LOADED: The 2023 Draft Lines Up As The Deepest And Most Talented In More Than A Decade
Image credit: Wyatt Langford (Photo by Michael Wade/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The draft develops in mysterious ways.
Today’s amateur afterthought develops into an MLB star. Tomorrow’s prospect bust is right now the big man on campus.
That’s the nature of an endeavor in which scouts are tasked with projecting the future ability and physicality of teenagers and collegians hitting with metal bats against uneven competition.
Uncertainty comes with the territory in an industry in which nobody can consistently keep pitchers healthy and effective. And even if they can manage that in high school or college, the landscape changes in pro ball.
In the minor leagues, starters work every five days—not once a week—and relievers will be called on with greater frequency over a schedule that is more than twice as long.
At Baseball America, we embrace the chaos of the draft and everything that comes with it. So come along with us on a survey of the top amateur talent available in this year’s draft.
We don’t have all the answers, but we ask the right questions of scouts and industry sources. Now, we bring that insight to you.
To kicks things off, BA draft writer Carlos Collazo highlights five key things to know heading into the 2023 draft.
1. EYES ON THE TIGERS
In the 58-year history of the draft, there has never been a pair of teammates selected with the first two picks. That could change in 2023 with Louisiana State’s Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes sitting atop the Baseball America draft ranking at Nos. 1 and 2.
It’s been close in the past.
In 1978, Arizona State third baseman Bob Horner was selected No. 1 overall by the Braves, while his Sun Devils teammate Hubie Brooks, a shortstop, went No. 3 overall to the Mets.
Again in 2011, teammates were selected with the first and third picks. This time it was the UCLA pitching duo of righthanders Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer to the Pirates and D-backs, respectively.
Crews and Skenes are far and away the most prominent teammate pairing of the bonus pool era of the draft—which began in 2012 immediately after the Cole-Bauer draft—and both have had sensational seasons for LSU and were two of three Golden Spikes Award finalists.
Crews has been the top player in this class from the beginning of the draft cycle until draft day, with exceptional offensive upside, a well-rounded set of tools and a long track record of production dating back to his underclass high school days.
A former two-way player, Skenes took a giant step forward this season as a pitcher only after transferring to LSU and has dominated hitters with double-plus stuff and physicality.
2. THE CONCENTRATION OF SEC TALENT
The Southeastern Conference is annually regarded as the cream of the crop when it comes to college talent. That has not changed.
But other things have changed since 2020, when the top SEC prospects this year were high school seniors. The five-round Covid draft of 2020 led to more talented preps than ever reaching campus. Many of those top players were committed to SEC programs and are now in their draft seasons.
Dylan Crews is the most notable example of this, as a player who might have easily been selected and signed out of high school with a typical full spring season.
On top of that, the dynamics of college sports have changed in the last three years. Both the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) student-athlete compensation structure and transfer portal now empower player movement throughout the sport.
SEC schools already had a large geographic advantage in baseball thanks to a footprint that spans the Southeast. That allows for beneficial scheduling in warm-weather climates and provides proximity to talent hotbeds in Texas, Florida and Georgia.
Now, SEC programs are able to bolster their rosters with impact players from smaller schools who can immediately come in and play key roles. Paul Skenes is the most obvious example of that in 2023. He played his first two seasons in the Mountain West Conference as a two-way player with Air Force.
The SEC leads all conferences this year with 31 players ranked among the top 200. That accounts for 28.4% of the 109 college players on the list. The talent gap is even bigger at the top, where nine of the 23 four-year college players among the top 50 hail from SEC programs.
3. DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE PREPS
With such a dynamic combination of college players leading the draft, it’s easy to overlook the elite high school players at the top of the class.
North Carolina high school outfielder Walker Jenkins and Indiana high school outfielder Max Clark have long been considered the top prep players in the class and rank Nos. 4 and 5, respectively.
The Jenkins-Clark duo stacks up nicely with top-of-the-class prepsters of recent vintage and would fall in the same grade tier as players such as Jackson Holliday and Druw Jones in 2022, Jordan Lawlar and Marcelo Mayer in 2021, Riley Greene in 2019 and Jarred Kelenic in 2018—to name a few.
Jenkins and Clark are among the best pure hitters in the class, with lengthy track records of performance on the showcase circuit and with USA Baseball national teams.
Jenkins has the best combination of pure hitting ability and power—with a chance for plus tools in both categories—and has earned comparisons with Josh Hamilton and Austin Meadows. Clark has the safest center field profile in the class and pairs plus hitting ability with electric secondary tools, including double-plus speed and throwing. He has earned Jacoby Ellsbury comparisons.
Righthander Noble Meyer, the top high school pitcher in the class, hails from the same Portland, Ore., program that produced 2020 first-rounder Mick Abel. Scouts view Meyer as having a combination of overlapping attributes with Abel and Andrew Painter, with a combination of pure stuff, pitchability and a projectable 6-foot-5 frame.
4. A LACK OF COLLEGE LEFTIES & CATCHERS
The 2023 class is strong for college hitters, but there are two key demographics that are severely lacking at positions that MLB cubs always value: lefthanded pitchers and catchers.
There’s a real chance that the 2023 draft becomes the first since 1979 to not have a college lefthander selected in the first round. There’s not a single college lefty ranked among the top 50, and you have to go all the way down to No. 74 before you find one: Vanderbilt’s Hunter Owen. If Owen—or another college lefthander— doesn’t go in the first round this year, a 44-year streak will come to and end.
The reputation of the college catching demographic falls squarely on the shoulders of Virginia backstop Kyle Teel. Teel has had a sensational season and is a lock to go in the first round—with plenty of top-10 buzz as we approach the draft—but the demographic falls off a cliff after him, with no college catchers until Maryland’s Luke Shliger checks in at No. 89.
The bonus pool era has averaged a tick over four college catchers selected among the top 100, but 2023 has just two ranked inside that range.
The positions of catcher and lefthander are prized demographics among MLB organizations, and college players at those positions tend to get pushed up draft boards. But how aggressive will teams be able to get with the models available in 2023? Will they instead opt for riskier and further-away high school profiles or avoid the demos entirely?
5. SEATTLE’S SUPERLATIVE DRAFT CAPITAL
Like the major league team, the Mariners’ scouting department is on the verge of making a lot of noise.
Between their natural first-round pick at No. 22, the first pick in the supplemental first round at No. 30 and the first-ever Prospect Promotion Incentive pick at No. 29—see the sidebar at right—the Mariners have a significant amount of draft capital to utilize.
Despite 21 organizations picking before them, Seattle has the seventh-largest bonus pool in the 2023 draft, thanks to their extra picks and the corresponding slot values. The Mariners’ pool checks in at $13,170,900, which is $3 million more than the Rangers, who pick No. 4 overall.
The money the Mariners have to work with, and the extra picks they can expend, will allow them to get creative if they want or to simply react more aggressively to what happens on draft day than any of the teams picking near them.
It is normal for a player to fall a bit further than expected on the day of the draft, because teams make surprising under-slot picks that create ripple effects for the teams behind them. In 2022, Cam Collier slid down the board to the Reds, who had the seventh-largest bonus pool despite picking No. 18 overall. Cincinnati signed the No. 7 ranked player in the class to an over-slot $5 million deal.
Scooping up talent that otherwise would be difficult to access is one option. A portfolio approach—employed by the Pirates in 2021—is another.
Whatever the Mariners decide to do on draft day, they have plenty of ammunition to work with and will be the most interesting team to watch outside the top 10.
What’s New For The 2023 Draft
Traditionally, major league teams have earned draft picks by three means:
(1) Order of finish the preceding season
(2) As compensation for the departure of qualified free agents
(3) As part of a competitive balance system, introduced for the 2012 draft, that distributes picks after the first and second rounds to clubs with the lowest revenues and in the smallest markets.
The 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement introduced three new wrinkles to draft order:
(1) A draft lottery aimed at disincentivizing teams from tanking for the No. 1 overall pick
(2) An alteration to draft order—and thus bonus pools—determined by postseason progress, not simply reverse order of standings
(3) The potential for Prospect Promotion Incentive draft picks after the first round
The lottery immediately made an impact on the 2023 draft order.
The Pirates won the first overall pick despite finishing 2022 with the third-worst record in MLB. The Nationals and Athletics would have been picking first and second under the old system, but thanks to the draft lottery, Washington chooses second and Oakland sixth.
The draft order for postseason clubs is also different. Reverse order of standings once ruled the day, but now draft picks are lined up based on postseason advancement. The Phillies and Padres feel the impact of this change the most.
By virtue of being the fifth and sixth National League wild cards and advancing to the 2022 NL Championship Series, Philadelphia (87 wins) and San Diego (89) fall nine and six spots down the board, relative to the old system, and lose a significant chunk of bonus pool money.
The most exciting change to draft order is the introduction to PPI picks. Clubs add a pick after the first round if a qualified prospect accrues one year of service as a rookie and wins Rookie of the Year.
The Mariners are the first recipient of a PPI pick. Seattle carried 21-year-old center fielder Julio Rodriguez on its Opening Day roster in 2022, and he went on to win American League ROY. As a result, the Mariners earned the 29th pick in this year’s draft—and the bonus pool allotment of just under $2.9 million that comes with it.
Even if a qualifying rookie doesn’t win ROY, he remains PPI draft pick eligible until he reaches arbitration. But to trigger a pick for his club, he must place top three in MVP or Cy Young Award voting.
—Matt Eddy
