We’re closing in on the end of 2023 and we’re starting to look ahead to all of the exciting things 2024 might have to offer. That’s definitely true Draft-wise, as we just unveiled our new Top 100 Draft prospects list. I’m focusing on Draft questions mostly in this week’s MLB Pipeline Inbox, but wanted to squeeze in as many queries as possible in my final Inbox for the year.

Why is a second baseman projected to go number 1? -- @alfiebailee8

You’re referring to the No. 1 prospect on our Top 100, JJ Wetherholt. First let me point out that this isn’t a first-round projection. Wetherholt certainly could go No. 1 to the Guardians, but my colleague Jim Callis actually had Cleveland take Wake Forest’s Nick Kurtz 1-1 in his mock draft, so I guess you could re-ask the question about why a first baseman is projected to go in the top spot.

That said, this is a weird year. This class, especially at the top, is college hitter heavy. Nine of the top 10, 11 of the top 12, all college bats (though two of them are two-way players, at least for now). And while that is rare, it’s compounded by the fact that none of that group play a premium position. Yes, Wetherholt is going to play shortstop this spring, but most scouts feel he’s best suited for second.

Other than the position, though, Wetherholt does a lot of things really, really well. He’s probably the best pure hitter in the class and there’s plenty of impact that points to least average power. He has plus speed that works on the basepaths. So even as a second baseman, we’re looking at a multi-tooled hitter who is going to get to the big leagues in a hurry.

Who is this year’s draft Jackson Holliday? A player who is a late first-second round talent during the winter but then has a meteoric rise in 2024 -- @Blahbla92342524

After a poor showing on the summer showcase circuit in 2021, Jackson Holliday was indeed No. 51 on our initial Top 100. But we also knew that he had the tools and ability to right the ship and head back up the list. Did we know he’d land at the top of it? No, but there was a sense that if he stopped trying to do too much, he’d be just fine.

There isn’t really anyone in this Draft class who totally fits this description, but there are a couple of names who could easily float towards the top with a strong spring, and then who knows what could happen, right? We already have high school lefty Cam Caminiti in first-round territory, at No. 19, but the reclassified southpaw could break the college hitter logjam in the top 10 if he takes a step forward in the spring. I also think No. 21 Caleb Lomavita could join some of his college hitting brethren up closer to the top, especially given the dearth of catching. Carson Benge at Oklahoma State (No. 26) is another one worth watching, with his combination of contact rate and exit velocity. If his power comes, he’s going to jump. A bit further down, there’s always the chance for some high school players to jump up and Bryce Rainer (No. 39) and Levi Sterling at No. 40 are both southern California kids with a ton of projection.

A couple 2023 Draft prospects jumped into the top 20 of the Top 100. What’s the highest a 2024 prospect will jump? -- @ballsandgutters

This is a little harder to predict at this point, and not only because we don’t know how the Class of 2024 will perform this spring. Some of it does hinge on how many guys on the Top 100 graduate by the time we do our re-rank in the summer and add in the new Draft class.

We put five players from the 2023 class into the top 20 when we re-ranked this past summer, and that top 5 was a special group: Paul Skenes, Dylan Crews, Wyatt Langford, Max Clark and Walker Jenkins. If any of those players were in this Draft class, they’d be considered the No. 1 player in the class without question. This is the exception, not the rule. In 2022, we only had two players in the top 20 (Druw Jones and Jackson Holliday).

The 2024 class doesn’t seem to match up with last year at the top at this point, so I can’t imagine we’ll come close to having anyone from this group as high as we had the top of last year’s class. We had Skenes and Crews in the top 4, with Langford, Clark and Jenkins all in the 13-16 range. If I had to guess as of right now, it’ll be closer to the 2022 number in the top 20, with maybe four in the top 50 or so.

Where would you put Yamamoto if he qualifies in the top 100? -- @Angelmanon1

The Yoshinobu Yamamoto watch has been something, hasn’t it? We answered this question on this week’s MLB Pipeline Podcast, so be sure to give that a listen. Let me address the second part first. Yamamoto will not qualify for our prospect lists because we use the same rules that govern international free agent spending. Because he’s 25 and he spent several years pitching professionally in Japan, his signing isn’t part of the international bonus pool system, so we don’t consider him for our lists.

But what if he did? Jim Callis and I looked at this a little differently. Jim looked at our existing Top 100 and while he thinks Yamamoto is a very talented pitcher, he thought of him as the second-best pitcher on the list, behind Paul Skenes, but he wouldn’t put him ahead of Wyatt Langford, who is currently at No. 13. That would put him no higher than 14, perhaps as low as 18.

I started reconfiguring the Top 100 a bit as we talked it through and figured Langford will move up into the top 10. I agreed with Jim that Yamamoto would be the second-best pitcher on the list, behind Skenes, but would put him in the top 10, somewhere in the 8-10 range (also behind Langford).

Which 2023 draftees do you think will be the fastest risers to the MLB? -- @puk32ellers

Is it a cop-out to pick Nolan Schanuel because he’s already in the big leagues? The exciting thing is there are several very good choices here. I think we’re going to see Paul Skenes, Dylan Crews and Wyatt Langford all see enough big league time to at least compete for Rookie of the Year honors in each league. I could see Rhett Lowder helping the Reds rotation early on and I suspect Jacob Wilson will move very quickly up the A’s ladder as well.

How aggressive will the Twins be with Walker Jenkins this season? -- @NoDakTwinsFan

I think his bat will dictate how quickly he moves, and it could be pretty fast. I’d probably be inclined to start him with Single-A Fort Myers, where he finished last summer, just to get him rolling. But if you told me he’d end up in Double-A by the end of the year, I wouldn’t be shocked. That would put him on pace to join the big league lineup perhaps as early as 2025.