Kiley McDaniel at ESPN updated his 2021 draft rankings (subscription required) on Thursday morning. While it’s a bit different from a mock draft, he’s giving his opinion of the best players right now in the draft, which takes place in five weeks during the All-Star break.
Since it is a subscription article, I won’t give away too much, but I will note that he has the same six names at the top as we have seen a lot recently, just not in the same order. It’s the same top six from yesterday’s mock draft by MLB Pipeline that we posted.
The Pittsburgh Pirates have the top overall pick and high school shortstop Jordan Lawlar is ranked at the top for McDaniel. Lawlar has been the selection for the Pirates in numerous mock drafts. More recently, high school shortstop Marcelo Mayer has been the choice for the Pirates in mock drafts, including the one linked above from Pipeline. McDaniel has Mayer ranked second. In McDaniel’s opinion, he believes that they Pirates are deciding between these two players, with anyone else being considered long shots.
We have had multiple videos of each player, but here are different looks for both of them, starting with Lawlar
Mayer (you might want to kill the sound)
