He did a media session (unfortunately I couldn't do it) but got a copy of the transcript and here's some stuff that stood out:
Q. With the Rockies at No. 8, and kind of on that bubble of players you were talking about, are you still looking at them and possibly going after an outfielder? Or how are you seeing things as we get closer?
Kiley McDaniel: Again, if a top tier of eight and they're picking eighth, in some ways it makes it easy. But also what if the guy that gets there is the one they want? Then it gets real difficult because you're at the top of that next tier, and you might just have to pay retail for a guy that you think is kind of the same as the next guys.
There's an increasing odds that Jordan Lawlar is the one of those four high school shortstops that slides. I don't think he has a natural landing spot until six or eight. And that then becomes a question. It's probably still like a five or 10 percent chance. He has a chance to be sophomore eligible at Vanderbilt and real good shot to go in the top five.
I don't know if he just signs for slot at eight, but I think that's about where that question becomes a question. Also if Kumar gets past seven and he's on the board at eight and Colorado passes because he's not the exactly the kind of pitcher they prefer, that's then a question: Does Kumar go back to school?
Again, both of those are unlikely. But the fact that the guys in the top 10 that might go back to school are both Vanderbilt guys is sort of wild, even if it's five, 10 percent chance on either of them.
I would say the guys Colorado is most tied to is Brady House, if he gets there; I think Lawlar, if he gets there; and then it gets pretty wide open, where Benny Montgomery has support there. That may be getting less likely by the day. And some college pitchers, Ty Madden and Gunnar Hoglund, have also been mentioned there.
I think if it's one of those situations where the eighth of that group of eight gets to them isn't a guy they like, I think college pitching may be the route they go.
Q. Would you say that maybe a kid that has -- a high school kid that's had a lot of experience and a lot of upside might have more leverage this year, maybe a kid from Texas who got this Team U.S.A. experience or got a lot of travel ball, a lot of eyes on him for a while?
Kiley McDaniel: I would say Jordan Lawlar is a good example where he's old enough that he would be Draft eligible in two years. The average kid has to wait three years if you want to go to one of these top tier schools and really have a chance to raise your stock.
Obviously the more time you have, if you go from third round to first round, usually only takes a year or two. So to be able to do it in two years and do it on the highest level with all the good coaching and everything is a big advantage.
There's a handful of players, like Jackson Baumeister at Florida State, Maddux Bruns at Mississippi State. There's a couple guys that are old enough that they'll be sophomore eligible and they have an even bigger edge.
But, yeah, I think what you're getting at is with the more education, the more information and all that kind of thing, there's also better coaching at the right colleges. So I think the upside and thus the leverage also gets higher.
Q. You mentioned Jordan Lawlar. You have him as the No. 1 player in your rankings currently. Why is he such a mystery about where he can go? He's the guy that Vandy has been scouting since eighth grade. Why is he such a mystery?
Kiley McDaniel: Yeah, he's not a mystery as a player, it's really just where he goes. If you take those four high school shortstops, which I think there's the most demand for those guys out of all of the subsets of players, there's a pretty clear Brady House highest upside, Marcelo Mayer maybe the most projection, Kahlil Watson probably the highest floor and then also good enough upside, and Lawlar is just in the middle on all of those different measures.
He's not necessarily the best out of those four at anything. For me that doesn't make him not the top player, but it's essentially a coin flip, like a six-way coin flip. So he's also as close as he is to sixth as he is to running away with it.
I think because he's in the middle it's hard to pound the table say, “We're going to take the guy that's not first and not fourth, he's second and third in all of these things.”
Like it's hard to imagine a process that he comes out first, but if he ends up pricing himself lower, which he doesn't have to, but if he does, he might end up coming out that way.
That's why there's so much uncertainty about where he goes. Because I think it's hard without a price for him to come up as somebody's top player, which is basically what's happening.
Q. Does Jack Leiter project as a No. 1 starter down the road in your mind?
Kiley McDaniel: I wouldn't say project because that implies it's expected, and I would say, given the series I did at ESPN, there's no more than maybe as many as 12 aces at any given time. Saying a guy will be one of the top 12 pitchers in baseball as an expectation, I think, is too high. But in terms of, say, the last couple of drafts, and this Draft especially, by far the best odds to be an ace, maybe that's one in three. But one in three is wildly high for perennial All-Star.
I think most of the guys in this Draft are like, hey, there's like a 20 percent chance he could be a guy that everybody knows his name couple years from now, and that's why these guys go at the top, whereas the guys at the back of the first rounds, it's like five percent chance he becomes that guy.
Q. Follow-up was going to be about Rocker, how has the evaluation changed on him? You've got a lot of national attention with the College World Series. Over the last couple of years with the COVID season, just this past season, what has changed about his evaluation, where I think maybe it was just hype, but seemed like at one point in time he was viewed as a potential top pick, where now obviously it seems like Leiter and other people have surpassed him in that regard?
Kiley McDaniel: For right or wrong, when you're scouting players, especially up until they're age 21, the expectation is, hey, this guy is the best 16-year-old I've ever seen. The expectation is he will then continue linearly as progress. Obviously that's not what happens with any average player. But in general, if you take 50 guys that are seen as the best 16-year-olds, you'll end up with 15 first-round picks, or whatever it is out of that group, because you're starting with the cream of the crop.
Rocker was throwing in the mid 90s when he was 14, 15 years old. Obviously physically looks a lot like his dad, who was an NFL defensive lineman, defensive line coach. And so you could have guessed at age 17, 18, when he was probably a $2, $3 million pitcher out of high school, this guy might be the kind of guy who reaches his physical peak a little bit earlier.
And so maybe when he looks like the best prospect in his Draft class as a freshman and like a slam dunk 1-1 pick, he may not be the guy that from high school to freshman year of college is just going to keep going up. He may have gotten there a little quicker. And then some guys that are behind him, especially physically, will continue sort of rising, maybe ahead of him, but definitely relative to him if he flattens off a little bit.
I think that's what you're seeing, is that he went from a mid-first rounder out of high school to a very likely 1-1 candidate as a freshman to not continuing to improve and all of the guys around him continue improving for somewhat predictable reasons.
And then also just because there's been some limitations to the swing and miss on the fastball. You've had Jack Leiter right next to him in all the same situations, and it's easy to see that he has swing and miss on the fastball, continues improving. Some of those things.
And then also there's just the risk with any right-handed pitcher with now velocity. That's the riskiest subset in the Draft. Highest likelihood to go out for a year on one pitch. That's where him and Jackson Jobe are seen, generally in that top eight, and will probably go toward the back end of that eight just because there's risk there.
It would be fair to say that some of this Rocker moving from first overall down to fifth, sixth, seventh, is a little bit just having enough time to pick holes in a guy, whereas Jackson Jobe has only really been watched for, say, 15 starts. There hasn’t been as much time to pick holes in him. There's a little bit of that going on, too, but there's also some, I think, empirical fair stuff about the kind of player he is.
Q. With the Rockies at No. 8, and kind of on that bubble of players you were talking about, are you still looking at them and possibly going after an outfielder? Or how are you seeing things as we get closer?
Kiley McDaniel: Again, if a top tier of eight and they're picking eighth, in some ways it makes it easy. But also what if the guy that gets there is the one they want? Then it gets real difficult because you're at the top of that next tier, and you might just have to pay retail for a guy that you think is kind of the same as the next guys.
There's an increasing odds that Jordan Lawlar is the one of those four high school shortstops that slides. I don't think he has a natural landing spot until six or eight. And that then becomes a question. It's probably still like a five or 10 percent chance. He has a chance to be sophomore eligible at Vanderbilt and real good shot to go in the top five.
I don't know if he just signs for slot at eight, but I think that's about where that question becomes a question. Also if Kumar gets past seven and he's on the board at eight and Colorado passes because he's not the exactly the kind of pitcher they prefer, that's then a question: Does Kumar go back to school?
Again, both of those are unlikely. But the fact that the guys in the top 10 that might go back to school are both Vanderbilt guys is sort of wild, even if it's five, 10 percent chance on either of them.
I would say the guys Colorado is most tied to is Brady House, if he gets there; I think Lawlar, if he gets there; and then it gets pretty wide open, where Benny Montgomery has support there. That may be getting less likely by the day. And some college pitchers, Ty Madden and Gunnar Hoglund, have also been mentioned there.
I think if it's one of those situations where the eighth of that group of eight gets to them isn't a guy they like, I think college pitching may be the route they go.
Q. Would you say that maybe a kid that has -- a high school kid that's had a lot of experience and a lot of upside might have more leverage this year, maybe a kid from Texas who got this Team U.S.A. experience or got a lot of travel ball, a lot of eyes on him for a while?
Kiley McDaniel: I would say Jordan Lawlar is a good example where he's old enough that he would be Draft eligible in two years. The average kid has to wait three years if you want to go to one of these top tier schools and really have a chance to raise your stock.
Obviously the more time you have, if you go from third round to first round, usually only takes a year or two. So to be able to do it in two years and do it on the highest level with all the good coaching and everything is a big advantage.
There's a handful of players, like Jackson Baumeister at Florida State, Maddux Bruns at Mississippi State. There's a couple guys that are old enough that they'll be sophomore eligible and they have an even bigger edge.
But, yeah, I think what you're getting at is with the more education, the more information and all that kind of thing, there's also better coaching at the right colleges. So I think the upside and thus the leverage also gets higher.
Q. You mentioned Jordan Lawlar. You have him as the No. 1 player in your rankings currently. Why is he such a mystery about where he can go? He's the guy that Vandy has been scouting since eighth grade. Why is he such a mystery?
Kiley McDaniel: Yeah, he's not a mystery as a player, it's really just where he goes. If you take those four high school shortstops, which I think there's the most demand for those guys out of all of the subsets of players, there's a pretty clear Brady House highest upside, Marcelo Mayer maybe the most projection, Kahlil Watson probably the highest floor and then also good enough upside, and Lawlar is just in the middle on all of those different measures.
He's not necessarily the best out of those four at anything. For me that doesn't make him not the top player, but it's essentially a coin flip, like a six-way coin flip. So he's also as close as he is to sixth as he is to running away with it.
I think because he's in the middle it's hard to pound the table say, “We're going to take the guy that's not first and not fourth, he's second and third in all of these things.”
Like it's hard to imagine a process that he comes out first, but if he ends up pricing himself lower, which he doesn't have to, but if he does, he might end up coming out that way.
That's why there's so much uncertainty about where he goes. Because I think it's hard without a price for him to come up as somebody's top player, which is basically what's happening.
Q. Does Jack Leiter project as a No. 1 starter down the road in your mind?
Kiley McDaniel: I wouldn't say project because that implies it's expected, and I would say, given the series I did at ESPN, there's no more than maybe as many as 12 aces at any given time. Saying a guy will be one of the top 12 pitchers in baseball as an expectation, I think, is too high. But in terms of, say, the last couple of drafts, and this Draft especially, by far the best odds to be an ace, maybe that's one in three. But one in three is wildly high for perennial All-Star.
I think most of the guys in this Draft are like, hey, there's like a 20 percent chance he could be a guy that everybody knows his name couple years from now, and that's why these guys go at the top, whereas the guys at the back of the first rounds, it's like five percent chance he becomes that guy.
Q. Follow-up was going to be about Rocker, how has the evaluation changed on him? You've got a lot of national attention with the College World Series. Over the last couple of years with the COVID season, just this past season, what has changed about his evaluation, where I think maybe it was just hype, but seemed like at one point in time he was viewed as a potential top pick, where now obviously it seems like Leiter and other people have surpassed him in that regard?
Kiley McDaniel: For right or wrong, when you're scouting players, especially up until they're age 21, the expectation is, hey, this guy is the best 16-year-old I've ever seen. The expectation is he will then continue linearly as progress. Obviously that's not what happens with any average player. But in general, if you take 50 guys that are seen as the best 16-year-olds, you'll end up with 15 first-round picks, or whatever it is out of that group, because you're starting with the cream of the crop.
Rocker was throwing in the mid 90s when he was 14, 15 years old. Obviously physically looks a lot like his dad, who was an NFL defensive lineman, defensive line coach. And so you could have guessed at age 17, 18, when he was probably a $2, $3 million pitcher out of high school, this guy might be the kind of guy who reaches his physical peak a little bit earlier.
And so maybe when he looks like the best prospect in his Draft class as a freshman and like a slam dunk 1-1 pick, he may not be the guy that from high school to freshman year of college is just going to keep going up. He may have gotten there a little quicker. And then some guys that are behind him, especially physically, will continue sort of rising, maybe ahead of him, but definitely relative to him if he flattens off a little bit.
I think that's what you're seeing, is that he went from a mid-first rounder out of high school to a very likely 1-1 candidate as a freshman to not continuing to improve and all of the guys around him continue improving for somewhat predictable reasons.
And then also just because there's been some limitations to the swing and miss on the fastball. You've had Jack Leiter right next to him in all the same situations, and it's easy to see that he has swing and miss on the fastball, continues improving. Some of those things.
And then also there's just the risk with any right-handed pitcher with now velocity. That's the riskiest subset in the Draft. Highest likelihood to go out for a year on one pitch. That's where him and Jackson Jobe are seen, generally in that top eight, and will probably go toward the back end of that eight just because there's risk there.
It would be fair to say that some of this Rocker moving from first overall down to fifth, sixth, seventh, is a little bit just having enough time to pick holes in a guy, whereas Jackson Jobe has only really been watched for, say, 15 starts. There hasn’t been as much time to pick holes in him. There's a little bit of that going on, too, but there's also some, I think, empirical fair stuff about the kind of player he is.
