Draft Prospect Watch: Pirates Might Have to Decide Between Teammates with the First Overall Pick

John Dreker

Baseball America posted an article this morning noting how Vanderbilt could be the first school to ever produce the top two picks in the same draft. We have mentioned here that Vanderbilt pitchers Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter are considered to be two of the top possibilities for the first overall pick of the Pirates in the July amateur draft. In fact, I promised to add some more players next time we did one of these Draft Prospect articles, but this is sooner than I planned to do one. Then they took on the #12 team in the country this weekend and combined for 30 strikeouts. Oh yeah, Leiter threw a no-hitter in his game. We still have almost four months until the draft, so a lot can change between now and then, but right now the two best draft picks are pitching for Vanderbilt in back-to-back games each weekend. Here are some highlight videos courtesy of pitchingninja (follow him on Twitter, you won’t regret it, unless you’re a hitter showing up in his videos).

We start with Leiter, since he threw the no-hitter with 16 strikeouts.

and

and

and the final pitch

Here’s Rocker, starting with a fastball/cutter overlay

Here’s all 14 of his strikeouts in one video

I’m going to start the draft profiles soon, but at this point I’m not sure why we should cover anyone else…we will though, just in case.

2021 Draft
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