Here’s the Mocks that have appeared in early July, leading up to the draft. The first couple of Mock draft posts seemed to indicate a pretty clear pattern; the entire industry knows that the Nats are “on” Kevin Parada. Lets see if we start to see any evolution in that sense.
the top 6-7 in this draft are Druw Jones and Jackson Holliday (who definitely are not getting to #5), polished college SS Brooks Lee, and prep players Terrmarr Johnson, Elijah Green, and Cam Collier. Any other name slipping into the top 5 would be a major upset at this point.
- ESPN Insider (Kiley McDaniel) 6/29/22 mock: Jones, Holliday, Parada, Collier, and the Nats take … Jacob Berry?? This means they’d be leaving both Lee and Green on the board, which most every other pundit says is impossible. Berry is a top pick, but mostly goes at the back-half of the top 10, and the Nats would be leaving 2-3 much better players on the board in this scenario.
- MLBPipeline (Jonathan Mayo) 6/30/22 mock: Jones, Holliday, Green, Cam Collier. Nats take Lee in this best-case scenario. Mayo basically says this is Green’s floor, and if the Nats are put to the test would take Lee over Parada if he’s available. We’ll see.
- CBSSports (Axisa) 6/30/22 mock: Jones, Holliday, Green, Lee, Parada.
- Baseball America (Carlos Collazzo) 7/1/22 mock: Jones, Holliday, Green, Collier . Nats take Parada in this scenario, over Lee and Johnson, which would really piss me off. Collier is, in case you hadn’t heard, the 17yr old who went the Bryce Harper route, graduated HS at 16, then enrolled in Chipola JuCo and has been hitting wood bat as a HS junior all year. Teams that put a lot of stock in “age” value of players are in love with Collier; is Pittsburgh one of them?
- The Athletic staff writer mock draft 7/6/22: Jones, Holliday, Green, Collier. Nats take Parada. Again, i’d rather have Lee here than Parada, and I think the ship has sailed on Johnson as an option for this team.
- MLBPipeline (Jim Callis) 7/6/22 mock: Jones, Holliday, Lee, Johnson. Nats take Green in this scenario, over Parada. Collier also slides here. Green is described as having the best ceiling in the draft and he’d be an excellent pick.
- ESPN Draft Board (McDaniel) posted 7/8/22: Jones, Johnson, Holliday, Parada, Collier. His 6-10 goes Lee, Green, Dylan Lesko, Jacob Berry, Gavin Cross.
- Athletic/Keith Law final draft board rank 7/10/22: Jones, Collier, Johnson, Green, Lee. Law really likes Collier b/c he’s quite young and will give significant value to his drafting team. His 6-10 goes Holliday, Parada, Jung, Zach Neto and Cross.
- Athletic/Keith Law Mock 3.0 7/11/22: Lee, Jones, Holliday, Johnson. Nats take Parada here, given that Lee is gone. But they leave Green on the board.
- MLB Pipeline 7/12/22 podcast: the team discussed the various what-ifs of the draft and all seemed to agree on a couple of things: if Jones doesn’t go 1-1, he’s going 1-2. They all seem to think Holliday will be gone no matter what the scenario before the Nats pick at #5. Lee could go a couple different ways ahead of us; the odds of him getting to us seem slim. Most likely the MLBpipeline team seems to think in the end the Nats will be picking between Parada and Green.
- Prospects1500 Draft Board 7/13/22: Jones, Green, Holliday, Lee, Parada. 6-10 goes Jung, Cross, Berry, Johnson, and Daniel Susec.
- MLBpipeline (Mayo) Penultimate mock 7/14/22: Jones, Holliday, Parada, Johnson. Nats in this scenario with Parada off the board go with Green over Lee. If it comes down like this … the decision becomes floor versus ceiling. Lee has a clear floor, as a polished collegiate SS, but Green’s ceiling is much higher.
- ESPN Baseball Staff mock draft 7/14/22: Jones, Holliday, Collier, Parada, Nats take Johnson. So, this mock has nothing to do with what the teams are actually doing, and is just three staff writers at ESPN taking who they think is the BPA. Not really of any predictive value.
- CBSsports Mike Axisa final mock 7/14/22: Johnson, Jones (since he’s available), Holliday, Collier, and the Nats have a great choice between Green, Parada, and Lee in this scenario, and Axisa has them taking Green.
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Conclusion: it still really seems like we’re going either Green or Parada. I think the MLB pipeline guys said it best: The Orioles at 1-1 will either go with Jones or will cut a slight deal with someone towards the back of the top 7 (likely Johnson). Then, Jones will either go 1st or 2nd, and Holliday will go 2nd or 3rd. Most think Pittsburgh will try to cut a deal at the #4 spot if the O’s cut a deal at 1-1 like most believe they will, leaving the Nats to pick from Parada, Lee, and Green. And, given how far away the team seems from being competitive, its ok to go with the prep player versus the college (catcher) bat. Which leans Green.
My final prediction: Johnson, Jones, Holliday, Collier, and the Nats go with Green.