The MLB Draft isn’t until July 9-11 but because the Minnesota Twins were the big winners of the inaugural MLB Draft Lottery they have a legitimate shot at finding a future star in the first round.
Minnesota moved up from 13th to fifth in the lottery and that’s a very big deal since the 2023 draft class is loaded at the top with what MLB draft analyst Jim Callis describes as a group headlined by five players who are “clearly” above the rest.
Callis says LSU teammates Dylan Crews (outfielder) and Paul Skenes (right-handed pitcher) are the consensus top two players in the draft, with “virtually every team” agreeing that outfielders Wyatt Langford (Florida), Walker Jenkins (South Brunswick High School in North Carolina) and Max Clark (Franklin High School in Indiana) are the other three elite prospects.
In Callis’s first mock draft he has the Twins taking Clark with the fifth overall selection.
“A no-doubt center fielder with four plus or better tools and at least average power, Clark would be a legitimate candidate to go No. 1 overall in many years,” Callis wrote.
Adding one of the five elite talents in the draft will bolster a Twins farm system that is ranked middle of the road by most analysts. The top prospects include last year’s No. 8 overall pick shortstop Brooks Lee, shortstop Royce Lewis, who was the No. 1 overall pick in 2017, and outfielder Emmanuel Rodriguez, who has about as much power as any prospect in the game.
