Jonathan Mayo of MLB Pipeline has out his latest 2020 Major League Baseball mock draft. With the uncertainty of how many rounds the draft will have – it’s currently scheduled for just five rounds, though MLB has the right to have more rounds if they’d like to – and exactly when it will be – it’s currently said to be “in July” with no exact date specified – it’s definitely a very 2020 situation full of questions without answers.
There’s not much changing in terms of evaluation right now. Baseball has been shut down both at the college and high school level since at least mid-March, and in some cases earlier than that. And it’s not going to be returning before the draft takes place, either.
Whenever the draft does take place, though, the Cincinnati Reds are going to be selecting 12th overall in the 1st round. Mayo’s mock draft has the Reds selecting right-handed pitcher Jared Kelley out of Refugio High School in Texas. Kelley is rated as the #12 prospect on MLB Pipeline’s Top 150 draft prospects, 17th on the Fangraphs Top 100 draft prospects list, and he’s the 11th rated prospect in the draft by Baseball America.
We’ll jump into more of a detailed scouting report on him when we get to his spot in the 2020 Major League Baseball Draft Scouting Report series. But an abbreviated report would include a mid-90’s fastball that reaches 99 without much effort, a good change up, and a breaking ball that gets a variety of different grades depending on who you ask. He’s already 6′ 3″ and 215 lbs, so he’s got plenty of size and looks like your prototypical starter from a physical standpoint already despite being just 18-years-old.
The Reds going with a high school pitcher in the 1st round would go against much of what they’ve done in recent memory. Since selecting Nick Travieso 14th overall in 2012 the Reds have had 11 picks in the 1st round – accounting for supplemental/compensation picks – and have only gone with Hunter Greene as a high school pitcher in that span.