The 2016 MLB Draft Revisited and Reviewed
Early Picks
The draft rankings coming into the 2016 MLB draft were very heavy on Jason Groome and Riley Pint, but with worry on Pint’s mechanics and fastball velocity as a high school arm and some off-field concerns with Groome, they were not going to be the #1 selection (they ended up 12th and fourth, respectively).
The Philadelphia Phillies ended up selecting California prep outfielder Mickey Moniak, and he’s shown ever since that he was a very worthy #1 selection. Cincinnati followed with Tennessee infielder Nick Senzel, widely considered the most advanced college bat.
The first surprise of the MLB draft really came at #3 when the Atlanta Braves selected New York high school righty Ian Anderson, a guy who many had as a late first round pick. Anderson did not get a lot of scouting due to cold weather and early season injury, but as late reports came out, it became clear perhaps that the industry should not have been as surprised about Anderson’s placement at #3 overall.
The top 10 went pretty much chalk, with the biggest surprise guys to fall out of the top 10 going immediately after, with Mercer outfielder Kyle Lewis going to the Seattle Mariners and Groome going to the Red Sox at 12.
From that point, the combat was the depth of the college class versus the high quality of the high school class, with very good depth in the college class being selected in the second and third round with guys who were viable consideration for the first round as high school picks being still picked in the third round.
Early lists on the 2016 MLB draft had A.J. Puk and Alec Hansen as 1-2 in the draft class on the college side. In spite of a ho-hum season for Florida, Puk still went top 10 to the Oakland Athletics, but Hansen completely lost his command early in the year for Oklahoma, and though he had recovered by the end of the year, he fell to the eighth selection of the second round to the Chicago White Sox.
It is early to tell for sure, but it is notable already the value that the Giants got without a first round pick by getting college outfielder Bryan Reynolds from Vanderbilt and Heath Quinn from Samford in the second and third round.
From my perspective, the team that achieved the best early value with less than a year removed from the picks is the New York Yankees, who were able to get California high school righty Nolan Martinez in the third round and nabbing California high school outfielder Blake Rutherford, a preseason top-five pick, with the 18th pick of the first round.
While there’s still work to do, the team picking after the 20th selection in the first round that did very well was the St. Louis Cardinals, who had three first round selections and five in the first three rounds, getting three very solid college pitchers in Dakota Hudson, Connor Jones, and Zac Gallen on top of one of the best raw talents in the draft in Delvin Perez, who fell to the Cardinals after a failed PED test pre-draft, and outfielder Dylan Carlson, a criticized pick but a guy who has shown to be a prototype Cardinals guy, just at the high school level rather than college level.
The team whose early draft is certainly questionable is the Pittsburgh Pirates, and a huge part of that is that they did not sign their #41 overall selection, high school lefty Nick Lodolo. Their other selections have their own questions, but that one issue really set off their draft as he was the biggest upside player picked in their four selections in the first three rounds, and missing on signing him really hurts the overall draft.
Next: Later Picks