MLB Draft Deep Dive: Utilizing Sim Scores for Player Comparisons – Joe Boyd

6-29-23 – By Joe Boyd – @Joe_Boyd11 on Twitter

I’m back once again, in a cameo appearance, to present the 2023 COMPs for the top prospects at the Pirates’ disposal!  For a refresh on methodology, check out my post from 2021. That year, there was not a consensus, top pick so I spread the analysis around several players that could be the choice.  This year, I think it’s pretty clear that the Pirates will select one of two (three?) players with the top choice.  So let’s dive into the options for Pittsburgh.

Dylan Crews, OF LSU

If you’ve come here for my scouting expertise, prepare to be thoroughly disappointed.  I’ve welcomed my first child into the world so the only baseball I get to see nowadays is an inning or two from the Buccos during our night time bottle. But I’ve heard a thing or two about Crews.  Some say he’s a generational talent, and he could probably slot into the lineup tomorrow.  The idea of a lineup with Crews and Davis at the heart does sound enticing!  His stats are downright gaudy, slashing .426/.567/.713 this season to lead LSU to the CWS. 

Utilizing Fangraph’s The Board, the team there projects that he’s already the 8th best prospect in baseball.  From his scouting report, “Crews can punish you to all fields. He’ll get extended on fastballs away from him and crush them the opposite way, or he can turn on pitches on the middle two-thirds of the plate and hit some titanic blasts to left. Breaking ball recognition is still a bit of a problem for him, and he tends to swing inside his fair share of sliders, enough that he projects more like an average contact hitter who gets to huge power.”  And with that bat, he has impressive speed and the ability to stay in CF.  So who does he best align with from COMPs?

Luis Robert, 2019 CWS (4.90 COMP)

We’ve seen Robert, a former premier prospect, play really well with the White Sox and he’s in the midst of his “I’m here” campaign this year.  It’s difficult to find a player with the tools that Crews has, but as you can see Robert was scouted as a similar player.  If the Pirates were to take Crews and he followed a similar track as Robert, you could see him in Pittsburgh as early as 2024 and making a major impact in 2025-2028.  Players rarely hit their ceiling, but Crews continues his evolution, this seems like an end-result worth a full slot selection. 

Paul Skenes, RHP LSU

The next option for the Pirates would be to go with the howitzer-armed Skenes.  There has been plenty of complaints about his usage this season, but the talent is undeniable.  A fastball that hits 102-mph is extremely enticing.  And his frame surely implies that it is sustainable.  Back to Fangraphs for the scouting report: 

“Skenes is a much more powerful and explosive athlete than any other pitcher in the 2023 draft and should be able to maintain this velocity across a big league starter’s workload. There is some mechanical violence here (he’s throwing 100, after all) and the flat, tailing action on Skenes’ fastball only enables it to truly dominate in the upper/arm-side portion of the zone, but he tends to live in that area reliably. His glove-side breaking ball feel is similarly sentient. Skenes looks like he has two benders, or at least like he knows how to intentionally manipulate the shape of one. His in-zone breaking balls tend to look more like low-to-mid-80s curveballs, while his glove-side chase breakers have more of a two-plane slider look a lot of the time. His backdoor curveballs play beautifully with his fastball, and hitters often give up on that pitch out of hand only to watch it bend into the zone.”

I have seen comps to Strausberg, but the data I have doesn’t go back that far.  Another comp I have seen is Sandy Alcantara, but Alcantara was more of a late-blooming prospect and his rise does not appear to be captured in his grades at Fangraphs.  Okay, so who would I compare him to? 

Hunter Greene, CIN 2021 (2.98 COMP)

Greene was a big time prospect, peaking at 34 in all of baseball, for the Reds.  He’s currently shelved with a hip injury and he has some risk that he may be destined for a closer role.  If the Pirates were to select Skenes and Crews goes on to be Luis Robert, and they only have a closer out of the deal, that would be a catastrophe.  The organization will have to do their homework on Skenes to ensure there is some safety there if they are willing to make that move.  But a player that routinely hits 102 and has the durability to throw well over 100 pitches in an outing is a rarity in the sport.  

Luis Ortiz, PIT 2022 (4.42 COMP)

It’s interesting to note that Skenes compares favorably to the Pirates’ own Luis Ortiz, ranked #83 in the top 100 by Fangraphs.  

Our final option would be if the Pirates go a similar route to 2021 and strike a below-slot deal with a player so that they can pay over-slot later on in the draft.  Perhaps Crews drives a hard bargain and wants to max out the slot, as is his prerogative.  And perhaps the Pirates are too concerned with that closer projection for Skenes.  Where could they go?

Wyatt Langford, OF Florida

The final player to highlight is Langford, another player with prodigious power and speed.  Langford’s report: “Buff and twitchy, the short-levered Langford’s arms are nearly as thick as they are long. His compact swing allows it to enter the hitting zone very quickly, enabling him to stay short to the ball and crush letter-high pitches, which is how he does most of his extra-base damage.”  Longenhagen goes on to say “You can make a coherent argument that Langford’s tools are superior to Dylan Crews’, but the gap in their defensive ability is meaningful at this stage.”  If you can get Crews’s power and speed at a cut rate price, do you say no? 

Jo Adell, LAA – 2020 (5.37 COMP) / Spencer Torkelson, DET – 2021 (5.92 COMP)

Henry Davis, PIT – 2022 (7.75 COMP)

As you can see by the higher COMP scores, it’s hard to find someone with Langfords power / speed combo.  Very much a bat-first option, but that bat will play.  Longenhagen believes his defense is too poor to stay in CF, but he has the speed to be a decent defender, likely at a corner spot.  These comps are no guarantee one way or the other, but if Pittsburgh continues with their underslot plan from 2021, getting THIS bat on a discount would be quite the coup. 

So that’ll conclude the 2023 rendition of COMPS.  As always, I’ll leave the spreadsheets for your perusal.  Looking forward to adding a huge talent to the farm in a few weeks. 

COMPs – Hitters

COMPs – Pitchers