Editor’s note: This is the 16th in a weekly series of stories in which Detroit News freelance writer Lynn Henning will rank the top prospects in July’s MLB Draft.
Rob Manfred must have tuned into the NHL Draft Lottery in 2020 and liked what he saw.
The Red Wings, as hockey connoisseurs from Detroit will recall in the fashion of a bout with food-poisoning, won 17 of 71 games in the 2019-20 season, by far the most hideous record in the league, but somehow picked fourth in last year’s draft.
The Tigers didn’t get shafted quite to that unforgivable extent, but they’re close.
Detroit picks third in next month’s MLB Draft. It sounds pretty good, maybe even appropriate, given the Tigers’ overall status as Ye Olde Rebuild continues at Comerica Park.
But it’s not good. It’s not just. And it’s not right. For one, fat reason.
MLB teams played only 60 regular-season games in 2021. A pandemic reduced the normal 162-game MLB calendar by 63%. That means barely one-third of a year’s games was being used as a measuring stick for 2021’s draft order.
It’s ridiculous, if baseball’s commissioner supposedly cares about a draft’s integrity, and yet Manfred pushed through his edict, all to help sanction the supposed validity of 2021’s playoffs and the Dodgers’ world championship.
Here’s what’s right, and what’s wrong, about Manfred’s thoughts there.
The playoff season was, in fact, legitimate. Sixteen teams made the playoffs and the tournament was strong from start to finish. The quality of play was stunningly good, even as extra teams qualified for October’s COVID-expanded brackets.
There was nothing fluky about the teams that ascended to the leagues’ championship series and finally into the World Series. So, nice work, Mr. Commissioner.
But the other end of MLB’s spectrum was more fragile in determining the usual criteria for draft order. The draft is built on the premise of equitable treatment for a professional sport’s most threadbare rosters.
Adjudicating a draft order, to be thoroughly just, depended upon a more comprehensive evaluation than 60 games. The 2021 draft should have been determined by how teams performed (a) either in the final cumulative 162 regular-season games dating to 2019, or (b) in lumping together records from both the 2019 and 2020 schedules.
Apply either of those criteria and the Tigers would be picking first on July 11, just as the Red Wings should have been selecting first last October.
You can say that selecting third rather than first is no big deal, that the roulette wheel known as MLB’s draft makes Detroit’s pick at No. 3 overall as likely to pan out as choosing first.
As populist logic goes, the argument works. But as a principled matter of justice, which is what drafts are supposed to deliver, it’s cheesy.
The Tigers should not be left waiting for the Pirates to claim the guy they probably most want next month, prep shortstop Marcelo Mayer, or for Texas to make its pick at No. 2 overall. Neither should the Tigers in ensuing rounds be choosing behind those teams.
The draft order should have been determined by no fewer than 162 games. To say otherwise is to rob the 2021 draft of all the careful architecture that has governed drafts for the previous 50-plus years.
The loud crowd that equates losing with “tanking” is as out to lunch as Manfred was in setting up the 2021 sweepstakes. You lose because your farm system has been a desert and because no practical, achievable free-agent splurges were going to change much — until that team’s farm is re-seeded.
The Tigers are confirming all of the above. Their minor-league crops are picking up steam and with the farm providing a framework for an actual, maturing, potential playoff roster down the path, expensive free agents — they’ll arrive soon enough — then become enhancements that turn a core nucleus of home-grown talent into a team with a chance to dive deep into October.
More: Henning: Tigers farm cast already hinting at a wide-open 2022 spring camp
Manfred sold out on this one, all in a bid to prop up the credibility of a postseason that needed no bolstering.
While he was at this, he made one more authoritarian move that won’t have benefited anyone but, maybe, the Commissioner’s office.
He backed the MLB Draft from early June to July 11-13. He wants a degree of theater kicking off All-Star Game week, although he might have polled his MLB teams on this, not that it would have made any difference.
Scouts are trying to figure out what to do with June. Most of the prep and college kids no longer are playing. There isn’t a lot to inspect. Nor will things get better next month. Scouts will be busy helping sign draft picks when they should be dropping in on showcase tournaments and the Cape Cod League.
This just makes a mess of the entire summer schedule.
Manfred has his reasons for doing all of this, of course — business reasons, spurred, yes, by a pandemic.
But he didn’t have to go this route. The draft should have been a draft based upon the usual equitable components that applied for decades. Quantifying an order of selection on a 162-game season was the first commandment there.
The commissioner overrode precedent and protocol. And the Tigers, more than any MLB team, are being penalized.
How the nation’s best high school and college players stack up ahead of July’s MLB Draft:
► 1. Jack Leiter, RH pitcher, Vanderbilt, 6-1, 205: Leiter remains the 2021 draft’s top celebrity, although he might have zero shot at going first overall. Money is part of any reservations there, given the Pirates’ reputation. Also, a team bent on getting a bat has options that make Leiter a potential rotation-ace who can be bypassed. Not that last week’s NCAA tourney work against East Carolina dissuaded many (seven innings, two hits, 10 strikeouts, three walks, 94 pitches). Last week’s ranking: 1
More: Tigers draft watch: Would Detroit be willing to pay beyond top dollar for Jack Leiter?
► 2. Marcelo Mayer, SS, Eastlake High, Chula Vista, California, 6-3, 188: He remains busy playing, and winning, during the San Diego area’s segment of the state tournament. He also is walking a lot as pitchers decide they have better options to target as outs. Still a favorite to be Pittsburgh’s first choice at one-one. Last week’s ranking: 2
► 3. Henry Davis, C, Louisville, 6-1, 205: Davis is busy in the weight room and batting cage as he prepares for July 11, and a top-five selection by someone. A most talented right-handed hitter and catcher who probably will be drafted later than his skills mandate. Last week’s ranking: 3
► 4. Jordan Lawlar, SS, Jesuit Dallas High, 6-2, 180: Lawlar seems to be losing a bit of altitude as scouts wonder, along with the Tigers, whether his bat can be trusted against gold-star pitching. Those hesitancies could even be shared by the Rangers, who for the past four months have seemed the most likely destination for Lawlar. Last week’s ranking: 4
► 5. Jackson Jobe, RH starter, Heritage Hall High, Oklahoma City, 6-2, 190: When you strike out 122 batters and walk five in 51⅔ innings, against decent prep competition, you have something ungodly going for you — namely an arm. The Tigers have taken note. He could be checking into rookie camp at Lakeland in a mere month. Last week’s ranking: 6
More: Tigers draft watch: Why Jackson Jobe could be an option for Detroit at No. 3
► 6. Kahlil Watson, SS, Wake Forest High, Wake Forest, North Carolina, 5-11, 168: Watson still is playing, which is fine by scouts who enjoy watching him make a difficult game appear effortless. Watson might well have replaced Lawlar as the nation’s next-best prep shortstop, at least for those who believe Mayer is numero uno. It’s conceivable the Pirates might agree. Either way, Watson is going early, very early, on July 11. These are his left-handed-slugging digits following 14 games: .526 batting average, six home runs, .648 on-base percentage, 1.210 slugging, 1.859 OPS. Yeah, he’s good. Last week’s ranking: 8
► 7. Kumar Rocker, RH pitcher, Vanderbilt, 6-4, 255: More of the same last week for Rocker against East Carolina in the NCAA Super Regional: 7⅔ innings, three hits, three walks, 11 punch-outs, 117 pitches. Whether he sticks as a starter or eventually moves to being a bullpen locomotive, he is one awesome right-handed prize. Last week’s ranking: 7
► 8. Brady House, SS, Winder-Barrow High, Winder, Georgia, 6-3, 212: If a team believes he won’t strike out 180 times a season and can keep his batting average respectable, they’ll love having House in the house. Whether he sticks at short, or moves to third base, this is a man with lots of 30-homer seasons ahead. Last week’s ranking: 5
► 9. Sam Bachman, RH starter, Miami (Ohio), 6-1, 235: Big body, big arm, big fastball. As with Rocker, you wonder if he might become a bullpen brute versus a starter, but teams will let Bachman decide that, and live with his contributions either way. Last week’s ranking: 9
► 10. Colton Cowser, OF, Sam Houston State, 6-3, 195: If only he had done some of the exquisite things Cowser does against better competition, he could be top-five material in a draft looking for a dynamic outfielder. There are questions, legitimate, about his bat and eventual power. But the possibility he has been underestimated and looms as a July 11 steal are equally valid. Last week’s ranking: 10
► Pushing for Top 10 inclusion: Harry Ford, C, North Cobb High, Kennesaw, Georgia, 5-10, 200; Gunnar Hoglund, RH starter, Mississippi, 6-4, 210 (recent Tommy John surgery); Ryan Cusick, RH starter, Wake Forest, 6-6, 235; Matt McLain, SS, UCLA, 5-11, 180; Ty Madden, RH starter, Texas, 6-3, 215; Bubba Chandler, RH starter/SS, North Oconee High, Bogart, Georgia; Alex Binelas, 1B, Louisville, 6-3, 225; Ethan Wilson, OF, South Alabama, 6-1, 210; Sal Frelick, OF, Boston College, 5-9, 175; Alex Mooney, SS, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s, 6-1, 175; Jud Fabian, OF, Florida, 6-foot, 190; Jonathan Cannon, RH starter, Georgia, 6-6, 207; Mason Black, RH starter, Lehigh, 6-3, 200; McCade Brown, RH starter, Indiana, 6-6, 225; Adrian Del Castillo, C, Miami (Florida), 5-11, 210; James Wood, OF, IMG Academy, 6-6, 230; Cody Schrier, SS, JSerra Catholic High, San Juan Capistrano, California.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and former Detroit News sports reporter.