Baseball America has a new list of the top 200 draft prospects. Here are the top five:
1. Anthony Rendon, Rice 3B
2. Dylan Bundy, Oklahoma HS P
3. Gerrit Cole, UCLA P
4. Danny Hultzen, Virginia P
5. Trevor Bauer, UCLA P
The only minor surprise here is Bundy ahead of Cole, but both are top-five players in any case. It’s nice to see that Baseball America still has faith in Rendon, because, all other things being equal, I would much rather see the Pirates take a position player with the top overall pick – pitchers are very risky. Rendon has struggled with injuries himself this season.
Anyway, the other guys on this list who the Pirates could even conceivably take in the first round are Kansas high school outfielder Bubba Starling (No. 6) and Oklahoma high school pitcher Archie Bradley (No. 9). The rest of the list certainly could prove to be relevant to Pirates fans in the second and third rounds, but projecting who the Bucs might take with those picks is a fool’s errand right now. Keep it bookmarked.