Cardinals To Sign First-Rounder Chase Davis
The Cardinals are expected to finalize their agreement with 21st overall pick Chase Davis today, according to MLB.com’s John Denton (Twitter link). The 21st selection has a slot value of $3,618,200, but Davis’ bonus isn’t known since Denton has since corrected his intial report about how much the outfielder would receive. Fangraphs ranked Davis as the 16th-best prospect in the 2023 class, with MLB Pipeline (22nd), Baseball America (28th), The Athletic’s Keith Law (30th), and ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel (31st) all only slightly less enthused about the 21-year-old outfielder’s potential.
As BA’s scouting report notes, “Davis remains a divisive prospect, perhaps given his history of contact questions,” but he significantly cut back his strikeouts during his most recent college season. This only added to a strong offensive profile that includes hard contact and the ability to hit to all fields, plus power grades in the 55-60 range. Davis has an excellent throwing arm and looks to have a pretty safe floor as an above-average corner outfielder, with enough speed that he might be able to handle center field.
The 21-year-old Davis will look to be the latest in a long line of homegrown Cardinals position players to reach the majors, though with so many of those players now in St. Louis, the Cards’ current top prospect list is mostly pitcher-heavy at the top (with the notable exception of shortstop Masyn Winn). While teams don’t draft to address needs at the moment, it is interesting to note that the Cardinals are adding another outfielder at a time when the club might be readying itself to move some of its position-player surplus for longer-term pitching assets at the trade deadline.
2023 MLB Draft, First Round Results
The 2023 MLB Draft begins tonight, and this post will be constantly updated with each team’s selections from the first round. The Mets and Dodgers are the only teams without a first-rounder, as their top picks were each dropped 10 places overall as part of their punishment for exceeding the highest luxury-tax tier in 2022. As a result, the Mets won’t have a selection until the 32nd overall pick, and the Dodgers won’t select until 36th overall.
The first-round selections….
- Pittsburgh Pirates: Paul Skenes, RHP, LSU
- Washington Nationals: Dylan Crews, OF, LSU
- Detroit Tigers: Max Clark, OF, Franklin Community High School (IN)
- Texas Rangers: Wyatt Langford, OF, University Of Florida
- Minnesota Twins: Walker Jenkins, OF, South Brunswick High School (NC)
- Oakland Athletics: Jacob Wilson, SS, Grand Canyon University
- Cincinnati Reds: Rhett Lowder, RHP, Wake Forest
- Kansas City Royals: Blake Mitchell, C, Sinton High School (TX)
- Colorado Rockies: Chase Dollander, RHP, University of Tennessee
- Miami Marlins: Noble Meyer, RHP, Jesuit High School (OR)
- Los Angeles Angels: Nolan Schanuel, 1B/OF, Florida Atlantic
- Arizona Diamondbacks: Tommy Troy, SS, Stanford
- Chicago Cubs: Matthew Shaw, SS, University of Maryland
- Boston Red Sox: Kyle Teel, C, University of Virginia
- Chicago White Sox: Jacob Gonzalez, SS, University Of Mississippi
- San Francisco Giants: Bryce Eldridge, 1B/RHP, Madison High School (VA)
- Baltimore Orioles: Enrique Bradfield Jr., OF, Vanderbilt
- Milwaukee Brewers: Brock Wilken, 3B, Wake Forest
- Tampa Bay Rays: Brayden Taylor, 3B/SS, TCU
- Toronto Blue Jays: Arjun Nimmala, SS, Strawberry Crest High School (FL)
- St. Louis Cardinals: Chase Davis, OF, University of Arizona
- Seattle Mariners: Colt Emerson, SS, Glenn High School (OH)
- Cleveland Guardians: Ralphy Velazquez, C, Huntington Beach High School (CA)
- Atlanta Braves: Hurston Waldrep, RHP, University of Florida
- San Diego Padres: Dillon Head, OF, Homewood-Flossmoor High School (IL)
- New York Yankees: George Lombard Jr., 3B/SS, Gulliver Prep High School (FL)
- Philadelphia Phillies: Aidan Miller, 3B/SS, Mitchell High School (FL)
- Houston Astros: Brice Matthews, SS, University of Nebraska
This year’s draft will again be 20 rounds long, and split over three days. Rounds 11-20 will take place on Tuesday, rounds 3-10 on Monday, and the draft’s first 70 picks will be made tonight. Those 70 picks cover the first two official rounds, the two Competitive Balance Rounds, the two sets of compensatory rounds (giving picks to teams who lost qualifying offer-rejecting free agents), and the first-ever Prospect Promotion Incentive Pick. The Mariners received the PPI selection at 29th overall, since Julio Rodriguez filled the criteria of winning the Rookie Of The Year Award, being part of his team’s active roster from Opening Day onwards, and he ranked as a preseason top-100 prospect by at least two of Baseball America, ESPN, and MLB Pipeline.
The PPI is one of several new wrinkles to the 2023 draft, as this is the first draft held under the new guidelines established by the 2022-2026 Collective Bargaining Agreement. The process for determining the 14 teams in the Competitive Balance Rounds was also tweaked, though the teams (all in the bottom 10 in market size or revenue size) will still have their picks split up over two mini-rounds sandwiched around the second round. The most obvious change came at the very top of the board, as this was the first year of the lottery process to determine the draft’s top six picks. This is how the Pirates ended up with the first overall selection, even though the Nationals and A’s each had worse records in 2022.
This year’s draft class is considered to be one of the deepest and most talent-laden in years, so several potential franchise-changing players could be starting their pro careers tonight. More details and scouting reports on all these young players are available in pre-draft rankings from Baseball America, Fangraphs, MLB Pipeline, The Athletic’s Keith Law, and ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel. As well, Pipeline has the breakdown of the slot values assigned to each pick in the first 10 rounds, as well as the bonus pool money available to all 30 teams.