanded, and sortable draft rankings will be coming soon, but you can get an idea of the industry consensus rankings from all the clues and team connections below as a teaser. As we’ve mentioned many times before, this draft stands out most for the unusually prep-heavy concentration of talent in the picks 20 to 50 area. For reference, here’s the full draft order.

1. Detroit Tigers – Casey Mize, RHP, Auburn
Mize is still the heavy favorite here, with the backup options appearing to be Georgia Tech C Joey Bart and Florida RHP Brady Singer, while Wisconsin prep CF Jarred Kelenic has faded from contention. Teams outside the top five picks don’t expect to get Mize’s MRI (he missed time last spring with an arm issue and some clubs were worried about his health as far back as high school), and it’s possible no one other than Detroit will get it. GM Al Avila saw the Mize/Singer matchup three weekends ago; saw Bart, Georgia prep CF Parker Meadows, and Wichita State 3B Alec Bohm two weekends ago; and Oregon State 2B Nick Madrigal last week. Mississippi prep RHP J.T. Ginn is a target in the second round, as are any of the leftover prep outfielders, like Pennsylvania prep CF Mike Siani.

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