Low hanging fruit to pick on this blogger/hype man, but stuff like this doesn't really help in tracking a draft that is way different from the other pro sports (though it seems hockey might be closest).
It doesn't take a lot of critical thinking to track it. The unanimous opinion is that this year's draft is weaker than last year's. That means Bazzana, Condon, Burns are not in the same echelon as Skenes, Crews, and Langford -- and that's also true relative to the two top prep guys last year (Clark and Jenkins) compared to Griffin and Rainer.
Jenkins and Clark have worked their ways towards the top of lists, and it's possible that guys in this year's draft will as well. If I had to guess, Bazzana and Condon will probably be top-20 on lists, and some of the other guys selected will make the back half of a list, depending on the publication.
It's sort of a moot point until the players have some pro ball under their belt. Griffin has loud tools and will rise if he hits the ground running because 5-tool players are extremely rare. Jenkins and Clark are both in that mold, but Jenkins doesn't quite have plus or plus plus speed and the same is true with Clark's power. The question with Griffin's hit tool is definitely worrying, but he'll be tested in pro ball and we'll see where it comes out. Most scouts don't give HS hitters higher than a 50 for their hit tool for a variety of reasons. If he was graded higher, he would have been Bobby Witt Jr. and a slam dunk at 1.1 overall.
In any case, it's not a realistic expectation that Griffin would have been in top handful of picks convos. Analysts like Callis did think he could go that high (he said that Cleveland and Chicago both liked him over Rainer, as we did, but the opposite was true for the other teams), but nobody had him over a weaker college crop of which none play a premium position. Griffin will be a development project who requires some patience to even form an opinion about. The best case scenario for him would be a quick sign, some complex league experience, and if we want to be very aggressive, a week or two of games in single-A with Bradenton. That's basically the path that Jenkins and Clark took last year.
I'm still ambivalent about the pick, as I would have really liked Montgomery. I'm not sure he's going to get any playing time this year due to the injury, but there's a world where he gets to AA by the end of next year and is knocking on the MLB door in 2026. That could be frustrating, but Griffin's ceiling is big enough that it could have us indifferent to anything else if he starts showing his potential.
The last thing that may be worth noting right now is that this portfolio of all-prep talent might be the imprint of the new scouting director, Justin Horwitz. He came up in Boston and it sounds like he was fully in charge of the draft this year, although DelliCarri is still in an advising role (he is now the "vice president of scouting"). The major get he's associated with in Boston is Roman Anthony, who they signed to an over slot deal back in 2022 and who has rocketed up lists due to his performance in the minors so far.
