Inbox: Ranking the top 15 Draft prospects of 2021-23

We’re now less than four weeks away from the start of the 2023 Draft. That and the College World Series getting ready to get going in Omaha are kind of front of our mind these days. So it shouldn’t surprise you that is the focus of this week’s MLB Pipeline Inbox.

Could you rank the top 15 Draft prospects for the ‘21, ‘22 and ‘23 drafts, based on what was known about them on Draft day? That's a helpful way to weigh the relative strength of the ‘23 Draft class. -- @lot_49

This is a really interesting exercise, one that’s made tougher because of recency bias. What I mean is that it’s very hard to pretend I haven’t seen what, say, Jackson Holliday has done so far in his pro career. But I’m going to give it a shot. Here’s how I would line it up, with year and rank at the time of the Draft (or now for 2023) in parentheses. I do think that the top five this year is as good as we’ve had in some time, but I tried to mix it up a little.

1. Dylan Crews (2023, 1)
2. Paul Skenes (2023, 2)
3. Druw Jones (2022, 1)
4. Jackson Holliday (2022, 2)
5. Marcelo Mayer (2021, 1)
6. Wyatt Langford (2023, 3)
7. Jack Leiter (2021, 2)
8. Walker Jenkins (2023, 4)
9. Max Clark (2023, 5)
10. Jordan Lawlar (2021, 3)
11. Elijah Green (2022, 3)
12. Termarr Johnson (2022, 4)
13. Brooks Lee (2022, 5)
14. Kahlil Watson (2021, 4)
15. Henry Davis (2021, 5)

With Quinn Mathews throwing 156 pitches in his last start and pitching so much in the tournament, does that affect how teams will view him during the Draft? And how do the heavy workloads in college affect pitchers' draft status? -- @johnnyj95513766

Mathews was certainly the talk of Super Regional play, with a 16-strikeout complete-game victory against Texas to force a Game 3, which Stanford won to punch a ticket to Omaha. And yes, he threw 156 pitches in that start, once again bringing up the issue of pitcher usage in the college game. We talked about it at length in this week’s MLB Pipeline Podcast with our guest, Stephen Schoch. Side note, I personally am not as much of an alarmist when it comes to pitch counts as some, but I will say it is concerning that Mathews also threw 114 pitches on June 2 and 66 more on June 5 in regional play, meaning that in nine days, he amassed 336 pitches.

Which brings us to the question at hand: How does that impact his Draft stock? Back in the day, players would get drafted and then have to sit back and watch them potentially get over-used in the College World Series. But with the Draft now in July, what happens in Omaha (and before) can certainly have an impact. I would imagine some teams will pause when discussing Mathews, currently ranked No. 119 on our Draft Top 200. His relative success this year, combined with the dearth of college lefties, pointed to him potentially going higher than that ranking, which is fourth-round territory.

In the end, I think how he’s performed will outweigh concern about usage, meaning the fact that he stepped up in such a huge situation, under a big spotlight, and delivered, will mean more than the pitch count total. He’s not going to pitch the rest of this summer anyway and as my colleague Jim Callis pointed out on the pod, even with all of the caution being shown overall in the game, and the advancements in arm care, pitchers are getting hurt more than ever. So I still think Mathews goes plenty early as one of the better college seniors in the class.

Rank 18-year-old Dylan Crews vs. 18- year-old Max Clark. -- @ballsandgutters

If I’m reading this correctly, and I know that @ballsandgutters is a Pittsburgh guy, I’m thinking he’s using this as an argument that perhaps the Pirates should take Clark, currently our No. 5 Draft prospect, with the top pick, if I say he would rank ahead of the high school version of Crews.

If that’s the case, you’re in luck! There’s no question I would rank current Max Clark ahead of 2020 Dylan Crews. Crews removed his name from the pandemic-shortened Draft, but I was able to find his grades from when he was ranked on our early lists for that year’s class.

Crews (2020): Hit: 50 | Power: 50 | Run: 50 | Arm: 55 | Field: 50 | Overall: 50
Clark (2023): Hit: 60 | Power: 50 | Run: 70 | Arm: 65 | Field: 60 | Overall: 60

Taking Clark based on this does seem pretty straightforward, but it comes with a couple of caveats. The first is that Crews didn’t really have a 2020 senior season of high school. He hadn’t performed great the previous summer and his last year at his Florida high school was cut short by COVID and while scouts liked his offensive upside, many didn’t think he’d stick in center field. In hindsight, some have told me that had he had a full season, he might have performed well enough to get drafted early enough to never head to LSU. The second is that Crews now has three years of outstanding performance in the SEC on his resume and has improved his tools considerably, including proving he can play up the middle long-term. And that shouldn’t be discounted.

How much does an injury hurt the top 5 guys’ Draft position right now? -- @spencer_ogara

Spencer, do you have some kind of inside info we don’t know about?

Assuming not, this is a pretty cut-and-dry answer: Almost not at all. I think the only exception would be if it was a serious injury that kept that prospect from returning to full health. If Paul Skenes had a serious shoulder injury (I even think Tommy John surgery wouldn’t impact his stock THAT much, though probably some), or if one of the hitters had a serious knee injury that impacted their athleticism and speed, that would cause one of this fab five to drop. But assuming and hoping for health, they’re going to stay exactly where they are.