2021 MLB Draft Scouting Report: Tyler Black

There’s a wide range of rankings when it comes to Wright State second baseman Tyler Black. What isn’t debatable is that he crushed the ball in 2021 after hitting .383/.496/.683 with 11 stolen bases.

Tyler Black Scouting Report

Height: 6′ 2″ | Weight: 190

Bats: Left | Throws: Right | Position: 2B

Highest Ranking: 18th (ESPN)

Tyler Black is rated 18th in the draft by ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel. But he’s also rated outside of the top 50 by both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline (still in the top 100 in both places, though).

A big freshman season put Tyler Black on the map. He hit .353/.469/.600 with 38 walks and 18 strikeouts in 52 games for the Raiders. In 13 games as a sophomore in 2020 he got out to a slow start and had just a .709 OPS before the season was cancelled due to the pandemic. In 2021 he came back with a vengeance and tore up the Horizon League as he hit 14 doubles, a triple, and had 13 home runs with 39 walks, and 25 strikeouts in 48 games to go along with an OPS of 1.179.

Teams that really believe in the bat will have him rated higher on their boards than teams who just think he’s a solid to good hitter. He’s a second baseman long term, though he has some experience at third base – his arm just isn’t the typical corner arm. With fringy-average speed and average power in the future on his scouting report there’s a lot riding on his ability to hit for a quality average and maintain a good walk rate because he’s not going to stick out in the field or on the bases. Still, there’s some safety there – but perhaps not a lot of big upside.

You can read all of the 2021 MLB Draft Scouting Reports here.

Tyler Black Video

Home run highlight at 4:15, line drive out at 6:05, robbed of a grand slam at 9:10,

Tyler Black College Stats

Basic Information

For this draft scouting report series we are going to look at prospects rated 6th through 50th in a cumulative ranking based on the Baseball America, MLB Pipeline, ESPN, and Fangraphs draft rankings. The guys in the top five seem to have no chance of dropping to Cincinnati at 17, so we’re skipping them to focus a little more on guys with more of a shot to be Reds. The national rankings are updated throughout the month leading up to the draft, so there could be some slight changes from when the cumulative list was compiled and when you read this.

The 2021 Major League Baseball Draft will begin on July 11th and end on July 13th, taking part over a three day period of time. The Cincinnati Reds will have selections 17, 30, 35, and 53 in the first two rounds of the draft. Despite not selecting in the top five, or even the top 10, the Reds have the 4th largest bonus pool allotment to work with due to their compensation pick from losing Trevor Bauer in free agency, as well as a competitive balance round A pick (35th) that adds a lot of additional pool money.