Here are the best Draft prospects of past decade
In honor of the discharge of our inaugural 2023 Top 100 Draft Prospects record final week, we took the time to look again at all the gamers who made up these lists through the years. We started rating the prime amateurs in every class again in 2011, which featured a star-studded group headlined by Gerrit Cole and future All-Stars Anthony Rendon, George Springer and Francisco Lindor additionally discovering their manner into the Top 10. The end result? A staff made up of the premier prospects over the previous decade (plus a number of years).
This better of the very best group shouldn’t be meant to convey which prospects have gone on to essentially the most profitable massive league careers (though you may take heed to the complete podcast to listen to the blokes chime in on that) however slightly to focus on who was the cream of the crop throughout their respective Draft seasons.
Catcher: Adley Rutschman
The prime prospect within the 2019 Draft class, Rutschman runs away with the backstop honors. Lauded for not solely his offensive ability however his defensive acumen and skill to deal with a pitching workers, Rutschman received each the Golden Spikes and Dick Howser Award in his remaining season at Oregon State. He then soared up the Orioles’ farm system and positioned second in 2022 American League Rookie of the Year voting, practically serving to lead Baltimore to an out-of-nowhere playoff berth.
“Even though Adley Rutschman has only been up for one year, I don’t think there’s any question about who the top Draft catching prospect has been,” Mayo mentioned, “and really, you could make the strong argument that he’s been the best performer, even though it’s only been one year. And if you’re going to pick a guy going forward, it’s got to be him.”
First baseman: Spencer Torkelson
A finicky place for top-tier expertise over the previous decade, Torkelson will get the nod right here because of the immense manufacturing that he delivered each throughout his collegiate profession at Arizona State and on the summer time circuit within the Cape Cod League.
“He has not put it collectively as an enormous leaguer, however given who he was and the way younger he nonetheless is — I nonetheless suppose he’s going to determine it out — I believe he’s bought to be the man who’s essentially the most extremely considered first baseman that we’ve had in fairly a while,” Mayo mentioned.
Second baseman: Termarr Johnson
Johnson made historical past as a Draft prospect simply final season when he grew to become the primary highschool bat to garner a 70-grade hit device per our grades. Pittsburgh nabbed him with the fourth general choose and bought him into 23 video games between Rookie-level and Single-A shortly after he turned 18 years previous.
“Maybe one of the best pure high school hitters we’ve ever seen,” Mayo mentioned of Johnson. “He can actually, actually hit. Pirates followers haven’t actually gotten an opportunity to see a lot of it but over his summer time debut, however they’re going to in 2023.
“He’s as exciting an offensive second base prospect that we’ve had come out of the Draft.”
Third baseman: Kris Bryant
While Bryant’s general marks are barely beneath these of Jacob Berry (sixth general choose final season) and on par with Rendon, the previous MVP will get the slight nod as a consequence of a little bit of corrective evaluation. Scouts had been proper on the mark because it pertained to Bryant, who collected 4 All-Star appearances in his first seven seasons.
“If we were to go back and redo some of those [overall ratings], it’s only been recently that we’ve been giving out overall 65s,” Mayo mentioned of Berry having the next grade than Bryant. “We try not to do it too much because obviously that’s a special level of player — we’re projecting a big league All-Star — but that’s kind of what people thought Kris Bryant would be when he was coming out of his Draft year.”
Shortstop: Bobby Witt Jr.
A loaded class of shortstops introduced this resolution proper all the way down to the wire. Witt earned the nod over different former prime up-the-middle stars comparable to Brendan Rodgers, Dansby Swanson and Carlos Correa, simply to call a number of.
“The combination of tools, the energy with which he played the game — a generational kind of prospect,” Mayo mentioned of Witt.
Outfield: Druw Jones, Elijah Green, Dylan Crews
A real embarrassment of riches, the outfield crop over the previous decade has seen an immense stage of expertise. Byron Buxton — a five-tool phenom in his personal proper — made the three-man alternative right here troublesome (which Ratliff nonetheless might not be over), however Mayo leaned within the recency course with two prime Draft picks from final yr (Jones went second, Green fifth) and one that’s primed to come back off the board early in July (Crews).
“His combination of ceiling and floor are astounding,” Mayo mentioned of Jones, who ranks as MLB’s No. 11 general prospect. “He is going to be an incredible player.”
“Elijah Green has as much — if not more — ceiling than anyone in last year’s Draft class and that’s saying something because there were those high school players at the top,” Mayo said of Green, who has already ascended to Washington’s No. 2 prospect. “But his ceiling is so high now … in terms of his five-tool ability and potential, he belongs high up on the list.”
“Right now, there was a transparent consensus that Dylan Crews needs to be No. 1 [in the 2023 Draft class],” Mayo mentioned of the top-ranked prospect on MLB Pipeline’s newly unveiled Top 100 Draft Prospects record.
Right-handed pitcher: Hunter Greene
A highschool phenom who was featured on the duvet of Sports Illustrated as the sport’s subsequent potential two-way star, Greene had already achieved fame earlier than the Reds chosen him with the second general choose within the 2017 Draft. He targeted on pitching upon turning professional, routinely deploying his triple-digit fastball, which earned him excessive marks courting again to his prep days.
“He might be one of the most hyped Draft prospects that we’ve had since [Stephen] Strasburg and Bryce Harper,” Mayo mentioned of Greene. “Just because he got a lot of recognition outside of amateur baseball, Draft-focused circles.”
Left-handed pitcher: Brady Aiken
The case of “what could have been” elements extra prominently on this place than possibly some other. There had been quite a few candidates to fill this slot, the overwhelming majority of whom incurred accidents or development setbacks (or each) upon being chosen. But Aiken, the No. 1 general choose by Houston in 2014 after which the seventeenth general choice by Cleveland in ’15, earned the nod right here as a consequence of his immense potential as a prep hurler from San Diego.
“It’s another example of arm issues — he was never able to become what people thought he would,” Mayo mentioned. “But at the time we ranked him that high, he was the complete package in terms of size, stuff, feel for pitching. There’s always a risk with high school pitching but people tend to be more comfortable with a lefty — there’s a reason he got taken No. 1 overall, even though he didn’t sign. He was everything that teams wanted in a pitching prospect.”
