Just a few years ago, the scouting industry and, as a result, those of us who cover the Draft, would just about be in “Go” mode. The recently completed conference tournaments used to be the last looks decision-makers would get at the college crop in a class. Perhaps area scouts would hit the Regionals, set to begin this weekend, but scouting directors and GMs wouldn’t get to those because the June Draft typically started right at the end of that first round of postseason play.
When the event was moved to July and the All-Star break, we all had to learn to shift our internal Draft clocks. Teams can, and will, scout Regionals, Super Regionals, even the College World Series, fairly heavily. Plus there’s the mid-June Draft Combine as well.
I bring all this up, more than six weeks before the Draft actually begins, to make it clear just how much longer we have to go here and how much still can change. Teams have yet to zero in on things like medical reports and signability, so this new mock still has a good amount of conjecture involved, albeit with a new Draft Top 200 list and an executive survey that do provide some insights.
The top 10 names still seem to be about the same, but as Jim Callis pointed out in his mid-May mock, it’s rare that the top 10 guys go in the top 10, even if that’s how I’ve drawn it up for this edition (with some changes in order from Jim’s). I’ll point out throughout the projection when there are names who seem to be creeping up the first round in conversations, though it’s still a bit early in my opinion to go into any real detail about permutations in each spot.
