Pittsburgh Pirates Draft: Top 100 Draft Prospect List

The Pittsburgh Pirates have the 18th overall pick in the 2019 Major League Baseball Draft.  Here is an early look at the top prospects available.

Just last week, Baseball America released their first mock draft of the new year.  The Pittsburgh Pirates have the 18th overall pick in this year’s draft.  Baseball America mocked to the Pirates a right-handed starting pitcher from the Florida Gators in Tyler Dyson.  This would be a solid pick if the draft were tomorrow, being he is one of the top college arms available.

However, the draft is not tomorrow and there is still plenty of time for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the rest of Major League Baseball to prepare.  The actual draft is not until the first week of June, but major scouting sites are already putting their lists together.  Baseball America is the most notorious site for amateur prospect reports.

While Baseball America put out a mock draft last week, this week they put out their top 100 Draft Prospect list.  Making up the list is all the high school, college, and junior college prospects that will likely be available.  This includes all the college seniors and college juniors that are expected to test the draft.  This is the first list that has had all the eligible players combined.

So who is ranked at the Pittsburgh Pirates slot at number 18 overall?  Ironically enough, it is a player who plays a position of great need for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the lower levels and at the Major League level.  The team at Baseball America has Auburn University shortstop Will Holland projected as the 18th best prospect available.  Holland stands at 5’11” and weighs about 185 pounds.  Here is some of Baseball America’s scouting report on the Tiger:

"Holland is toolsy and in 2018 established a strong track record for performance as one of the top hitters for the Tigers. He’s an aggressive hitter, but he can put a charge into the ball. He has more power than his 5-foot-11, 185-pound frame suggests, and he produces a lot of hard-hit balls."

The site goes on to explain that Holland is an above average runner who will likely steal some bases, but not a ton.  Also, they believe he will stick at shortstop as he has the athletic ability, but does need to clean up some of his actual fielding.  The best part of his shortstop game is his range and plus arm.

It would be very interesting to see if the Pittsburgh Pirates could land Holland.  The team has previously drafted shortstops in the back half of the first round, so it would not be a complete surprise.  They took Cole Tucker with the 24th pick and Kevin Newman at 19th overall.  Obviously, a lot can change from now until June, but it is always good to get some names to pay attention to this spring.