Subscriber Mailbag: Are Dylan Crews And Chase Dollander The Clear-Cut Top Two Prospects In 2023?

Christopher from Chicago asks: Outside of an injury, are Crews/Dollander the clear-cut picks as the top 2 prospects?

At this moment, before the college season has started, yes. 

All of the reporting and the feedback that I’ve gotten from the industry so far seems to indicate that, generally, those two are in a separate tier of their own at the top of the class. No one who I asked about the top of the list had any issues with the Crews/Dollander duo up top, but there was conflicting feedback about whether or not Jacob Gonzalez or Wyatt Langford was the next-best option right after them. 

If the draft were today, I’d expect Crews and Dollander to go 1-2 in some combination based on talent, though as we know the financials come into play with the baseball draft and the team that won the top pick in the draft lottery has shown us it isn’t afraid to go after deals with the top pick on the board. 

This could change, certainly. I think the 2022 draft class is an excellent reminder of why we can never be too confident in the status of any pitching prospect, and while I think Dollander’s delivery and arm action are both pretty clean—those guys can get hurt at any time and that would drop him down boards, a la Padres righthander Dylan Lesko.

Similarly, if Crews doesn’t live up to his expectations as one of the best hitters and home run producers in the country, he could fall down the board and be passed up by a very strong college hitting class or an elite prep talent like Max Clark. So, both these guys will have to stay healthy and produce this spring to maintain their 1-2 status, but it does feel pretty safe to say that right now, given all the information we have currently, they are the obvious top two talents in the class.