With our newly minted Draft Top 100 list out, we’ve been spending a lot of time talking and thinking about the 2021 Draft class. We did a breakdown of the Top 100, we did a way-too-early mock of the top 10 picks and we focused on the ’21 Draft for the entirety of our most recent Pipeline Podcast. We even answered a ton of questions from you on Twitter.

So it only stands to reason that I’d want to keep it going for this week’s Pipeline Inbox, right? There were still so many Draft-related questions, both from my initial call for Inbox queries as well as from the Twitter Q&A to more than fill up this week’s edition, starting with a pair of questions we answered on the podcast:

What's your take on outfielder James Wood?
-- @LPnyC84

If Kahlil Watson shows out over the course of this draft cycle, how high could he rise in this Draft class?
-- @thebettermarkle

Wood and Watson come in at No. 14 and No. 15, respectively, on the Top 100, so it’s clear we think highly of both high schoolers. Both have very high ceilings and either/both of them could climb into the top 10 with strong, consistent spring performances.

For Wood, it’ll be him having to show that the player who was as good as any high school position player over the first half of the summer is who he is, not the one who showed too much swing-and-miss in the second part of the showcase circuit. Those who saw him late didn’t think he was a first-rounder, let alone one who belonged near the top. With Watson, it’s more a concern with his volatile on-field behavior than anything, with tremendous tools and the ability to play shortstop. In both cases, we think they’re going to perform enough to belong or we wouldn’t have put them in the top 15.

I’m more concerned, and said so on the podcast, on what makes you the “better markle.” I’m curious to know what the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, ever did to you to deserve such derision.

In your June 17th list you had Jack Leiter at 2, on your new list you have dropped him to 6th and behind another college pitcher, Jaden Hill. Also what is the reasoning for Hill going from 15 to 5?
-- @BocephusIII

When I first put together that 2021 Draft top 20 list back in June, I’ll be the first to admit I did so with very little information. That was not long after the 2020 Draft had been completed and at that point in time, there had been zero summer action after a spring that had been shut down in March. There was a lot of guesswork based on a small sample size or the previous summer and year.

Since that time, the main things that have happened to provide some information are the high school summer showcase circuit, which was completed pretty much in its entirety, and fall baseball at colleges. Yes, there was no Cape Cod League, but there were some performances in some other leagues (the Florida Collegiate League had some legitimate talent, for example) that helped inform some opinions.

Now, there’s still more unknown about this next class than perhaps any other future class in Draft history because of the overall lack of looks. But there was enough to see high school shortstop Jordan Lawlar play his way to the No. 2 spot behind Rocker. Both Matt McLain and Adrian Del Castillo swung the bat well this fall, with McLain showing he’s ready to play shortstop to boot, to move up to 3 and 4.

Now, for Hill, the guy you point out went from 15 to 5 to move Leiter to No. 6 overall. He was lower on the list back in June because he hadn’t been seen much. He had elbow issues in 2019, so he made only two starts, and he pitched out of the bullpen to start 2020 before the shutdown. But he only had 21 2/3 innings on his college resume. That’s where fall baseball comes in. Working as a starter for LSU, the strong, athletic and physical right-hander who was once a top-notch quarterback recruit was up to 99 mph with his fastball and throwing his usual plus changeup and a much-improved breaking ball. Thus the move up.

Now, he has to go out and prove it, just like Rocker, Leiter and all the rest do. Those are the top three college arms in the class and they could conceivably end up in any order by the time the Draft rolls around in July.

How does Round 1 of this Draft compare to last year? and the depth?
-- @Y2banana

I don’t know if you’ve gotten this from a lot of what we’ve said and written, but there is so much unknown about this upcoming Draft class, that this one is a hard one to answer. I polled a selection of scouting directors and national scouts to get a sense of what they felt about it and got a lot of question marks back in return. A sampling:

“The overall unknown ... causes some uncertainty” -- especially as it pertains to the college class.

“Overall, I think there is uncertainty from both the high school and college players.”

One scouting director did relay he felt the top of last year’s class was better and more defined than this year, but that this class overall is deeper than a year ago. Another national scout liked the breakdown of “quadrants” that appeared in our Top 100 story, which basically can be whittled down to a ranking like this:

1. High school position players: above-average to good
2. College pitching: above-average to good
3. College bats: average, but hard to assess
4. High school pitching: down a bit

Some of that, as scouts have admitted, comes from familiarity bias. The high school guys were seen much more in the summer and fall. On the flip side, as one national crosschecker told me, that provides a larger group than normal of college players waiting to make that jump into the first round and push some high school players down with a strong spring.