Baseball America posted their updated draft prospect rankings on Tuesday, expanding their list to 500 spots. The Pittsburgh Pirates are now about four weeks away from making the first overall pick in the draft. They also have the 37th overall spot for their second round pick, 64th overall for the competitive balance pick and 72nd overall for their third round pick, giving them four of the top 72 picks in the draft.
BA ranks prep shortstop Jordan Lawlar as the top overall player in this draft class now. He previously ranked second, before taking over the top spot from Vanderbilt’s Jack Leiter. Another prep shortstop is in the second spot, with Marcelo Mayer also moving ahead of Leiter. Mayer is a popular mock draft pick for the Pirates these days. After Leiter in third, BA has Louisville catcher Henry Davis. He’s another name that has been connected to the Pirates recently. Kumar Rocker drops from third to fifth, still making him one of the top players in the draft, but his name hasn’t been connected to the Pirates anytime recently.
There’s a nice jump in the next spot, with prep shortstop Khalil Watson moving from tenth to sixth. He has been mentioned once as a possibility for the Pirates, though it seems like the Mayer/Lawlar/Davis grouping makes up the heavy favorites.
As a quick side note with the Pirates picking 37th. The 38th ranked player here is Missippi State starter Will Bednar, who is the brother of current Pirates reliever David Bednar.
