The main event of the 2016 Major League Baseball draft was Thursday’s opening day, followed by eight rounds of picks Friday.
Everything will wrap up with Rounds 11 through 40 on Saturday. These selections won’t get all the pomp and circumstance of players taken on Day 1, but they can serve as vital pieces of their teams’ futures.
It takes a lot for a late-round selection to earn a shot in the big leagues, but there are plenty of success stories who have made their dreams a reality.
Mike Piazza went from a 62nd-round pick in 1988 to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mark Buehrle, Andy Pettitte and Albert Pujols were all taken after the 10th round.
One notable caveat looking ahead to the best players still on the board is money. The MLB draft is unique because most players are high school seniors or college juniors with the option to return to school, giving them leverage to throw out a huge price tag if they believe their talent warrants it.
If teams have already passed on these players because of contract demands, it’s unlikely they will end up signing. It’s all part of the chess game that makes the draft fascinating.
With that out of the way, here are the best players remaining in the 2016 MLB draft after 10 rounds have been completed.
Best Remaining Pitcher: Jared Horn, RHP (Vintage HS)
The only reason Jared Horn finds himself still on the board is signability. He was a borderline first-round talent coming into the draft, ranking 34th on MLB.com‘s prospects list, and fits the physical bill of a right-handed workhorse at 6’2″, 190 pounds.
After the first day ended without his name being called, Horn told Ryan Gorcey of Scout.com that he was “not pursuing the draft anymore” and is “excited to attend Cal in the fall.”
Citing a source, Gorcey noted Horn and his family were telling MLB teams it would take a “life-changing” offer to make him balk on his commitment to California.
Hudson Belinsky of Baseball America wrote in May the right-hander was gaining traction:
Horn has taken another step forward this spring. His fastball has been up to as high as 97 mph, and sits comfortably in the low to mid-90s. He has a potent arsenal of offspeed stuff, and his athletic ability shows on the mound. He isn’t perfect; no prospect is. But he recognizes areas of his game that he can improve upon, and he wants to get better.
Horn told Belinsky that he’s “never really had a pitching coach other than my dad.” Getting into professional baseball to work with a professional pitching coach could have helped him fix some of the flaws in his game.
Two of the main issues for Horn are getting a more consistent release point with his breaking ball and a delivery that he doesn’t repeat well. His command is a long way off, but he can get three years of development in college with the goal of being a high first-round pick in 2019.
Best Remaining Hitter: Carlos Cortes, 2B (Lake Howell HS)
High school pitching is the strength of this draft class. Hitters are not plentiful, which might explain why three of the first five players selected were position players.
Carlos Cortes is not an elite all-around talent who should have been in the Day 1 conversation, but his hitting mechanics are among the strongest in the class.
ESPN’s Keith Law ranked Cortes as the 66th-best player available in the class before the draft started.
ESPN.com’s Eric Longenhagen noted Cortes was “one of the many high school contact machines in this draft and has the physical ability to hit for some power, though his approach is contact-oriented right now.”
Nothing else about Cortes stands out. With a thick 5’8″, 195-pound frame, he doesn’t run well, doesn’t profile as an average defensive player at any position and lacks power.
Yet the best thing any young player can do is hit. Teams will always find a spot for a player if he can put the bat on the ball. Cortes has a low-maintenance swing that generates good bat speed and hard contact to all fields.
All of the negatives that come with Cortes likely resulted in his falling further down draft boards, to the point where he didn’t get selected in the first 10 rounds and will presumably attend South Carolina for three years before being draft-eligible again in 2019.
Future MLB Player: Trever Morrison, SS (Oregon State)
The term “utility player” gets thrown around often as a nice way to describe someone who can’t do one thing exceptionally well but does several things well enough to stick around in the big leagues for longer than anyone would have predicted.
Trever Morrison is going to be one of those players despite not being drafted in the first 10 rounds. He’s not an exciting prospect because he offers almost no offensive value. His college stats this season weren’t impressive (.284/.345/.402), so translating that skill to professional baseball seems futile.
Fittingly, the Oregon State shortstop lists Darwin Barney as his favorite athlete on the school’s athletics website. That’s not a coincidence, because that’s the kind of player Morrison is going to be.
Per FanGraphs, Barney has saved 63 runs on defense in his career. Morrison (6’0″) is two inches taller than Barney, but they are both skinny guys at around 180 pounds. Barney has been in the big leagues since 2010, primarily as a second baseman with some shortstop and third base thrown in.
Per MLB.com‘s scouting report, Morrison has solid athleticism, with some in the industry believing “he’ll hit enough to be an everyday player, with a worst-case scenario being a future as a super-utility type, one who has already shown the ability to play the outfield.”
There’s enough potential with the glove to believe Morrison will break into the big leagues and be on a 25-man roster for a decade.
Full draft results can be found at MLB.com.
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