2027 Draft:
This year’s draft class looks like a good one, especially for outfielders. In a somewhat surprising first overall pick, the Cubs went for a high schooler Mike Davis. He’s got a good personality, but he’s not a good defender, a very poor baserunner, and will have to do a ton of development to live up to expectations.
The next three picks will probably be frequently mentioned names around the league in years to come, though. Three power hitting prospects went 2nd, 3rd and 4th: Speedy outfielder Bobby Lambert to the White Sox, catcher Burke Mabeous to the Yankees, and the player who was tipped to go first overall in most mock drafts, right fielder Mike House, surprisingly fell to Kansas City.
With the 26th pick, the latest first round pick so far in the existence of the Rockies, we selected starting pitcher Brad Cloer. Like last year’s picks Jeff Alexander and Norm Kell, he’s a groundball pitcher, which isn’t necessarily what we’re looking for, but we like his command and his intangibles.
With our second rounder, we picked up 23 year old shortstop Charlie Oury- the best defensive infielder we were able to find. He probably won’t be an all-star, but he fills a need in our system, and could be able to step up in not too long.
We then took three high schoolers with our next picks.
First, we then went back to pitching, taking a chance on high school prospect Ben Kaufman. Quite a lot will have to go right for him to pan out the way we hope, but we really like his arm strength for an 18 year old.
Next, we chose Josh Yoder, a short stop or possibly 2B with some potential to develop good power.
Wrapping up our top 5 picks, we went for Alan Reader, an outfielder with good range that could have the makings of a good hitter.
We spent a lot of the remaining picks on building infield depth. In summary, we took:
7 pitchers, 3 or 4 of which can be considered starter prospects.
Two catchers.
8 infielders.
3 outfielders.
11 of our draft picks were high schoolers.