Archive for Draft Analysis

With the MLB Draft just a day away, there is more information left in my notebook from the Combine than I have time to dispense. So, in the spirit of my post-draft grab bag from last season, here are some players who caught my eye (or at least my microphone) in Phoenix, whose names you ought to know come Draft Day.

Foremost among these is Jackson Flora, a right-handed pitcher out of UC Santa Barbara. I think he’s the top pitching prospect in the class. Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski put him fourth overall on The Board; he’s the only pitcher in the top nine. And not that we care too much what other people think, but that’s very much the consensus position.

This draft has a clear top tier of Roch Cholowsky, the UCLA shortstop and presumptive top pick dating back 12 months, plus Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey and Texas prep shortstop Grady Emerson. The prospect team has Future Value grades of 55 on all three of those players, then Flora with a 50, then the rest of the class starting at a 45+.

In his media scrum on Day 1 of the Combine, Flora said he was meeting with seven teams — the ones holding picks two through eight. If he doesn’t go in the first five or six picks, it’ll be a big deal.

Why? Well, I know I just wrote a big thing about how there’s no such thing as an ideal baseball body, but you can forget all that: It looks like Flora. The California right-hander is a lean 6-foot-5, 205 pounds, with mid-to-upper-90s heat that plays up due to extension and hits 100 on the gun from time to time. For hitters who get too comfortable sitting on the heater, Flora can break out a variety of pitches across the cutter-slider continuum. He also debuted a potential plus changeup during this past season.

“That pitch changed my life, made it a lot easier to get outs, so it was awesome,” Flora said. But that’s not the only improvement he made this year. “I think I was just more of a polished pitcher. Instead of throwing the ball as hard as I could all the time and just spinning it, I think I learned a lot about pitching backwards, how to execute pitches, how to pitch to my strengths and a hitter’s weaknesses… I worked a lot on the mental side of the game and my routine during the week off the field. I think that helped me a lot.”

This season, Flora went 12-0 in 16 starters, with an ERA of 1.06. Now, the run-scoring environment in college baseball has changed a lot over the past 15 years, so if you’re just dropping in for the draft, you might not have a good handle on exactly how good a 1.06 ERA is.

It’s incredibly good. The second-best ERA among qualified pitchers belonged to Oregon reliever Tanner Bradley. The only full-time starter to get within a run of Flora, Oregon State’s Dax Whitney, who only made 11 starts. Flora also held opponents to a .153 batting average, which was fourth in Division I and first among starting pitchers. Paul Skenes had a 1.69 ERA and .164 opponent batting average in his draft year, albeit against tougher competition, in way more innings, and with a much higher strikeout rate. Flora might not be quite that good, but he was basically unhittable.

It’s not surprising that Flora improved quite a bit over his time in college, because UCSB is a pitching factory. Flora is likely to be the third Gauchos pitcher selected in the top five picks since 2015, after Dillon Tate went fourth overall in 2015 and Tyler Bremner was picked second last year. Cardinals right-hander Michael McGreevy was also a first-round pick out of UCSB, and then there’s the school’s crown jewel, Cy Young winner Shane Bieber.

Gauchos head coach Andrew Checketts has made a career of recruiting smart, athletic pitchers, then coaching them up as they develop physically. None of those five pitchers, including Flora, were drafted out of high school.

“I think it’s just the culture there, just being able to have a lot of trust in the coaches and the team,” Flora said. “There’s so much respect for Coach Checketts and [assistant coach Dylan] Jones, who helped the pitchers so much. So many guys come through here, maybe I should listen to the coaches, maybe they do know what they’re doing.”

Flora was a late bloomer; he said he grew a foot over his four years of high school, and was throwing 89 to 92 mph during his senior year, but got up to 94 by the time he got to campus. Once there, he started putting on weight and gaining strength as he underwent a regimented weight training program for the first time in his life, and the velo kept ticking up.

Having Bremner as an example helped as well. Flora credited his older teammate with making him internalize how good he’d become.

“He’s telling me: ‘Dude, when you’re out there, you need to understand dudes don’t want to face you,’” Flora said. “He was also good at — and we preach this a lot at school — faceless hitters, and just working on controlling the controllables. When the ball leaves your hand, there’s nothing you can really do unless he hits the ball right back to you.”

Armed with that newfound mental strength, plus triple-digit velocity and a new changeup, Flora is set up to make the leap to the pros with ease.

…

Flora is one of the best prospects in this draft, but the best story in the class belongs to Arizona high school catcher Alain Gomez-Gudino.

Jesús Cano profiled Gomez-Gudino for Baseball America back in March, and the tale of how Gomez-Gudino came to be a draft prospect is worth reading in full. In August 2023, Gomez-Gudino, then 15 years old, left Caracas, Venezuela with his mother, sister, and stepfather. After months of planning in secret, they slipped out of town and crossed the border to Colombia, hoping to leave behind Venezuela’s repressive government and economic turmoil. They carried one bag of clothes and food, plus Gomez-Gudino’s catcher’s mitt.

Over the next 17 days, they made their way north through Central America. At one point, Gomez-Gudino had to reach into a river to save his mother, who’d been pulled under by the current, from drowning. Later, they were captured by uniformed strangers of unknown origin in Mexico, and had to plead with them to keep one of their cellphones so they’d be able to stay in contact with family.

Eventually, they arrived in Mexico City, where they waited another three months to get an interview for political asylum in the United States. It’s far from the most perilous part of the tale, but most high school baseball prospects train incessantly. I was curious how Gomez-Gudino had stayed in practice during the four months he and his family were on the road.

“I brought my catcher’s glove all the way here, and I found a ball next to a park in Mexico City,” Gomez-Gudino explained. “I gave my glove to my stepfather, and I’d warm up a bit. I didn’t play that much, just for two weeks before I came here, on a summer team in Mexico.”

Grant of asylum in hand, Gomez-Gudino’s family settled in Scottsdale. He joined the baseball team at Saguaro High School, and his baseball career took off. The webbing of that catcher’s mitt, which had made the trip all the way from Caracas, finally gave out under the force of a fastball from Cam Caminiti, Gomez-Gudino’s high school batterymate. (When they make a movie of Gomez-Gudino’s life story, they’re going to have to break the fourth wall here to reassure viewers that no, this really happened.)

Caminiti went 24th overall to Atlanta in the 2024 draft, and the scouts who’d swarmed over the young left-hander soon took notice of the switch-hitting sophomore backstop. Invites to showcases followed quickly, as did college offers, and two years later, he’s one of the top high school catchers in the class.

All this happened while Gomez-Gudino was still adjusting to life some 3,200 miles and eight countries from home.

“It’s way different [in the U.S.], because you got to go to school,” Gomez-Gudino said. “In Venezuela, it’s just baseball, baseball, baseball.”

Among the many things Gomez-Gudino lacked when he left Venezuela: Any kind of working command of English.

“I had to learn a lot, because when I came here two years ago, I had literally nothing,” he said. “Just, like, ‘Hi, how are you?’ Now, I’m still practicing. It’s not 100%, but I’m trying to get there.”

Going from zero to graduating high school and giving interviews in English in two years is no small task; Gomez-Gudino said there’s no real secret, he just listened as much as he could and asked questions when he didn’t know a word. Music and Adam Sandler movies filled in the rest of the gaps, he said.

Having been through an ordeal I could scarcely contemplate, and despite being on the older side for a high school senior, Gomez-Gudino seems noticeably youthful. He looks like a kid, an impression that was only reinforced by the fact that he smiles all the time. I found myself getting excited, because he’s committed to my alma mater, the University of South Carolina, whose baseball program is in dire need of talent.

Eric had to let me down gently with the truth: He’s probably too good to make it to campus.

Legit switch-hitting catching prospects are rare, and among Gomez-Gudino’s highlights at the Combine was a batting practice round in which he hit an exit velocity of 104 mph from the right side and 106 mph from the left side. Which isn’t in Caden Bogenpohl’s territory, but it’s not bad for an 18-year-old with some physical development left.

And who plays a premium position. As you might have guessed by how far Gomez-Gudino carried his mitt, this kid loves catching.

“I used to pitch a lot when I was a kid, but when I heard pitchers don’t hit, I [switched] to third base,” Gomez-Gudino said. “But when I saw Salvador Perez play, I just liked how he commanded the game, how he called the game, how he talked to his teammates and everything. I just said I want to be like him, to be the captain on the field, call pitches every play, every game, and be in command there.”

Someone is going to take Gomez-Gudino fairly high, and in about five years we’re going to hear this story on Sunday Night Baseball. It’s good enough to bear repeating.

…

Outside the first round, the draft can get unpredictable and mysterious, but one of the guys I’m willing to stick my neck out on is Lucas Nawrocki, a high school two-way player out of Aledo, Texas.

At just 5-foot-11, Nawrocki is a little short for a pitcher — or a power hitter, for that matter, but he put on a terrific batting practice round: 18 pitches, 10 of them put in play at 105 mph or harder, topping out at 109.7.

On the mound, the velocity isn’t especially impressive, but Nawrocki’s secondary stuff is nuts. He’s got a mid-80s kick change that drops in around 1,000 rpm, with a low-80s slider with top-shelf spin numbers: 3,000 rpm at minimum, up to 3,200 pretty easily. This breaking ball he can either throw like a sweeper and get a plate’s worth of horizontal movement, or drop vertically like a curveball. That latter version is just nasty. I don’t know how anyone hits it.

“It works really well. I can manipulate and shape my slider really easily, with that crossfire action,” he said. “I can get more depth on it whenever I want, or I can get more sweeping action whenever I want, so it’s a really neat thing… Last offseason, I was playing with it. I wanted to try to find a curveball, but then I [realized] I can get the same grip and maybe preset my wrist a little bit differently and get a lot more depth, instead of switching up the grip.”

That combination of high-spin/low-spin is incredibly rare. In the majors, only four pitchers have a breaking ball with an average spin rate of 2,900 or higher, and either a changeup or splitter with an average spin rate of 1,300 or lower: Nolan McLean, Matthew Liberatore, Clay Holmes, and Anthony Nunez.

Plus Adrian Morejon, whose average slider spin rate is 2,899 rpm as I write this now, but it was above the cutoff point two weeks ago when I found this bit of trivia and presented it to Nawrocki. I mentioned Morejon because here’s the center field camera angle for Nawrocki at PG National:

And here’s Morejon from the same angle:

A 5-foot-11 left-handed pitcher can get outs if he can kill spin on his changeup while ramping it up on his breaking ball.

Actually, with that foot position and low arm slot, Morejon was not the first name that came to mind: It was Billy Wagner. And because Nawrocki is from Texas, I thought he might’ve been inspired by watching Wagner pitch for the Astros. Obviously I asked him about it, and realized mid-sentence that by the time Nawrocki was born in December 2007, Wagner had already not been an Astro for more than four years.

Time is a cruel mistress.

The guys in caps and white pants have been chucking the ball around for a few months now, but Major League Baseball’s most important undertaking — collective bargaining — is just getting started.

The league and the MLBPA have traded preliminary economic proposals over the past month, and some of the items on the table are quite spicy. The league wants a salary cap and a five-year limit on contracts for free agents who change teams. The MLBPA wants extensive reforms to the revenue sharing system and a quicker path to free agency for players in their 30s — and to nearly triple the minimum salary by the end of the CBA.

But the spiciest nugget in the carton might be MLB’s proposal for a 12-round draft that’s limited to players who are 20 years old and at least two years out of high school. Read the rest of this entry »

The SEC opened conference play this past weekend and there were a bunch of great matchups. The most surprising result was Tennessee’s sweep of Florida, as both teams entered the series ranked in the top 10. At this point, the Volunteers look like the best team in college baseball. Outside of the SEC, Stanford’s Japanese phenom Rintaro Sasaki hit his first career home run on Saturday, and we saw a four-homer day from Northwestern’s Trent Liolios.

Sticking to the theme of last week, these notes are on draft-eligible players who are not currently listed on The Board, as it’s still too early to rank them, but who nonetheless should hear their names called this July. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was in Phoenix for the Draft Combine, I kept running into Seaver King’s friends.

“That’s my homie,” said JJ Wetherholt, the West Virginia infielder and presumptive top-five pick. He and King played together on Team USA last summer, and Wetherholt said King was the person he’d been looking forward to seeing most at the Combine. “He’s a great kid. He’ll be funny. Good dude.”

Michael Massey, the Wake Forest right-hander and sometime pitch design experimentalist, lived with King last season and gave him a positive reference as a roommate.

“He’s fun. He’s a high-energy guy,” Massey said. “Always wants to keep the vibes up, keep everyone having fun.” Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball teams continue to search for whatever edge they can find when it comes to bringing cheap, talented players into their organizations. The draft is one of the easiest ways for teams to accumulate talent, as clubs take turns picking the best amateur players in the country, and the Commissioner’s office, as authorized by the CBA between the players and owners, tells teams how much they are allowed to spend. Most amateur players have very little leverage, and generally sign for the recommended slot amount. Because individual draft picks receive a slotted amount, but teams are allowed to spend their entire draft pool in whatever manner they choose, money often gets moved around pick-to-pick, with those players with less leverage receiving much less than the slot amount for their pick while those players with some leverage getting quite a bit more. This year, the Reds, Mets, White Sox, and Marlins all appear to be moving significant money around in an effort to manipulate the draft system to their benefit. Is it worth it though?

While every team moves money around in the draft, these four clubs stood out for drafting hard-to-sign prep players in the early rounds, then taking college seniors with multiple picks later in the first 10 rounds. Presumably, the college senior picks will sign for amounts significantly under their slot value (you can find all the slot values here), meaning the savings can be used to sign the prep players who threatened to go to college if their bonus demands are not met. Here are the teams, players, slot amounts, and the number of senior signs for each team.

All four players are likely to require more than their draft slot provides in order to sign a contract with their drafting teams. Tyler Callihan has reportedly agreed to a deal for $1.5 million. Allan is rumored to have an asking price of about $3 million, which might be why the Mets selected seniors with seven picks in the first 10 rounds. The slot for Evan Fitterer is pretty low, requiring the Marlins to make sacrifices with many of their subsequent picks. We don’t yet know exactly what it will take to sign all of the players listed, but we do have an idea of how much value teams gave up in later rounds, as well as the expected value of the players who were picked. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve visited this website and clicked on this article, so chances are, you’re not only familiar with new forms of baseball data, but with the impact that data has had on various branches of the game, including and especially scouting. Kiley and I have each written about some of the ways that new data and technology are transforming player evaluation, but all you really need to know for the purposes of this article is that these developments have funneled in-person scouting resources down to lower levels of baseball, both amateur and professional.

There are several reasons for this. For one, the majors and the upper levels of the minors (Double- and Triple-A) are more stable competitive environments, and thus teams are more comfortable with statistical performance accumulated at those tiers of play. Individuals who reach those heights almost always have sufficient talent, technical proficiency, or some combination of the two, to play competitive baseball there, whereas the on-field competency of lower-level pro baseball talent (think teenagers in the DSL, AZL, Pioneer League, etc.) is more variable player to player.

As a result, statistical performance is much more reliable the further up the pro ladder a player climbs, allowing teams to more confidently incorporate it into their player evaluations. This, combined with the proliferation of TrackMan and Statcast metrics in pro baseball (almost every minor league park in the country has a TrackMan unit now), means that a growing number of teams feel that they have a firm grasp on upper-level players even if those players are not seen as much by scouts, and some organizations have even begun to de-emphasize in-person scouting at these levels. This frees up scouts to sift through the growing bodies and developing athletes at the lower levels, where statistical performance is almost meaningless. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2018 MLB Draft’s signing deadline passed last week, and more teams failed to sign their early picks than is typical. Ultimately, four of the top 36 selections opted not to enter professional ball, all from the prep ranks. Those players are as follows: RHP Carter Stewart (Atlanta’s pick at No. 8), SS Matt McLain (Arizona at No. 25), RHP J.T. Ginn (Dodgers at No. 30), and Gunnar Hoglund (Pirates at No. 36). Scouting details on those individuals can be found on THE BOARD.

This has left those teams with one fewer prospect in their system than anticipated (all four teams get a compensation pick in next year’s draft), but more significantly, it moves a handful of premium talent into future draft classes. This year’s crop of unsigned high schoolers now serves as a preview of the college talent pool for the 2021 draft, but there are also a few 2020 prospects who are eligible early because they’re old for their class. There’s also a possibility that some could find their way into the 2019 draft class if they opt to attend junior college. We’ll reclassify players on THE BOARD as they change.

With that in mind, we thought it reasonable to present snapshots of each of the next three draft classes based on how we have the players graded right now. The industry’s evaluation of the 2019 class is already underway in earnest (Team USA, Cape Cod, and prep showcases are all occurring as we speak), and we’ve lined up a short list of the class’s top names thus far over on THE BOARD. Our 2020 list is mostly composed of the players we regarded as the best college freshmen this year, though we know of a few high schoolers who look like early first-round talents, too. The 2021 list is just a ranking of the high schoolers who didn’t sign in this year’s draft, exactly as they appeared on our 2018 draft board. We’re skeptical of prep players who have popped up this early because it’s often the result of physical maturity, but we don’t think that’s the case for Pennsylvania high school RHP Kevin Bitsko, whom we have evaluated similarly to the lean projection arms who are 40 FVs on the July 2 list.

We’re still too early in the process to make conclusive statements about the talent level of the 2019 draft class as a whole, much less the 2020 or 2021 varieties, so all this could change. As it stands now, however, the 2019 class collectively appears to lack the depth of the 2018 crop. By this time last year, we had a rough idea of how deep the high-school pitching was and knew that the Southeast had an overwhelming volume of talent. College hitting is the strength of next year’s draft class, and there’s lots of depth to the college crop in general, but the prep class lacks the quantity of players who are regarded as in-a-vacuum first rounders that one customarily sees at this point. Moreover, the college pitching class lacks a guy who looks like a top-five or -10 selection right now, though Casey Mize didn’t fit that criteria last summer and then ended up going first overall to Detroit in June.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been driving around Florida this spring, getting looks at a particularly loaded draft class. I also spent last week at the NHSI tournament run by USA baseball in Cary, NC. NHSI is always a solid event, with at least a half-dozen interesting draft prospects appearing over the four days, but this year featured the best crop in the history of the event. Of the 16 participating teams, almost every one had a potential top-five-round draftee to watch.

I already broke down the players I saw and buzz I heard after week one of the college season, and last Friday I reviewed the college players I saw last month. Now here’s all the notable prep players I saw last month, with video, notes on what I saw, and a preview of the area of the list they will rank when Eric and I release an updated draft list next week. Here are our preseason rankings.

Carter Stewart, RHP, Eau Gallie HS (FL), Mississippi State Commit

I wrote up Stewart and Denaburg’s first matchup in one of the pieces linked above, but they had another one a couple weeks later. The first matchup, which took place in front of a double-digit number of scouting directors, placed them both firmly in the middle of the first round, so it was unsurprising to find over 100 scouts and three general managers at this next game. Stewart opened it sitting 92-96 mph and was holding 92-94, hitting 95 mph in the fifth inning. His signature 80-83 mph curveball, with Seth Lugo-level spin rates, flashed the normal 65 or 70 on the 20-80 scale (go to 0:56 for the best one I got on video), and his changeup — which looks about average in warmups and may project above average with more use — wasn’t used in game. I counted 13 Ks for Stewart through 5.2 innings.

Read the rest of this entry »