When the first mock draft comes out, you know it’s draft season.
Between now and July 14, when the 2024 Draft begins, Jim Callis and I will be providing prognostications of the first round on a fairly regular basis with the hope that our final mocks the night before the Guardians get things going with the No. 1 pick are as close to accurate as we can get them.
It’s way too early now to project with any certainty who is going where. But I did connect with scouts from nearly every team in the first round to get a sense of where things stand as of this moment. Providing each team with a scenario of who I have going in front of them, I tried to make sure that each selection was someone the team would consider.
Right now, it appears that the top 11 names in our Top 150 have distanced themselves. That is not to imply that a team in the top 11 will not consider someone not on that list, allowing one (or more) of those 11 to tumble down. However, in this edition, I have their names in the top 11, with the exception of two college players, though not in the identical sequence of ranking.
The two areas I had trouble placing were the college catchers and, as is often the case, the high school pitching. Consider this a snapshot of where we are right now, with much, much more to come.
The scouting business appears to agree that Condon, who enters this weekend’s series against Vanderbilt with a ridiculous.456/.563/1.088 line and 30 home runs, is the greatest player in the class. When you consider that the Guardians may benefit from some right-handed power within the group, this looks like a perfect fit.
If Condon is number one, Bazzana isn’t far behind with a 1.517 OPS, 21 home runs, and 10 steals. The left-handed second baseman appears to be a textbook Reds college hitter, one who should quickly make his way to the big leagues.
Caglianone made significant strides at the plate and on the mound, but his future appears to be as a left-handed hitter who has made excellent modifications to his approach and chase rate, allowing him to produce a.402/.505/.862 line with 26 home runs to date.
