Our weekly spotlight of 2023 draft prospects began with a closer look at LSU outfielder Dylan Crews, who many people have as the top prospect in this draft class. We then moved on to Chase Dollander, a right-handed pitcher from the University of Tennessee.
Our third profile article looked at high school outfielder Walker Jenkins. That was followed by LSU pitcher Paul Skenes. Our fifth profile was high school outfielder Max Clark, whose season opened that same day as the article was posted. The last profile was Wyatt Langford, the power-hitting Florida outfielder. Here’s our draft preview article in case you missed it.
Paul Skenes has been at the forefront of the news lately. Both Baseball America and Kiley McDaniel had articles taking a closer look at him. The BA article compared him to other top prospects already in pro ball. The ESPN article asked the question “When is it too early to take a starting pitcher?“.
We even posted here on Thursday to give people a heads up that Skenes was facing one of the top prospects in this draft. I wanted to give people a chance to watch him, because there is a legit chance that he could be selected first overall.
Let’s start with the BA article, which compares Skenes to the top three pitching prospects right now, Grayson Rodriguez, Eury Perez and Andrew Painter. This BA article came about because they said that some evaluators believe Skenes is the best college starting prospect since Steven Strasburg. More on Strasburg later.
BA got multiple opinions on the subject, and they covered the entire range. Skenes ranks anywhere from fourth in that group, to being right at the top. One person went as far as saying he could be in the majors a year from now. Another grouped him in with Strasburg, Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer as far as talent coming out of college.
That’s not to say that there weren’t questions. BA heard things such as his pitch selection to left-handed hitters being something that might not work in the pros. Another questions his changeup usage, while another said he has the arm action of a reliever. Individually those might not be major problems, but they could be if all three end up being true.
McDaniel’s has an interesting article, where he looks at the low success rate of top pitching prospects going into the draft. The basic summary is that there’s a good chance that you’re not getting an ace if you pick the “consensus” best pitcher in the draft class. It’s a monumentally bigger chance than a comparison to specific spots afterwards (aka the second best, third, fourth, etc), but it’s a small chance compared to everyone else in the draft as a group.
Injuries play a part in that failure to reach the top for pitching prospects, which is why there is more of a risk going for the top pitcher compared to the top hitter in a draft.
Even on a higher level, you could look at Strasburg and see a guy who debuted in 2010 as a young dominant pitcher from the start. He has 30.9 pitching WAR in his career, and he could be done due to multiple injuries. That WAR total ranks him 278th all-time in that category, eight spots behind Lance Lynn, who was drafted 39th overall one year earlier.
So even when your elite talent makes it to the majors as elite, there’s no guarantee he stays there. McDaniel’s numbers say that going by past history, there’s a 40% chance that the top college pitcher in the draft class will give you no (or almost no) return on your pick. While 15% of those picks become aces.
That being said, McDaniel’s puts Skenes in the same group as David Price coming out of college, which ranks Price as the third best college pitcher to be drafted. Strasburg and Cole are considered to be the best during their time in college.
When you look at it that way, instead of just grouping them all together, you have Cole as a recognized ace by most. You have Strasburg, who was an ace at his best. The you have Price, who finished with 40.3 career WAR. He had one Cy Young and two second place finishes.
Injuries aside for Strasburg, that’s a pretty good group to be at the back-end of going into draft day.
I would say that the first overall pick is still up in the air. There’s still time left before that decision has to be made, leaving more chances to be confident in the pick. Skenes is definitely in that discussion.
