Inbox: '22 Draft arms; Winn's potential; Adell's future

May 5th, 2022

I don't know about you, but I didn't have Cardinals outfielder Moisés Gómez leading the Minors in OPS (1.463) or Braves right-hander Royber Salinas topping the Minors in strikeouts (52 in 23 2/3 innings) a month into the season. But I do have answers to your Draft and prospect questions.

Assuming all of the injured starting pitchers in the 2022 Draft come back healthy, who are the five pitchers that have the highest ceilings and which have the highest floors?
-- @JakeHobrock

There are so many injured pitchers who could have factored into the first round of the 2022 Draft -- and some of them still may. I detailed the situation in my overview of our Draft Top 150 Prospects list 10 days ago, and since then, Dylan Lesko and Hunter Barco have gone from being sidelined to having Tommy John surgery.

Assuming everyone were healthy, I would stack up the five highest pitching ceilings like this, factoring in both quality of stuff and the ability to use it:

Dylan Lesko, RHP, Buford (Ga.) HS
Brock Porter, RHP, Orchard Lake (Mich.) St. Mary's Prep
Andrew Dutkanych, RHP, Brebeuf Jesuit Prep (Indianapolis)
Kumar Rocker, RHP, no school
Connor Prielipp, LHP, Alabama

As for floors, I would line up the top five like this, weighing pitchability heavily, but also stuff:

Dylan Lesko, RHP, Buford (Ga.) HS
Connor Prielipp, LHP, Alabama
Brandon Barriera, LHP, American Heritage HS (Plantation, Fla.)
Jonathan Cannon, RHP, Georgia
Justin Campbell, RHP, Oklahoma State

Reinforcing the nature of this Draft, the only pitchers on those two lists who haven't had any health questions in 2022 are Porter, Dutkanych, Barriera and Campbell.

Is Masyn Winn a top 100 prospect at the end of the season?
-- @EDubs_STL

After batting .242/.324/.356 between two Class A stops in his pro debut last summer, Winn is batting .391/.468/.641 with nearly as many extra-base hits (nine), walks (11) and steals (11) as strikeouts (13) as a 20-year-old in High-A this year. He's not going to keep up that pace, but he has the talent to make MLB Pipeline's Top 100 Prospects list. And if he's not one of the game's best 100 prospects by season's end, he almost certainly is one of the 100 most intriguing.

A second-round pick out of a Texas high school in 2020, Winn was a legitimate two-way prospect. The Cardinals have deployed him mainly as a shortstop, and he has well-above-average speed, solid raw power and a rocket arm. Many scouts who saw him as an amateur believed he had a higher ceiling on the mound with a fastball that hit 98 mph and the makings of a plus curveball and at least a solid changeup, but he has pitched just one inning as a pro.

Where does Jo Adell go from here?
-- @vinnyearly

Adell rose as high as No. 4 on our mid-2019 Top 100, but the 10th overall pick in the 2017 Draft has yet to find big league success. In 92 games with the Angels over parts of three seasons, he has hit just .210/.252/.357 with an alarming 32.8 percent strikeout rate, and he was demoted to Triple-A on Tuesday. It's too early to give up on a guy who didn't turn 23 until the day after Opening Day, but if Taylor Ward is for real, then the Halos may not have a spot in their outfield for Adell.

Adell is loaded with tools -- well-above-average raw power and speed, plus arm strength -- but they haven't translated into production in the Majors. He had just 904 pro at-bats before he first reached the big leagues and his swing-and-miss issues have gotten more pronounced since then, especially against fastballs. He also has been a shaky outfielder, rather than the plus defender he was projected to be.

With Ward on fire and the Angels playing well, they don't really need Adell right now and can give him time to regroup in Triple-A. He'll need to temper his approach and make some adjustments to find more contact or he'll never approach his high ceiling.

With the Texas Rangers losing their 2nd and 3rd-round picks for signing [Corey] Seager and [Marcus] Semien, how does this affect their draft pool and potential to sign one of the top high school players? Would this cause them to lean college player with the [No.] 3 overall pick?
-- @wtmcclain3

After signing free agents Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, the Rangers forfeited what would have been the Nos. 44 and 84 picks in the 2022 Draft as compensation. Losing their second- and third-round selections cost them $2,533,700 in bonus pool money and left them with a $9,640,700 allotment.

That's still a larger bonus pool than 16 of the other 29 clubs, including $7,587,600 for the third overall choice. Texas can afford to take whomever it believes is the best player at No. 3, even if it's a high schooler with more leverage than a collegian. They have spent their last three first-rounders on college players and could go that route again, and they also could look to cut a deal at No. 3 so they could give second-round money to their fourth-round pick.