Top hitters in the Draft? Mize a top 10 prospect?

We have to admit it. We’re starting to get Draft fever here at MLB Pipeline. The 2019 Draft is only about a month away, after all, and we’ve been working the phones and talking to scouts as we get ready to start rolling out all of our great coverage leading up to the June 3 start of the three-day event.

So you’ll have to forgive me if this week’s Inbox has a decided Draft flavor to it (and don’t be surprised if that continues). The first two are about the 2019 Draft class in particular and while the next pair of questions are about pro prospects, you’ll see it wasn’t tough to sprinkle a little Draft talk into those as well.

It’s a pretty good year for bats, at least compared to the pitching available for this June’s Draft. And there are many ways you could stack up the high school and college hitters, looking at pure hit tools, or power, or all-around ability. I’m going to go with the last of those options. The way I figure it, teams are scouting them for their all-around ability, so ignoring a tool (like speed or even defense) doesn’t make sense to me. So I guess I’m looking at this question like it’s the best position players in each category. Here’s how it lines up:

High school: Bobby Witt, Jr., SS (Colleyville Heritage HS, Texas); CJ Abrams, SS (Blessed Trinity Catholic HS, Ga.); Riley Greene, OF (Hagerty HS, Fla.); Corbin Carroll, OF (Lakeside HS, Wash.); Brett Baty, 3B (Lake Travis HS, Texas).

Witt Jr. has the best package of tools among the high school group and Abrams is super-athletic with a very high ceiling. If you were going to do it based only on pure bat, Greene would go in the top spot.

College: Adley Rutschman, C, Oregon State; Andrew Vaughn, 1B, Cal; JJ Bleday, OF, Vanderbilt; Hunter Bishop, OF, Arizona State; Bryson Stott, SS, UNLV.

This is a very solid group, and I could see all five of these guys coming off the board in the top half of the first round. Rutschman continues to be the best all-around player in the class, with plus tools on both sides of the ball at a premium position. Vaughn might be the best pure college bat, Stott is the most toolsy, and plays up the middle, while Bleday and Bishop have improved their stock more than most other Draft prospects this spring.

Does he have the chance? Sure. Do I see it happening? Not so much. Allow me to elaborate.

Stewart, of course, was the No. 8 overall pick in last year’s Draft, taken by the Braves. But then there were concerns about a wrist issue and the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement. The right-hander decommitted from Mississippi State and stayed close to home at Eastern Florida State Junior College, making him eligible again this year.

There are two reasons why it’s unlikely he’ll go as high as he did a year ago. The first, obviously, is the health concern. Though he hasn’t missed time during his JUCO season, some teams won’t want to go near the medical flags. The other is that his stuff has been very inconsistent, which of course leads some to wonder about that wrist. At times, he’s had the electric fastball and outstanding curveball that made him a top 10 pick last June. At other times, he’s been much more pedestrian and hittable.

While Stewart was No. 7 on our Top 50 Draft list in December, that was before he had thrown a pitch this spring. You’ll see he’s moving down quite a bit on our new Top 100, which comes out later this week, because of the aforementioned question marks, which will have to be answered for a team to take him in the first round.

We’ve been talking a lot about Mize of late, and for good reason. Last year’s No. 1 overall pick has lived up to every bit of the hype so far during his first full season of pro ball with the Tigers. After giving up just one earned run over 26 innings in the Florida State League, he got promoted to Double-A and tossed a nine-inning no-hitter in his debut there. So he’s given up just one run on seven hits over 35 IP (0.26 ERA and a .065 batting average against), walking just two and striking out 32.

In other words, he’s performed as the best pitching prospect in baseball so far. Top pitching prospect Forrest Whitley has struggled in Triple-A and Jesus Luzardo has been hurt, while MacKenzie Gore has also been very good. Those are the three arms ahead of Mize, No. 16 on the Top 100, presently.

I think it’s not going out on a limb to say he’s going to move up when we re-rank, and he could even move up when we do our market corrections before that. But I would caution about going too nuts just yet. He’s yet to surpass the 50 career innings mark, after all (Repeat after me: Small Sample Size.). Now, I have full confidence he’ll continue to pitch very well this year, though to expect this kind of domination is probably unfair. Assuming he continues to be very good, seeing Mize in the top 10 overall, if not the top five, sounds about right.

Alec Hansen, the White Sox’s second-round pick (see how I keep the theme going?) in 2016, has indeed only been pitching out of the bullpen so far this year. And he’s looked very good doing it, at least in terms of his overall numbers. In eight outings spanning 10 2/3 IP, he’s struck out 20 and allowed just one hit. He has given up three runs, all in his outing on Tuesday, thanks to the three walks he gave up (of the five he’s issues this season). Needless to say, Chicago’s No. 15 prospect and his power stuff works well in shorter stints, though he’s been more 93-96 mph so far this year than the upper-90s he’s hit in the past.

But this isn’t a full-time move, at least not yet. After Hansen missed two months of last year with forearm soreness and wasn’t the same upon his return, the White Sox are easing him back into the season with the intent to keep him healthy. But the intention is to get him back into a rotation at an appropriate pace, so expect him to start getting stretched out, perhaps a bit slowly, so he can keep amassing innings and working on all of his stuff. Given the injury and command concerns, however, it shouldn’t shock anyone if he does end up in a bullpen long-term, but it’s too soon to make that a permanent move now.