Jonathan Mayo from MLB Pipeline posted a new mock draft last night. This one followed up a mock draft from Jim Callis on Pipeline that was released two weeks ago.
Mayo has the Pittsburgh Pirates taking LSU outfielder Dylan Crews with the top overall pick in the July 9th draft. Crews has been the pick for almost everyone in mock drafts and prospect rankings since before the season started.
Mayo goes on to note that there is a clear top five in this draft class. That is something that I covered here recently.
He kept that top five going in the top five picks in his mock because they have separated themselves from the pack.
He has the next four players in order from 2-5 as: LSU right-handed pitcher Paul Skenes, prep outfielders Walker Jenkins and Max Clark, with Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford going fifth.
I’ll note one interesting thing here about Langford and Crews, two SEC players seeing plenty of the same pitchers. Mayo notes that Crew had a slightly better OPS, but that actually changed on Wednesday night when he dropped down some points due to a quiet game against McNeese. He dipped 14 points below Langford in OPS after that game. Mayo obviously had this article written up before that game was played.
That was followed on Thursday night, when Langford added to his OPS with two doubles and a single, while Crews saw his drop just slightly, despite hitting a homer. He went 2-for-7, with a single as his other hit. It could all change in one game, but Langford has the OPS lead at this point.
Skenes also pitched well again on Thursday against Georgia, allowing two runs over seven innings, while striking out 12 batters.
We still have seven full weeks until the draft, so it’s going to be interesting to see how these big games coming up for the college trio play out.
