Today is the first day of the 2021 MLB amateur draft. The Pittsburgh Pirates will make the first overall pick tonight just after 7 PM. That’s their only pick of the day today. They will make the first overall selection tomorrow (37th overall pick) around 1:00 PM, followed by nine more picks before the day ends. Day three starts at noon and the Pirates will make their final ten picks, which includes the first pick on day three (11th round). All 21 picks will be covered here as they are made by the Pirates.
On Friday and Saturday mornings, we posted the latest mock drafts to that point. This post here will include all of the mock drafts posted since early Saturday morning. I thought there would be 1-2 mock drafts posted on Saturday, but as of 10:30 PM when I wrote this article up, there were none all day. We don’t know how many there will be today, but we will add a new one whenever it is posted (or whenever I wake up and get online) and then change the title so you know the article has been updated.
Everyone has been predicting prep shortstop Marcelo Mayer for the Pirates for about the last six weeks. MLB Pipeline ranks him with 60 grades in his hitting, fielding and arm, 55 grade for power and 50 grade for speed.
Here’s one of the better videos
UPDATES
7:40 AM: First update of the day comes from MLB Pipeline and they had Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo do separate mock drafts at the same time. Both went with Mayer and mentioned Jordan Lawlar, Henry Davis and Khalil Watson as potential picks if it’s not Mayer. Callis also said that Jack Leiter isn’t completely eliminated
12:20 PM: Baseball America created a new mock draft with movement at the top, but the Pirates pick remains with Mayer. Just saw that Fangraphs added their latest one and it also has Mayer.
5:58 PM: Final update from BA…Mayer