It’s hard to imagine while we're still within a frigid January that’s covered much of the country, but baseball season is upon us once again. The 2024 season begins Jan. 26 as the bulldogs belonging to the junior college ranks kick us off officially, which signals the latest MLB Draft cycle beginning in earnest.

Once they get going, it isn’t long before high school spring seasons are underway in the warm-weather states, which generally coincides with the start of the NCAA Division I season on Feb. 16. And it’s a marathon from there, which will take us to the MLB Draft in July, at a date to be announced, though it’ll presumably precede MLB All-Star Game on July 16 once again.

Since the end of the 2023 Draft, Prep Baseball’s Draft HQ has published insight on this 2024 draft class, including:

• David Seifert published his Top 100 College Prospects list for D1Baseball.com back in September, which tees us up nicely for the spring season around the corner.
• Our team highlighted the collection of draft-eligible sophomores on the board.
• And we produced our first official Draft HQ Mock following December’s second annual MLB Draft Lottery – which we’ll shake up next in March.

---

ASSESSING THIS 2024 CLASS

This group of collegiate juniors were members of a star-studded 2021 prep class that included five of the first 10 picks, and 16 of the 36 total first-rounders, which includes the two compensatory rounds that take place prior to the official start of the second round.

Of the top 60 picks from the ‘21 MLB Draft, 27 were out of the high school ranks. For context, the class prior, which has now nearly ended its draft cycle, combined for 33 total first-round picks over three separate drafts (2020-2023). This helps underscore Draft HQ’s line of thinking, as we’ll eventually divvy this class into multiple groupings, by prep pitchers, prep position players, as well as college pitchers, and college position players. These separate lists better exhibit the day-of processes you might expect to see inside an actual ‘war room’ (although those rooms likely break things down at even more granular level).

Inevitably, more college players will be taken in each singular draft, but when approached across the full cycle (spanning three or four drafts in total), each graduating class should have almost double the amount of high-level talent as the collegians, who are members of a class that has already gone through one or two draft cycles.

So, while a finite number of first-rounders are set to be selected from the college ranks, there is a whole host of (future) high school top-60 picks that will not even be selected in 2024 MLB Draft. Regardless, those college players who have been passed over in previous drafts yet still project as top-five-round picks today carry their own kind of upside and they warrant closer evaluation this spring. Their position on the Draft Board should not be overlooked despite the fact that they were possibly passed over in previous years.

– Shooter Hunt, Prep Baseball VP of Scouting

---

DRAFT HQ: TOP-200

---

Related Content