The 2022 MLB Draft resumes at 2:00 PM eastern for rounds 3-10, live streamed as usual on MLB.com. It’s a much quicker pace today with one minute between picks, and just Jonathan Mayo and Jim Callis in studio for analysis rather than the inimitable Harold Reynolds and crew.
It was a busy night last night with four picks, as the Blue Jays covered every demographic major group except surprisingly college pitching. If past the past couple years are indication there will be plenty of that today. As a reminder, the four picks were:
- 23rd overall: LHP Brandon Barrierra
- 60th overall: Oregon SS Josh Kasevich
- 77th overall: infielder Tucker Toman
- 78th overall: LSU infielder Cade Doughty
Having taken two high schoolers who are excepted to be well overslot, and two college players who were drafted roughly in line with ranking and have no reason to cut deals to save slot, the Jays will be a position to make some picks to build the slot room in their pool to save money, potentially starting very early today. It would be optimal if they can make one more “straight-up” pick with their 3rd round pick at 98th overall and land another consensus-top 100 (college) takent, but even may be a stretch. We’ll soon find out.
Eric Longenhagen at FanGraphs alludes to this in his write-up:
Brandon Barriera is supposed to be over slot, but there’s no obvious under-slot guy mixed into Toronto’s first day. Barriera and his delivery are similar to Ricky Tiedemann with less physicality. Josh Kasevich has one of the best hit tools in the draft. Tucker Toman’s pre-draft number was supposedly close to $2.5 million, which means he might also be way over slot, and Cade Doughty isn’t an obvious cut. I expect Toronto’s second day to be heavy on seniors.
Keith Law is quite favourably disposed:
I also like the Blue Jays’ draft quite a bit, even though they took a high school arm in the first round — which historical data does not support — because 1) they did take a really, really good high school arm and 2) they backed it up with three solid position players who have a chance to stay up the middle and have reasonable floors.
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