Good morning. Sunday morning. The draft starts tonight at 5pm central. The Astros’ first pick is 1-21, and their second and final pick of the night is 3-95. They sacrificed their second round pick when signing Christian Walker. The draft will resume with rounds 4-20 starting Monday morning (it’s now a two-day affair instead of three).
Nobody has any idea who the Astros will take. In fact, nobody seems to have any idea who any team will take, even at the top of the draft. By my very quick and dirty count of potential first-rounders for the Astros—including higher-ranked players who could plausibly fall to 21, players ranked around 21, and lower-ranked players who have some late buzz or have been connected to the Astros—there are at least 25 guys who seem to be totally realistic possibilities for them to take. I got nothin’.
Baseball America’s final mock draft has the Astros taking Xavier Neyens, purely speculatively. The Astros really seem to like Neyens but there’s no guarantee he’s their favorite, there’s no guarantee he’s still on the board at 21, and there’s no guarantee he won’t get a bigger offer from a team with multiple picks like the Orioles. More interesting is the list of other names they’re tied to:
Other Names We’re Hearing: Gage Wood, RHP, Arkansas; Ethan Conrad, OF, Wake Forest; Slater de Brun, OF, Summit HS, Bend, Ore.; Gavin Fien, 3B, Great Oak HS, Temecula, Calif.; Sean Gamble, OF/2B, IMG Academy, Bradenton, Fla.
Dart Throw Names For Later Rounds: Mitch Voit, 2B, Michigan; Isaiah Jackson, OF, Arizona State; Jake Cook, OF, Southern Miss; Cam Lee, OF, Mineral Area (Mo.) JC
- Gage Wood needs no introduction
- Ethan Conrad was discussed earlier, big athletic outfielder, top-of-the-draft tools, hurt most of the year with a somewhat scary shoulder injury
- Slater de Brun: undersized HS CF, really athletic
- Gavin Fien: absolutely adored by the teams that prioritize bat speed and exit velo, commonly linked to the Red Sox, Brewers, and Orioles
- Sean Gamble: another athletic HS CF, though I haven’t read up on him very much as I’ve also seen people say he’s expected to be a very tough sign away from Vanderbilt. I have very little to say about these high school outfielders and shortstops, the scouting reports on all of them are so similar, they’re all great athletes who hit well against high schoolers but nobody knows how they’ll turn out. There’s no real public batted ball data available on them like there is for college guys, I’m sure the teams have better ways of differentiating them than we the people do
For the later-round guys:
- Mitch Voit is a late-rising 2B with really strong batted ball data, the knock on him is that he hasn’t hit well against velocity, otherwise he’d go even higher
- Isaiah Jackson is a tooled-up outfielder who the Astros drafted as an 18th round flier in 2022, ended up going to Arizona State as expected, had a decent career there
- Jake Cook was addressed above, 80 speed, great contact skills, still learning how to be a hitter and baserunner
- Cam Lee I’ve never heard of before, but he fits the Caden Powell mold as a standout juco performer, CF with good speed and pop
One name I haven’t heard directly tied to the Astros but might make a lot of sense is Indiana OF Devin Taylor. The reports on him are that he’s a LF without great range or arm, but the guy has just hit all the way through his college career, hit well with wood in the CCBL, hits against velocity, hits against breaking stuff, makes good swing decisions, has good exit velos, spray angles, launch angles, etc. None of those numbers are the best in the draft, but they’re all very good. With 99% of his value being in the bat, he’s projected to go late first round to early second. Wouldn’t fit the up-the-middle athlete mold we’ve seen from Dana’s first two drafts, but I don’t think you can count out a guy like that for any team picking in the mid-late first round. Similar story with Andrew Fischer, who’s a 1B.
