Nationals Arm Race

2016’s version of this post.

Its Draft Day!

The 2017 MLB rule-4 (Amateur) draft starts  6/12/17 at 7pm.  The MLB Network will have full coverage of the first round of picks. This post is my dumping ground of draft coverage for 2017.

This post uses last year’s format, with links to use to see draft prospect rankings, links to help cover the draft (which I personally come back to time and time again), some blurbs on local players of interest, and then links to a bunch of mock drafts.

Draft Coverage so far at NAR for 2017:

• Local Draft prospects of note for 2017: namely, J.B. Bukauskas, Adam Haseley and Pavin Smith (see more below)
• Mock Draft Overview for 2017.  The same top 5 names seem to appear … and the Nats are more and more rumored towards a problem child.

Draft Links of importance

• MLB.com Official 2017 Draft Central home page.
• MLB’s Awesome 2017 Draft Tracker; you can slice and dice the draft 10 different ways, search by schools and home states, etc.
• Official MLB 2017 Draft Order, including slot values for the first few rounds. Nats pick 25th, then 65th, then 103rd, then 133rd and 30 more each add’l round.
  
• Official Draft Bonus Pool totals for 2017.  Minnesota most with $14M, Nats have about $5.5M.
• MLB Draft Database for all past drafts.
• Baseball-Reference Draft Tools: links to their draft database plus some custom reports.
• MinorLeagueBall.com’s 2017 Player profile index; an index of their profiles of all the top-end draft prospects for this year.

Here’s a slew of Draft Prospect rankings : these are NOT the same as mock drafts; these are independent rankings of the players without consideration to draft considerations.  Apologies in advance; many of these are insider/subscription.  Fork over the dollars and subscribe and support baseball coverage that you like!

(Pundits to track: D1Baseball, ESPN Law, MLBpipeline, MinorleagueBall, USAToday, BaseballAmerica, PerfectGame, Scout.com, MLBDraftReport, BeyondtheBoxScore)

• D1baseball early top 100 HS/Prep Draft Prospects 12/2/2016: Greene, Adell, Lewis, Rogers, Hall.  No DC/MD/VA players in their early top 100 list, but two UVA commits here (Andrew Papantonis, Devin Ortiz)
  
• D1Baseball early top 100 College Draft Prospects 12/9/16: Kendall, Wright, Faedo, Bukauskas, Houck.  Other players with local ties mentioned include Pavin Smith, Kevin Smith, Adam Haseley, Ernie Clement, Hunter Williams plus a few others who might be top-10 round picks.
• BaseballAmerica top 200 Draft Prospects 5/4/17: Greene, McKay, Wright, Gore, Lewis.
• BaseballAmerica Top 500 Draft Prospects 6/5/17: Greene, Wright, McKay, Gore, Lewis.  Filterable by State, which is awesome.
• Fangraphs/Eric Longenhagen 2017 Sortable top 50 Draft Board 5/23/17: Wright, Greene, Gore, Lewis, McKay.
• MLBPipeline (Jim Callis/Jonathan Mayo) top 100 Draft Prospects: 5/26/17: Greene, McKay, Wright, Lewis, Gore.
• MLBPipeline (Callis & Mayo): top 200 draft prospects dated 6/5/17: Greene, McKay, Wright, Gore, Lewis.
• MinorLeagueBall.com (Michael Cook) Top 151 Draft Prospects 5/15/17: Greene, McKay, Adell, Wright, Bukauskas.
• ESPN (Keith Law) Top 100 “Big Board” Draft prospect rankings 6/7/17: Greene, Wright, McKay, Gore, Lewis.

Notice how nearly EVERY list has Greene as the best prospect in this draft?  That’s pretty consistent view … but there’s no chance that Greene goes #1 overall.  So thanks to the perverse risks associated with drafting prep kids, yet again we will likely see the best prospect not getting taken #1 overall.  This seems to happen nearly every year since the Strasburg/Harper drafts.   In 2011, Gerrit Cole went 1-1 when Anthony Rendon should have been.  In 2012 i think the “right guy” went 1-1 (Carlos Correa).  Imagine the Astros right now had they taken Kris Bryant instead of Mark Appel (who didn’t sign and who has yet to matriculate to the majors) in 2013 1-1 overall.  Brady Aiken 1-1 overall in 2014 was defensible at the time … but Carlos Rodon was the presumed 1-1 heading into the spring season.   I don’t think anyone disputes the Dansby Swanson 1-1 pick in 2015 (it was a weak class), but few think that Mickey Moniak was the best prospect in the 2016 class (most had it as Jason Groome or Riley Pint;  Groome fell to 12th thanks to some off-the-field stuff and is now hurt while Pint is struggling in low-A).  So its good to be the 2nd team picking this year.

Now, some news about College Players with local ties who are serious draft candidates (meaning first couple of rounds projected or present on top 100 draft ranking lists).  Note that I’ve got a far, far larger list of local players that I’ll follow-up on after the draft; these are just the significant/top 10 round types.

• J.B. Bukauskas: has had a fantastic junior season and has become perhaps the 2nd best collegiate pitcher this class.  Still undersized … but there are some 6’0″ guys with success in the majors right now.
• Adam Haseley: has rocketed up draft boards by being perhaps the 2nd best two way player in college baseball.  Upper 1st round talent.
• Pavin Smith: 1B only but a sweet, solid bat.  Upper 1st round talent.

At this point, all three of these players are projecting in the first half of the first round; no other local player seems close.  There’s a slew of other local college kids mentioned in the BA top 200, which means they’re all likely 5th-8th round material.

Local Prep players of note who are serious draft candidates: none this year.  Unlike last year, where Joe Rizzo and Khalil Lee both were top 5 round picks, there’s nobody anywhere in the DC/MD/VA landscape that is threatening to be a top-end prep pick (at least as far as I can tell right now).

Nats Re-Draft players of interest: these are guys who the Nats have previously drafted but who did not sign.  Using the Nats Draft Tracker as a guide, here’s some prep guys we drafted generally in 2014 who are now rising college juniors and are bigger names in this draft:

• Stuart Fairchild, OF from Wake Forest: we drafted him in the 38th round in 2014; he’s now perhaps projected mid 2nd round.
• Evan Skoug, C from TCU: we drafted him in the 34th round in 2014; now he’s perhaps projected as a 3rd rounder.
• Tommy Doyle, RHP from Flint Hill HS/UVA: we drafted him in the 35th round in 2014, probably as a hat-tip to a local kid more than a possible signee.  He’s projected as a 6th rounder after a decent career at UVA coverting to relief.
• Quinn Brodey, RHP from Stanford: we drafted him in the 37th round in 2016; now he’s perhaps a 6th-7th rounder projected.
• Morgan Cooper: RHP from UTexas; we drafted him in the 34th round last  year in 2016: he chose to stay in school to build value and now is projected as a 5th-6th rounder.
• Tristan Clarke and Cory Voss: two Juco draftees from 2016 who are draft eligible for 2017.  Clarke started for UNO and put up solid numbers, albeit in the weaker Southland conference.  Voss only played part-time at UofA and isn’t a draft prospect.
• Other Prep draftees in 2014 not mentioned here who are not draft prospects:
  • Elliot Cary was a part-time player hitting .219 for Oregon State this year
  • Clay Casey appears to have transferred yet again, playing 2017 for Delta State and slugging his way to a 17-homer season.
  • Jon Little slashed.267/.351/.420 his junior year, starting in the OF.
  • John Henry Styles has had just one appearance this entire season, and he failed to retire a batter.

Mock Drafts

See separate Mock Draft post.

Carter Kieboom is the first pick of the Nats in 2016’s draft. Photo via PerfectGame

It was a strange first two days of the draft, with no consensus 1-1 overall, some very last minute moves, and some pretty surprising picks.  For me, the best player in this draft (NJ prep LHP Jason Groome) fell all the way to 12th and the Phillies picked a kid 1-1 overall in Mickey Moniak who seems to have the ceiling of a weaker Steve Finley.  We saw a consensus top-5 pick test positive for PEDs (Delvin Perez), and a sub-par CWS appearance cost A.J. Puk millions of dollars as he falls from everyone’s 1-1 prediction to #6 overall.

The Nats seemed to really depart from the draft strategy we’ve seen the Mike Rizzo-led front office follow in the past, where they normally focused on college arms with an occasional high-ceiling prep bat.  Here’s a quick look at the top 10 draft picks with some thoughts.

Pick by Pick: if they’re ranked on the four main rankings sites I like (Keith Law, MLBpipeline, BaseballAmerica, and BaseballDraftReport) I’ll note them as such.  Links to these three master rankings are at the bottom of the post.

• 1s/28: Carter Kieboom, SS/3B from Georgia HS.  Law #27, MLB #45, BA #44, BDR #14:  Brother of our budding C prospect Spencer Kieboom, Carter is thought to be the best of three baseball playing brothers.  Described consistently as a great hitter, one of the best prep hitters in the class, he currently plays SS but is projected to move to 3B.  He’s an overdraft according to MLB and BA but right in line with Law’s rankings (Law tends to favor toolsy prep players over lower floor/lower ceiling college guys).  My thoughts: very surprising first pick here; as we soon find out, the team is clearly focusing on bats this year and has no qualms about picking a guy who won’t feature for the MLB team for years.  Update: he’s *already* signed!
• 1s/29: Dane Dunning, RHP starter/reliever from Florida.  Law #25, MLB #59, BA #60, BDR unranked. Once again, Law has this player significantly higher than MLB or BA.  For me its notable that when projected 1-1 pick A.J. Puk got hit around in the CWS regional, it was Dunning who came in and pitchd 3 2/3rds of 1-hit ball to win the game for Florida.  It wouldn’t be the first time that a college coach mis-used a quality arm (see Illinois using Tyler Jay inexplicably as a closer most of last year).  Dunning goes before even his team’s friday starter Logan Shore and surprised the heck out of me.  Especially when you consider who was still on the board in terms of college arms (notably Anthony Kay and Dakota Hudson, both of whom went in the picks just after Dunning.  I’m talking myself into Dunning though; he was on my very early list for upper 1st round talents anyway, and seems like he was a better pro prospect than guys pitching ahead of him in the Florida rotation.  Florida is known as a great program for developing arms, and he comes to the Nats without a ton of use.
• 2nd/58: Sheldon Neuse, SS/3B Oklahoma.  Law #60, MLB #50, BA #129, BDR #40.  Interesting discrepancy of opinion on Neuse; MLB likes him a ton and thinks the Nats got good value.  He’s a 3-time all-Big12 pick who likely moves to third in pro ball and also throws out of the Oklahoma bullpen (so there’s a reliever fall back; he’s clocked at 94).  At the plate, he’s got a ton of power, profiles as a 3-true outcomes guy and drastically improved his walk rate this year.  The scouting reports also think his big arm could profile in RF, and his size could look promising behind the plate.  He sounds like a polished college hitter with some pop, not unlike last year’s 3rd rounder Rhett Wiseman.
• 3rd/94: Jesus Nuzardo, LHP from Florida HS.  Law #42, MLB #77, BA #50, BDR #58.  The Nats special; a Tommy John reclamation project.  Nuzardo was projecting as a mid 1st rounder early this spring before blowing out the elbow; if he comes back to form, then the Nats just stole a 1st round talent in the 3rd round.  You’d have to think that Nuzardo’s advisor will tell him that it makes more sense to join the Nats and their experienced TJ-rehab team than to head to Miami, but we’ll see what happens.
• 4th/124: Nick Banks, OF from Texas A&M.  Law Unranked, MLB #101, BA #88, BDR #148.  I love this pick; Banks led the US Collegiate national team in hitting just last summer, but his stats backed up after he had a minor surgical procedure.  Skills don’t erode overnight, and Banks was thought to be a mid 1st round pick who slid precipitously.  I think the Nats got an absolute steal here and Banks will be a stud for this team for years to come.
• 5th/154: Daniel Johnson, OF from New Mexico State.  BA #222.  Johnson was the WAC player of the year, hit for power and average.  Barely rated and seems like he’ll sign for slot or less.  Sounds like a nice little value pick.
• 6th/184: Tres Barrera, C from Texas.  Law unranked, MLB #194, BA #284, BDR unraked.  A Catcher who had the defensive flexibility to move around as the Texas team needed him.  This is more than just a filler pick at this point; i’m guessing he signs for a bit less than slot and could feature later on.
• 7th/214: Jacob Noll, 2B from Florida Gulf Coast.  BA #240, BDR #193: Nice slash line for a senior, even if it was in a weaker conference.  367/.427/.620 .  Classic senior sign; 6th-10th round, middle infielder, likely a nominal bonus to save cash for later.  Can’t argue with the pick.
• 8th/244: A.J. Bogucki: RHP reliever from UNC.  BA #263, BDR #388.  Nice stats for a guy at this point: 9.48 K/9 – 4.47 BB/9 – 50.1 IP – 2.86 ERA.  Good MPH on his fastball, looks a little wild though.  I wonder if he signs.  Still has a year of eligibility and he’s in that area where they’re looking for bonus savings.
• 9th/274: Joey Harris, C from Gonzaga; unranked anywhere.  Classic college senior sign who likely backs up Barrera at Auburn.
• 10th/304: Paul Panaccione, Sr. SS from Grand Canyon U.  See 9th round pick; likely a one-and-done middle infielder for Auburn in 2016.

First 10 rounds worth of picks breakdown:

• 8 Position players, just 3 arms.
• 9 College, 2 prep (typical)
• 3 clear senior sign/save on bonus money that I could tell (Noll, Harris, Panaccione)
• 2 more in Johnson and Barrera who could be targeted for under-slot deals
• Regional breakdown: 5 from SouthEast (Georgia, Florida, North Carolina), 5 from the South West (Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona), and one from the upper NW (Washington).

Conclusion: I like the first four picks, a lot.  Keith Law liked the Nats first couple of days too.    I like the focus on hitters after years of focus on arms.  I like the underrated pick up of Dunning over other “big name” guys who may be overrated.   I love the Banks pick; think its a steal not  unlike the situation where Rendon fell to the Nats because of a short-term injury concern.  I know practically nothing of anyone after Banks.

What do you guys think of it?

Draft Links of Use

• MLB.com Official 2016 Draft Central home page.
• MLB’s Awesome 2016 Draft Tracker; you can slice and dice the draft 10 different ways, search by schools and home states, etc.
• Official MLB 2016 Draft Order. Per my “evolving draft order” xls online, The Nats forfeited what would have been the #16 pick and now their first two picks are #28 and #29.  After that, they pick 58th, 94th, 124th and then +30 picks there after per round.
  
• Official Draft Bonus Pool totals for 2016.  Reds and Phillies have the most ($13M+).  Nats have $7.6M
• MLB Draft Database for all past databases.
• Fangraphs Sortable Draft Board; a great new tool Fangraphs has that lets you slice and dice their top draft board.
• Baseball-Reference Draft Tools: links to their draft database plus some custom reports.
• Baseball America’s 2016 Draft Order

Draft Rankings referred to within here:

• ESPN/Keith Law‘s June “Draft Big Board” (insider only)
• MLBpipeline’s top 200 draft prospects:
• Baseball America’s top 500 draft prospects
• BaseballDraftReport big 500.

Kansas prep star (and subject of Jeff Passan’s latest book “The Arm”) Riley Pint may not go #1 overall, but he’ll be close. Photo via thatballsouttahere.com

The MLB rule-4 (Amateur) draft starts tonight, 6/9/16 at 7pm.  The MLB Network will have full coverage of the first round of picks. This post is my dumping ground of draft coverage for 2016.

This post uses last year’s format, with links to use to see draft prospect rankings, links to help cover the draft (which I personally come back to time and time again), some blurbs on local players of interest, and then links to a bunch of mock drafts.

Draft Coverage so far at NAR for 2016:

• Here’s the big post on all marquee DC/MD/VA prep players ahead of the 2016 season (only guys who are “significant” draft prospects are mentioned here).
• Here’s the same for DC/MD/VA tied College players
• After the draft happens, I’ll review both of the above posts and list who actually got picked and who’s going to school.

Draft Links of importance

• MLB.com Official 2016 Draft Central home page.
• MLB’s Awesome 2016 Draft Tracker; you can slice and dice the draft 10 different ways, search by schools and home states, etc.
• Official MLB 2016 Draft Order. Per my “evolving draft order” xls online, The Nats forfeited what would have been the #16 pick and now their first two picks are #28 and #29.  After that, they pick 58th, 94th, 124th and then +30 picks there after per round.
  
• Official Draft Bonus Pool totals for 2016.  Reds and Phillies have the most ($13M+).  Nats have $7.6M
• MLB Draft Database for all past databases.
• Fangraphs Sortable Draft Board; a great new tool Fangraphs has that lets you slice and dice their top draft board.
• Baseball-Reference Draft Tools: links to their draft database plus some custom reports.
• Baseball America’s 2016 Draft Order

Here’s a slew of Draft Prospect rankings : these are NOT the same as mock drafts; see further down for those.  You’re going to see the same locally tied names on nearly all of these lists; they’re all individually profiled further below.

• D1baseball HS top 100 players with commitments for 2016 (most of it behind a pay-wall).  UVA stands to lose three significant recruits being ranked in their top 100 right now.
  
• D1Baseball.com’s Top 150 Draft Prospects (mostly behind a pay-wall): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
  
• ESPN/Keith Law‘s May 2016 Top 100 Draft Prospects (ESPN insider): Ray, Groome, Perez, Moniak, Puk.
  
• ESPN/Keith Law‘s June “Draft Big Board” (insider only): Ray, Groome, Perez, Puk, Moniak
• Law’s last minute updated Big Board:
• ESPN/Jim Bowden‘s “Big Board” (insider only): Groome, Senzel, Moniak, Perez, Lewis
• MLBpipeline’s top 100 draft prospects: Groome, Pint, Ray, Lewis, Puk
• MLBpipeline’s top 200 draft prospects: same as above
• Minorleagueball.com’s 151 Draft prospects (by unknown author “cookiedabookie”): Lewis, Groome, Puk, Pint, Rutherford
• USAToday/Frankie Piliere‘s top 30 Draft Prospects: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
• BeyondtheBoxScore.com/Carl Triano‘s Stat-based top Draft Prospect Rankings
• Baseball America’s top 500 draft prospects: Puk, Pint, Groome, Lewis, Moniak
• Baseball Prospectus/Chris Crawford Top 50 draft prospects (Premium content)
• PerfectGame.org’s Top 100 Prospects: Groome, Pint, Ray, Rutherford, Puk (full list premium content)
• Scout.com’s Jeff Ellis draft prospect Rankings: Part 1 (1-51) and Part 2 (52-102): Rutherford, Senzel, Moniak, Groome, Ray
• Ellis’ final Prospect rankings: Rutherford, Senzel, Moniak, Groome, Ray
• MLBDraftReport’s Top 500 Draft Ranking; not doing a big master list, instead he’s doing per-position rankings

Now, some news about College Players with local ties who are serious draft candidates (meaning first couple of rounds projected or present on top 100 draft ranking lists).  Note that I’ve got a far, far larger list of local players that I’ll follow-up on after the draft; these are just the significant/top 10 round types.

• Connor Jones, UVA RHP via Great Bridge; at this point perhaps the 2nd or 3rd best college pitching prospect thanks to fall-offs from a number of other candidates.  Probably a mid-1st rounder, though some pundits (Keith Law) have him rated far lower.
• Buddy Reed, OF from Florida via Finksburg, MD (NW of Baltimore).  Probably a late first rounder or sandwich pick, perhaps lower.
• Matt Thaiss, UVA C who has shot up the rankings; now projected as early 2nd rounder.  Keith Law likes him as a late 1st rounder.
• Mike Shawaryn: RHP for Maryland; stock has really fallen this season; now perhaps just a 4th rounder.  A late season push improved his draft status somewhat.
• Andrew Knizner, C from NC State by way of Glen Allen, VA: gritty ballplayer who has played his way into perhaps 5th round discussions.
• Errol Robinson, SS from Ole Miss by way of Maryland; struggled badly this season, dropping his stock from early 2nd round projections; no idea where he’s project to go now.

Local Prep players of note who are serious draft candidates:

• Joe Rizzo, INF for Oakton HS.  Remains the highest ranked local draft prospect, projecting as anywhere between a mid-1st rounder and an early 2nd rounder.  South Carolina commit.  MLBpipeline.com’s write-up profiles his draft prospects the best.
• Khalil Lee LHP/OF for Flint Hill.  Some have him 2nd-3rd round, others have him projected 4th-5th.  Part of the confusion is where to play him; he was an undersized speedy CF candidate… then suddenly flashed low 90s off the mound as a lefty starter this year.  Liberty commit.
• Zack Hess, 1B/OF from Liberty Christian Academy (Lynchburg).  3rd round projection.  LSU commit.
• Noah Murdock, a RHP from Colonial Heights (Richmond).  4th round projection by rank, UVA commit.
• Garrett Stallings, RHP from Grassfield HS.  Not generally listed but may be rising, Tennessee commit.

Re-draft players of interest to Nats fans:  these are re-drafts that have come back up.  See the Draft Tracker for underclassmen draftees from last year and/or Prep draftees from 2013 who are now draft eligible again.

• Garrett Hampson, SS from Long Beach State.  Nats 2013 26th round pick, now projecting as a 5th or 6th rounder.
• Reid Humphreys, RHP/OF two-way player from Mississippi State.  Nats 2013 36th rounder, now projecting as a 4th/5th rounder.
• Shaun Anderson, RHP from Florida.  Nats 2013 40th rounder, now projecting as a late 3rd rounder.
• John Reeves, C from Rice.  Nats 2015 20th rounder who started 56 games for the CWS-bound Rice team and hit above .300; looks like a good choice to return to school.
• Alec Rash, RHP from Missouri: Nats 23rd round pick in 2015.  Quit baseball altogether last fall to pursue collegiate basketball.
• Blake Smith, RHP from WVA: Nats 24th round pick in 2015: posted a 2.20 ERA as West Virginia’s closer for the season with 8 saves and 25 appearances.
• Mack Lemieux, LHP from Jupiter HS and then Palm Beach State CC.  Nats 14th round pick in 2015.

Mock Drafts

Every year I say i’ll stay away from the Mock Draft links … and every year I come back.  Here’s a running collection.  DCProSports.com has a master list of Mock drafts at this link that has many more than I’ve got listed below.

• Fangraphs/Scott Moore‘s Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Lewis, Puk, Pint.
• BaseballAmerica/Hudson Belinsky‘s Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Pint, Puk, Perez.
• BaseballAmerica/Hudson Belinsky‘s Mock #2: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Ray.
• BaseballAmerica/John Manuel Mock #1: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Groome.
• BaseballAmerica/John Manual BA Mock #4: Moniak, Puk, Ray, Lewis, Pint
• Manual Mock #5: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
• ESPN/Keith Law Mock #1 (Insider only): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
• ESPN/Keith Law Mock #2 (Insider only): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Moniak, Perez.
• ESPN/Keith Law Mock #3: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray
• ESPN/Keith Law Final Mock: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
• D1baseball.com/Frankie Piliere Mock #1: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
• D1baseball.com/Frankie Piliere Mock #2: Puk, Lewis, Ray, Groome, Perez
• MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis Mock #1: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Moniak, Ray.
• MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis  Mock #2: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Moniak, Perez.
• MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis Final Mock: Moniak, Senzel, Ray, Puk, Collins
• MLBPipeline.com/Jonathan Mayo Mock #1: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Groome, Perez.
• MLBPipeline.com/Jonathan Mayo Final Mock: Moniak, Senzel, Ray, Puk, Rutherford
• MinorLeagueBall Mock #1 Part one and Part two: Lewis, Puk, Groome, Rutherford, Moniak
• Scout.com/Taylor Ward Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Rutherford, Lewis, Ray
• Scout.com/Taylor Ward Mock #2: Puk, Ray, Lewis, Groome, Rutherford.
  
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #1: Groome, Hansen, Puk, Moniak, Pint
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #2: Senzel, Perez, Ray, Groome, Rutherford
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #3: Garrett, Groome, Rutherford, Senzel, Perez
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #4: Puk, Perez, Ray, Moniak, Rutherford
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #5: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Rutherford
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis final Mock: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
• NatsGM.com/Ryan Sullivan‘s Mock #1: Puck, Senzel, Lewis, Groome, Perez
• Si.com/Chris Crawford‘s Last minute Mock Draft: Puk. Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray
• Baseball Prospectus; have not seen any mock drafts from BP this year.
  
• PerfectGame.org Mock Drafts are Insider/Premium only; this link is to their 2016 Draft Coverage home page.
  

Todd Boss’ Mock draft?  Based on my vast level of expertise (sarcasm) and the thousands of man hours i’ve put in scouting players in person and cultivating industry sources (also sarcasm), and instead reading the tea leaves of the gazillion other mock drafts, I’ll take this as my initial guess for the top 5: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Moniak

The only thing that gives me pause is this: Puk *stunk* in the regional.  4 and a third, 5 hits and 5 runs given up to UConn.  Sorry; if you’re going to go 1-1 you need to do an outing like 7ip, 4hits, 10ks, 0 walks in your swan song.  I wonder if that was enough to have Philly move to a different pick.  And Perez just got popped for failing a drug test, instantly removing him from top-5 consideration.  So, given Puk’s stinker most of the last minute mocks have Philly off of Puk and doing Moniak as an under-slot deal.  And I can’t disagree.  So my final mock will be: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray

And this top 5 means that Groome and Pint (who I think are the two best talents in this draft) fall to teams outside the top 5 and they’re going to be absolutely ecstatic.

ACTUAL DRAFT Results: Moniak, Senzel, Anderson (??), Pint and Ray.  Just like everyone predicted.

Who are the Nats going to take at #28 and #29?

No frigging idea.  Lots of these Mock drafts attempt to guess, to put some names with the Nats down that far.  But consider the 2011 draft.  Everyone had Anthony Rendon going 1-1.  Suddenly he slips and the Nats grab him at #6 in a total gift.  The point is this: we have no idea how even the top 5 picks will go, so predicting what’s going to happen at pick #6 is folly, let alone #28.  Nats will take BPA, probably will mix up a safer pick (aka college arm) with a riskier pick (aka a high school bat) and go back to back $2M bonus slots.  I also like the running theory that the nats will get the Scott Boras special and “package” two Boras clients together at 28/29 and basically split the bonus pools.  Names often mentioned here include Kyle Funkhauser and the prep pitcher/basketball player Matt Manning.  One would be an over draft, one would be a steal if he gets here.  We’ll see.

This is the most exciting thing Phillies fans have seen in the last 6 weeks. Photo phillymag.com

First off; congrats to the Philadelphia Phillies, who thanks to late season collapse basically have locked up the #1 overall pick in 2016.  A five game game “lead” for the #1 overall pick next  year with just nine games left on your season is pretty unassailable, especially when you look at the lineups they’re putting out as of late.  Here’s the Reverse Standings for 2015.  And here’s the official 2016 draft order from MLB.

Your Washington Nationals are drafting 18th overall.  This is a somewhat precarious spot to be; high enough to guarantee a decent talent, low enough to tempt General Managers to punt the unprotected pick with a QO-attached free agent signing.  Somehow I doubt the Nats will go that route but you never know; the departures of our nine projected free agents will free up north of $60M of 2015 payroll, and you have to think Rizzo will be spending some of that to bolster the squad.

The top of the 2016 draft looks pretty amazing, and across the board pundits are talking about the strength of the 2016 class over the 2015 class.  I heard one pundit say that just 2-3 of the guys who went top10 this year would also go top-10 next year.  Here’s the leaders in the clubhouse for #1 overall pick next summer:

• Alex Hansen: RHP from U of Oklahoma with a huge arm (94-98), huge size (6’8″) and who is improving.
• AJ Puk: LHP from U of Florida; 2nd in the nation in K/9 last year as a sophomore friday starter for one of the best teams in the nation in the toughest conference … and will only get better.
• Blake Rutherford: OF from Chaminade Prep in LA; basically has starred at every prep event he can enter (18-U National team member as a *junior*, USA tourney of Stars MVP, great showing at the Area Code Games).
• Jason Groome: LHP from the IMG Academy.  Vanderbilt commit.  another USA tourney of Stars and Area code Game all-star, sits 91 and  hits 95 as a 17-yr old.  Attends the IMG Academy, formerly the Nick Bolloteri tennis academy but now basically a pro-prep HS with a $70k annual tuition that is rapidly becoming the best athletics school in the nation irrespective of the sport.  This is good b/c IMG has great in-house talent and will play a fantastic schedule of elite Florida programs and national invite tournaments since, well, the whole point of going there is to prepare yourself for drafting.
• Riley Pint: RHP from Kansas, LSU commit.  Sits 92-95 and can hit 98, again as a 17yr old, so he projects pretty well.

Most of the pundits I read put one of these 5 guys as the #1 overall pick this year.  The Phillies have a new management team and may go the “safer” route with a college hurler (Puk or Hansen), but the only bat on this list (Rutherford) could be the better long term player with less injury risk.

The Braves (currently slotted for #3 overall pick) have to be pretty darn excited with their prospects; no matter who the Phillies and Reds ahead of them pick, they’ll still get to choose from several #1 overall quality guys.  Being the Braves, they’ll want to go with one of the Florida kids (Puk or Groome) even though neither hails from the area (Iowa and New Jersey respectably).