York’s Ryan Sloan is projected to go in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft on Sunday.
The MLB draft on Sunday will cover all the bases. The White Sox have the No. 5 overall pick, the Cubs choose 14th, and a local player has a good chance of going in the first round.
The local player to watch is right-handed pitcher Ryan Sloan from York High School in Elmhurst. Sloan is a Wake Forest commit, but it’s rare these days for first-round draft picks to pass on turning pro.
Sloan has been in the teens on the list of MLB Pipeline’s top prospects. The site’s latest mock draft had him going No. 26 to the Yankees.
Both local teams have chosen area players in the recent past. The White Sox took left-handed pitcher Noah Schultz from Oswego East High School in the 2022 first round, while the Cubs took Mt. Carmel shortstop Ed Howard in 2020.
Cubs scouting director Dan Kantrovitz didn’t want to say anything specifically about Sloan when he spoke to reporters Thursday.
“For any high-profile local player, rest assured we’ve done our due diligence and scouted him pretty thoroughly,” he said.
Predictability is an issue in the MLB draft, which obviously includes college and high school players, pitchers and every position. Kantrovitz was asked how the Cubs try to determine what might happen ahead of them in the draft.
“That’s the question I’m asked most by national media leading up to this, ‘Hey, what are you hearing in front of you?’” Kantrovitz said. “Much to their dismay, my answer is usually, ‘Not much.’
“Because to get that kind of information, you have to give up information. And there’s not a scenario I can think of that is ever worth compromising our own information or intelligence that we’ve gathered, or (divulging) who we like, to really know who’s going to go off the board in front of us.”
Four or five players have been mocked to go No. 1 overall to Cleveland. There’s a nice group of college hitters at the top of the draft, so the White Sox will get one of them, if that’s the direction they choose.
“There are some really good college position players,” White Sox scouting director Mike Shirley said. “I think it’s important to understand where amateur baseball’s gone. The SEC, the big conferences, they’ve invested in baseball significantly.
“These players are more developed than they’ve ever been at the college level, but it’s tricky. I think all the mock drafts, the performance at the college level may be a touch inflated. Our job is to weed through all that and make a quality decision.”
Shirley said the Sox are considering 10 players at No. 5. Most are college position players, but a couple of college pitchers are expected to go Top 10, and a couple of high schoolers could sneak up.
The general consensus has the list of top position players as Oregon State second baseman Travis Bazzana, an Australia native; Georgia outfielder Charlie Condon, who hit 37 home runs this spring; Wake Forest first baseman Nick Kurtz, West Virginia infielder J.J. Wetherholt and Florida first baseman/pitcher Jac Caglianone.
Caglianone is an interesting player, and he visited Guaranteed Rate Field a few weeks ago. The Tampa native hit .419 with 35 home runs this spring, and he was in the Gators’ rotation, posting a 4.76 ERA in 16 starts. Could he do both in the majors?
“We’re investigating whether he can be a two-way player,” Shirley said. “We’d be foolish not to do that. He’s done it his whole life. Obviously, we prefer the bat over the pitching. But even if he can throw once or twice a week to stretch a staff, that could be beneficial.
“Jac thinks it’s possible. He clearly stated he thinks he can do it. I think we’ll investigate every avenue.”
With so much focus on college position players, could the Cubs find some pitching value at No. 14? The mock drafts generally have them linked to two pitchers, East Carolina righty Trey Yesavage and lefty Cam Caminiti of Saguaro (Arizona) High School.
It’s easy to imagine the Cubs going after their next great starter, since they took infielder Matt Shaw last year. Two years ago, they surprised the draft world by taking pitcher Cade Horton, and they have a history of taking big swings with bonus money in the second and third rounds.
Could the Cubs pull a surprise and take Sloan or Iowa fireballer Brody Brecht? Like Kantrovitz said, it’s tough to predict anything in the MLB draft.
Kantrovitz was concerned about the long gap between first and second picks. After No. 14, the Cubs’ second pick is 54, so there’s not much overlap for the scouts.
The White Sox have five of the top 107 picks but already know they’ll be at a disadvantage next year, when they can pick no higher than 10th due to new anti-tanking rules.
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