Baseball America updated their draft prospect rankings on Wednesday morning, expanding the list to 300 spots and making some changes at the top of the list. The Pittsburgh Pirates have the fourth overall pick this year.
We recently started our Draft Prospect Watch articles, where we look at a new player each Sunday. Our first choice was Druw Jones, who remains at the top of BA’s list. This past Sunday we looked at Elijah Green, and BA has him moving up to the third spot from fifth. In between those two choices in the second spot for BA is Brooks Lee, shortstop at Cal Poly, who has been a mock draft selection for the Pirates multiple times. High school shortstop Termarr Johnson has been ranked second for quite some time, but BA has him dropping down to fourth. While this isn’t a mock draft, it matches up with the Pirates pick. BA has a college catcher in the fifth spot now, with Kevin Parada from Georgia Tech moving up two spots. Last time BA did an update, they had Texas Tech second baseman Jace Jung in the fourth spot, but he dropped down to seventh.
I’m also legally obligated by my relatives to mention that lefty pitcher Trey Dombroski from Monmouth moved up 17 spots to the 112th spot (fourth round range). He’s the cousin of my cousins.
ESPN Rankings
Kiley McDaniel from ESPN came out with new rankings today as well, then dropped the news that Dylan Lesko, the top rated high school pitcher this year, had Tommy John surgery. I was going to include him in an upcoming Draft Prospect Watch, but that seems like a stretch now with the fourth overall pick. If the Pirates picked him, he would be moving up slightly while out for 12-14 months, so that seems unlikely.
McDaniel has 150 players listed now on his rankings. He includes tiered rankings by Future Value (FV) and has Druw Jones at the top as the only 60 in the class. He’s followed at a 55 FV by Termarr Johnson, Jackson Holliday (son of Matt Holliday) and Brooks Lee, who ranks in the fourth spot. The 50 FV group is just four players and it includes the aforementioned Green, Parada and Lesko, as well as Jacob Berry, an outfielder from LSU with raw power and a strong approach at the plate. For comparison, Holliday ranks eighth and Berry ranks ninth for BA.
I’m also legally obligated by my relatives to mention (every time) that lefty pitcher Trey Dombroski from Monmouth is ranked in the 88th spot (third round range) for McDaniel. He is still the cousin of my cousins.
