Draft day tomorrow! It starts at 6pm central and will continue through round 2, then resume Monday at 1pm (rounds 3-10) and Tuesday (rounds 10-20).
The Astros only have one pick tomorrow night, 28th overall. They have no second-round pick (sacrificed to sign Hader) and have the 28th pick in rounds 3-20. Due to the loss of the second-round pick, and without any compensation round picks, the Astros have the smallest bonus pool of all 30 teams—so don’t plan on them taking any high-dollar guys in the later rounds.
Most draft analysts have tied the Astros to college catchers and high school shortstops in the first round, but there’s really no way to know how things will shake out. As mentioned above, it’s not considered a strong year in late first-round talent—which is not at all to say there aren’t quality major leaguers to be found, just that teams don’t agree on who’s worth taking in that part of the draft.
That said, there’s still plenty of info available for us to see how these guys are viewed in the industry. I’ve had some time on my hands this week, so I put together a spreadsheet compiling public rankings for almost 750 players. It’s an imperfect smashing-together of imperfect rankings, but I’ll be following along with each pick and will try to post whatever information I can scrounge on the guys the Astros take.
We connected Lewis to the Astros on Friday, although Tommy White remains an interesting option since he’s available and Houston is one of the teams most commonly tied to him. As mentioned in the previous pick, Morlando is an option for the Astros as well.
Dart throw names for later picks: 1B/OF PJ Morlando, SS Mikey Ryan, RHP Thatcher Hurd, RHP LP Langevin, RHP Michael Massey
MLB Pipeline: Billy Amick (Callis); Theo Gillen (Mayo)
Amick, Nebraska prep shortstop Tyson Lewis, the college catchers and Virginia shortstop Griff O’Ferrall could be on the Astros’ short list.
They could look at the college catchers still available (Malcolm Moore, Janek) as well.
I think the players the Astros originally thought they might get — such as Waldschmidt — will be long gone, and Lewis is one of their newer (and more realistic) targets. I have also heard them with Janek.
This is likely the floor for Janek unless a very real surprise player is still available at this spot. Gillen continues to get run in this spot too, though he’s a prime candidate to go way before this pick or to be bought down into Comp A. Other options include Millard West (Ne.) shortstop Tyson Lewis and under-slot deals.
Notable: two high-ranked HS players have pulled out of the draft today. RHP William Schmidt (LSU commit) and SS Owen Paino (Ole Miss commit) will be heading to school, presumably after not getting pre-draft offers good enough to get them into pro ball.
Probably going to see more of this from major conference commits with NIL money on the table.
Just a couple more names I’ve seen thrown out there with the draft 15 minutes away:
Ryan Waldschmidt, righty outfielder at Kentucky. Beloved by draft model teams and not expected to last til the Astros’ first pick, but they’ve apparently been on him for months in case he drops.
Jared Thomas, lefty hitting 1B/CF from UT, probably familiar to a lot of folks here. Draft-eligible sophomore. Not projected as a first-round guy but someone the Astros like and could cut a deal with at 28 (saving money for later picks) if their top priority guys are off the board.
I’m cooking dinner right now and listening along, but the biggest surprise so far is Braden Montgomery falling. But the chatter is he’ll land at 12 to Boston.
WOW. Milwaukee going down the board and grabbing Braylon Payne at 17. High school OF some outlets had as a first-round talent but the consensus was he’d go in the second.
Kansas State SS Kaelen Culpepper to Minnesota at 21. Lots of good talent still on the board for the Astros, but lots of smart teams in the next six picks before they’re up.
Caminiti may be heading to LSU. Remains to be seen.
Waldschmidt, Lewis, Janek all still on the board. Brody Brecht another option—huge stuff, extremely raw for a college pitcher, described as a “high school pitcher in a college body.” Also linked to the Astros at various points: SS Kyle DeBarge, SS Griff O’Ferrall, OF Jared Thomas, OF Dakota Jordan.