Here’s a quick recap with some thoughts on day 2 of the 2024 MLB Draft, rounds 3-10.
To recap, we picked a college SS/3B, then a college C, then a prep SS with our three day 1 picks.
Reminder: Draft tracking Links
- MLB Draft Tracker: updated for first 10 slots with all the info for our draftees plus Twitter accounts.
- List of all Slot values for 2024
- The Nats Draft Tracker master XLS, which I’m building out for 2024 as we go. With the trade we just made, our bonus pool is 13,895,100, but with the 5% buffer we can go up to 14,589,855 on our first 10 picks and 11th-20th rounders who get more than $150k.
Reminder: Draft Rankings
- Baseball America top 500 Draft Ranks 5/31/24, updated 7/1/24, finalized 7/10/24.
- Prospects1500/Shaun Kernahan top 400 Draft Rank 7/10/24
- ESPN/Kiley McDaniel top 250 Draft Ranks 7/9/24
- MLBpipeline/Mayo & Callis top 250 Draft ranks 5/30/24, expanded to 250 7/1/24
- The Athletic/Keith Law Final top 100 Draft rank 7/9/24
- Fangraphs/Eric Longenhagen 2024 Draft board top 100 7/10/24
- Sporting News/Edward Sutelan 2024 Top 100 7/13/24
- The Athletic/Jim Bowden’s 2024 Draft Top 35 7/13/24
- CBSSports/RJ Anderson Top 30 Draft Rankings 6/14/24
- ProspectsLive Draft top 300 ranks 5/29/24, then finalized 7/11/24. (only top 30 free, rest paywall)
- Baseball Prospectus Final Draft board 7/11/24: behind a paywall.
3rd Round, 79th Overall: Nats take Kevin Bazzell, a College Jr Catcher/3B from Texas Tech.
Ranks by major shops: BA=68, ESPN=59, MLBpipeline=55, Law=35, Fangraphs=63
So, we picked a college catcher in round 2 who was actually ranked BELOW the college catcher we drafted in round 3. Interesting. A couple of the pundits (Law included) really like Bazzell, giving him a 60 hit tool. A 60 hit tool behind the plate has aspirations to Joe Mauer, and (true to Nats form lately) Bazzell also played 3B a lot this year. Despite having mononucleosis earlier this spring he still slashed .306/.401/.473.
Makes me wonder if Lomavita was underslot and Bazzell is over slot?
4th round, 108 overall: Jackson Kent, a LHP starter college Jr from University of Arizona.
Ranks by major shops: BA=138, ESPN=144, MLBpipeline=136, Law=unranked, Fangraphs=unranked, P1500=170,
Finally, we get a pitcher for our pitching starved system, but somehow Kent seems underwhelming. A lefty who posted kind of middle of the road numbers this year (4.08 era, 1.28 whip, about a hit an inning, about a K an inning, .253 BAA) as Arizona’s Friday night starter/ace. His game log from 2024 was rather interesting: his first 11 starts were pristine; almost all quality starts or close to it, a bunch of 6ip-1r type affairs, then his last four starts he got hit hard; gave up 5 in 4 2/3 against Stanford, 5 in 6ip against Utah, 5 in 3IP against Oregon State, and then 7 in 5ip against Cal.
His late season slump was bad enough that Arizona, who was a regional host/top 16 seed, didn’t even use him in the post season as they went 2-and-out. Usually such a wild turnaround indicates injury, but none was reported. Nonetheless, the Jackson Kent of the first 11 starts (2.47 ERA) is obviously the guy we want.
5th round, 141 overall: Randal Diaz, a college Jr SS from Indiana State by way of Puerto Rico.
Ranks: not ranked by anyone
Very little to go on here, other than scouting the stat line. He looked great for a CWS team this year, slashing .360/.437/.632 as a middle infielder with 18 homers. He batted leadoff and played SS and definitely contributed in the CWS regional as they made the regional final before falling to Kentucky.
Is this an under-slot signing? Probably; there’s still top prospects on the board and he’s well off. But, I like what we see here as a sneaky productive possible under-slot player. Interestingly, he had entered the transfer portal after Indiana State’s coach left just after the season ended to take the South Florida job. This likely makes him that much more signable/amenable to go pro.
6th round: 170 overall: Davian Garcia, a college junior RHP from Florida gulf Coast.
Ranks: unranked by all shops
Another unranked draftee likely also means underslot deal. Delving into his numbers this year at FGCU, he started in the bullpen and rose to be their ace starter by season’s end. He ended the year with a 3.03 ERA, 1.21 whip, and 71/20 K/BB in 59IP. 98 on the gun, with good spin and off-speed metrics apparently. I don’t love his mechanics (super inverted W with shoulder subluxation) and he’s kind of wirey/undersized, which screams a) injury and b) reliever, but you can’t teach velocity.
7th round: 200 overall: Robert Cranz, college junior RHP reliever from Oklahoma State.
Ranks: unranked
Another round, another arm, which is good to see. And we return to fertile scouting ground for this team: Oklahoma colleges. Cranz worked out of Oklahoma State’s bullpen this year with stellar results: 1.63 ERA, 0.77 whip, a .153 BAA. Great looking stats. Prior to OK State, he pitched two years at Wichita State. Not much out there on him. He came out of Keller HS in the Houston area, a baseball factory.
Is he destined for the pen in pro ball? Not necessarily; this team turned Brad Lord from a senior sign college reliever into a starter in AAA in two years. It’s not like these guys forgot how to throw 6 innings.
8th round: 230 overall: Sam Petersen, OF College Junior from Iowa
Ranks by major shops: BA=184, ESPN=205, MLBpipeline=205, P1500=209
So, in the 8th they get a guy who fell a bit (was 5th round projection perhaps) who seems to be a speedy OF type with great pace and solid SB numbers. He was hurt most of this season, so I wonder what kind of signability he has here.
9th Round: 260 Overall: Jackson Ross, a 5th year senior/grad corner 1B/OF from Ole Miss
The first obvious senior sign/$10k bonus candidate is Jackson Ross, who started every game for the team and showed some positional flexibility. He played 1B, LF, RF and DH’d this year. He was a middle of the order bat for the team, showed some power, decent OBP. He played his first few years at Florida Atlantic. Should be a $10k or $20k signer and may provide some veteran leadership not unlike what Gavin Dugas has done so far.
10th round: 290 overall: Luke Johnson, a college senior RHP starter from UMBC
Johnson was a weekend starter for traditional baseball powerhouse UMBC this year. His numbers weren’t as great this year, but last year he had a sub 3.00 ERA. Interestingly, he’s the very first player from Maryland to get picked this year, with a down year from the University of Maryland and no prep prospects to speak of.
With all due respect to Johnson, this is the epitome of a slot savings pick, and should sign for $10k or so.
Draft summary so far:
6 position, 4 arms. 2 college catchers, the rest SS and guys who can slot in at multiple positions. The arms don’t look half bad.
2 Obvious slot savings picks at 9 & 10, maybe a couple others in the 5-7th range. But who are they saving money for? Is the prep SS from New Jersey going to cost that much? Maybe they have their eye on an 11th rounder that will go 7-figures.
hate to say it, but i’m not really that impressed with this class. Maybe the Seaver King pick has disappointed me from getting excited here.