Breaking down day one of the 2021 MLB Draft

Carlos Collazo and JJ Cooper break down four of the most notable storylines from day one of the draft.

A modern record for preparation shortstops

We wrote in March that this year’s draft class has a chance to be historic for the prep shortstop demographic and it played out very clearly on day one.

Eight high school shortstops were selected in the first round, tying the all-time record set in 1971. This year’s squad is more impressive considering the context of the draft in the 1970s and the lack of players. academics collectively valued by industry.

It might also be fair to consider the backdrop of a varsity bat year in 2021 that likely allowed some of the later drafted first-round prep shortstops to creep in, but we have long thought the motto of this year’s draft class was in the tool, athletic shortstops of the high school ranks.

Going into the draft, we thought there was a good chance that we would see the second year in our history have four top 10 prep shortstops, but Marcelo Mayer and Jordan Lawlar – the top two players in the game. BA 500 – were the only two to fall within this range.

Brady House and Kahlil Watson slipped midway through the first round, but those four players alone still tied the all-time mark for prep shortstops in the Baseball America era (1981 onwards).

At least four high school shortstops have been selected in the first round of the draft just twice since the turn of the century – in 2016 and 2019.

The selections of Colson Montgomery (22), Max Muncy (25), Jackson Merrill (27) and Carson Williams (28) in the final third of the first round meant the 2021 class blew every other modern draft class out of the way. water when it comes to demographics.

Several years from now, the 2021 class may remember one or more players who have excelled at the major league level, but for now 2021 appears to be the year of the prep shortstop.

– Carlos Collazo

Kahlil Watson – The draft theft?

Speaking of preparation shortstops, how about this Marlins pick?

Before the draft started, it looked like Kahlil Watson had a better chance of becoming the first overall pick than sliding all the way down the table to No.16. That’s to Miami’s advantage, as he has landed one of the top six talents in the class and by far the most equipped player in that lineup in the first round.

Marlins scouting director DJ Svihlik summed up our own thoughts well when asked whether or not he expected Watson to be available at No.16.

“I would have said you’re crazy, not at all, that won’t happen,” Svihlik said. “Players move around the board for a number of different reasons. Like I said when we were on appeal last time, the draft, very dynamic, it was a really, really difficult draft. Teams manage their drafts in different ways. You don’t understand how everyone is doing, how everyone has their own style.

“So I think when you add all of these things together, the players just tend to move, and a player who’s supposed to go # 4, he’s going to # 8, and a player who’s supposed to go eighth could go. 16th, and so on and so on. For the most part, you look at the names that came off the board, all the good names came off the board, but it’s very, very difficult to predict the exact order. And if you look at the top 14 or 15 picks, this is where you saw a lot of variety and change in positions. So we always take the best player we have on the board at that point, and that’s how it went. “

It shouldn’t be too surprising that the Marlins were able to land a talent that was listed higher on the board, as they had a choice in the competitive balance round and the 11th biggest bonus, but still, he is. surprising that a player of Watson’s caliber has gone this far.

He was a solid part of the squad of roughly eight players that most teams expected to see in the Top 10, in one order or another.

“He was absolutely one of (the players we didn’t expect to be available),” Svihlik said. “And I spent the last week here with my staff and they were probably really tired of listening to me do it, but we’re constantly testing our listings and our order, and we’re constantly asking the question of the whole fair take.” . We did it again this morning. We went through our top of our board and said who were we going to catch fairly? We know that a player is going to fall, who is it going to be? Is it too high? So we’re evaluating until the end, as more and more information comes in, and this wasn’t a player that we predicted was going to drop. I guess he might have been second or third, but he wasn’t a player we expected to fall.

While Watson falling to the Marlins was decided just as much by the teams ahead of Miami, it’s hard not to think that the Marlins’ scouting department just walked away with the top pick in the draft after day one.

– Carlos Collazo

Frank Mozzicato jumps to pick # 7

There were plenty of surprises in the top 15 picks, but none matched the breathtaking nature of Mozzicato, ranked 42nd in Baseball America’s Top 500 Draft.

Mozzicato had a lot of helium this spring thanks to its ability to consistently turn a curve over. While her spring performance was sensational, she was expected to push him the best in consideration from the middle to the end of the first round.

Instead, he was the third pitcher off the board, ahead of all college pitchers except one.

“I’m speechless right now. I couldn’t be more excited, ”Mozzicato said. “It was a bit surprising. Six months ago, I didn’t think I was in this position.

The MLB Draft doesn’t allow teams to trade first-round picks, so if the Royals really liked Mozzicato their only realistic shot to have him was with the seventh pick, as there was a chance he could be gone before Kansas City chooses in the second round.

“Each draft is unique. They’re all different, ”Royals general manager Dayton Moore said. “We thought that by going in, if it fell like that, it might be beneficial for us to take the 20 spins into account. The value that a lot of players give themselves economically, this can be a wise strategy to not only pull the best, but also maximize what we can do later with the other 19 selections. “

So the answer to why the Royals took Mozzicato as high as they did very well will likely be answered on Monday. The Royals did something similar in 2013 when they took on Hunter Dozier with the 13th pick. Dozier signed for $ 2.2 million, taking less money than the eight first-round picks that were picked after him. That year, the Royals selected Sean Manaea with their additional first-round pick and paid him $ 3.3 million.

There’s no guarantee the Royals will do exactly something like that this year, but Moore was keen to stress that he didn’t want to explain everything for strategic reasons just yet with the draft still ongoing.

– JJ Cooper

Why Ty Madden fell and why the tigers are taking advantage

Texas RHP Ty Madden was supposed to be the player to break a surprising streak for Texas. No Longhorn player had been a first-round pick since RHP Taylor Jungmann in 2011.

The sequence continues. Madden slipped into the competitive balancing round. The Tigers finally ended his 32 pick drop.

Madden entered the draft with fastpitch metrics that aren’t what teams are looking for in 2021. He’s got a lot of velocity, but as we wrote last week, he struggles to beat hitters. at the top of the area.

Apparently, this turned off enough teams that Madden was knocked out of the first round. It also means the Tigers had a successful opening day of the draft. Detroit drafted Jackson Jobe, the high school’s best consensus arm in the draft class, with the No.3 pick, then added a college pitcher with a very long track record of success in the competitive balance cycle.

Despite selecting numbers 3 and 32, Detroit landed two of the top four pitchers in the class and was the only team that managed to land not one, but several top 12 talents.

– JJ Cooper