Six Polarizing Prospects In The 2024 MLB Draft Class
Image credit: Brody Brecht (Mike Janes/Four Seam Images)
It’s fun to disagree about players.
Every year some players seem to be more polarizing than others and this year is no different. Below we look into six players who have wide-ranging opinions from the scouting industry and try and examine the pro and con cases for each.
BA 500 Draft Rankings
Our final big board is here. See the top 500 prospects and updated scouting reports.
Vance Honeycutt, OF, North Carolina
As we wrote earlier this season, Honeycutt has arguably the highest upside along with the biggest risk of any player in contention to go in the first round. He has almost every tool teams look for. Honeycutt has big power—he is North Carolina’s all-time home run leader (61)—and perhaps even greater speed. He is the first Division I player to hit more than 60 career homers and steal more than 70 bags. He’s also a two-time ACC defensive player of the year. Not to mention, the face of North Carolina’s run to the College World Series in 2024.
So what’s the catch?
Simply put: Some scouts and teams wonder whether Honeycutt’s hit tool will hold up. Interestingly, though Honeycutt hit a career-best .318 this season, his contact and strikeout rates actually regressed. Honeycutt made contact less than 70% of the time this year to go along with an 83-36 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Those are concerning figures, though our piece also points out teams are showing more leniency in recent years when it comes to strikeout rates as they rise at all levels of the game. Based on tools and athleticism, Honeycutt is one of the elite choices in the draft. How teams feel about developing enough contact skills to maximize the rest of the game will determine how high his name is called Sunday night.
Dakota Jordan, OF, Mississippi State
Much of Honeycutt’s writeup also applies to Jordan. Just read the first line of his BA 500 scouting report: Jordan was a high-profile prospect coming out of high school who stood out for his multi-sport athleticism, physicality and power-speed combination.
Jordan is less refined than Honeycutt, likely because he was also a star football player in high school, but he faces some of the same contact vs. power questions. Jordan is also a plus runner, but he’s less refined in the field as well, which is why he checks in at No. 35 in our final big board.
Still, Jordan hit .354/.459/.671 with 20 homers in the SEC at Mississippi State and he has 70-grade raw power and some of the best bat speed you’ll find in this class. Yet his contact rate and chase percentage were even a tick worse than Honeycutt’s.
A team bullish on its ability to coax more contact ability might fall in love with Jordan. Others might find such swing-and-miss disqualifying for a first-round pick. But in a down year overall, Jordan’s power and speed should become appealing to teams late in day one, and he just might end up making someone look very smart for taking a gamble.
Slade Caldwell, OF, Valley View HS, Jonesboro, Ark.
Teams seem to be lamenting the lack of exciting high school hitting profiles in the middle of this year’s first round, but what about Caldwell? He was a tremendous in-game performer throughout the 2023 showcase circuit and features an enticing blend of contact skills, double-plus speed and strong center field defense.
Additionally, he is one of the youngest players in the class, and will be only 18.1 on draft day, which is a significant piece for model-heavy teams that prioritize age—especially so for hitters. There are a few potential landing spots for him in the first round but perhaps less than you’d expect given his skill set and the relative weakness of the prep class.
Size is the question mark for Caldwell.
He’s listed at 5-foot-9, 182 pounds (and might actually be a bit shorter than that) and some teams wonder about how much power he’ll get to and whether he can hold up over the course of a major league season. There are teams who view him as more of a supplemental first or second-rounder because of his size which makes us think about 2023 shortstop Kevin McGonigle. McGonigle ranked No. 25 in the class a year ago but slid to the supplemental first with the Tigers where he signed for $2.8 million. That pick has looked pretty good so far.
Brody Brecht, RHP, Iowa
Brecht is the peak example of a polarizing pitching profile for this year’s class.
His pure stuff is comparable to Chase Burns at the very top of the class that sits in the 96-97 mph range and has been up to 101 mph with cutting life. He has also earned double-plus projections on his wicked, upper-80s slider and is one of the most impressive pure athletes in the class. Before this season he also played for Iowa’s football team as a receiver.
The rub with Brecht is that he simply struggles to find the strike zone. His 17% career walk rate is higher than any college pitcher taken among the first 30 picks in the bonus pool era, and he carries significantly more reliever risk than teams typically associate with round one pitchers.
Because of that he’s simply not a first-round option for many teams, though others seem more willing to take a shot on his immense upside and/or believe their pitching development groups can help him throw more strikes moving forward.
PJ Morlando, 1B/OF, Summerville (S.C.) HS
Morlando entered this draft cycle as one of the top-ranked high school players in the class, consistently ranked right alongside Konnor Griffin—who currently stands as the top prep in the class and a potential top-10 pick.
Among prep hitters, he has perhaps the best combination of pure hitting ability and raw power, with a lengthy track record of performance against the best arms in the class. Morlando’s strength and bat speed allows him to generate easy plus raw power, and he also turned in perhaps the most impressive batting practice display a few weeks ago at the MLB Draft combine.
However, scouts wanted to see him hit for more power than he showed this spring (though he was pitched around plenty), and there are teams who are simply skeptical of a likely corner profile from the high school ranks who is also going to be 19 on draft day.
Ryan Waldschmidt, OF, Kentucky
Waldschmidt was one of the most prominent helium college players in the class and finished an excellent 2024 season with a .333/.469/.610 slash line 14 home runs and 25 stolen bases. He also checks a lot of hitting data boxes with an 80% contact rate, 88% in-zone contact rate, 18% chase rate and 108.7-mph 90th percentile exit velocity.
Walking nearly as often as he struck out is a big boost to his profile as well.
More than maybe any other player in the class, Waldschmidt seems to divide the most analytically-inclined scouting departments and the teams who value their in-person scouting assessments above all else. Those scouts look at Waldschmidt and wonder about the steepness of his swing and how that will play at the next level, and also aren’t too excited about his defensive ability in left field or how his athleticism and speed works on the field despite his 25 stolen bases.
If he had played center field all season or looked better in left field he would perhaps be less polarizing. Those high on Waldschmidt see a well-rounded SEC college hitter with power and speed and those lower see a right-right corner outfielder who will need significant swing work and defensive refinement in pro ball.
