2023 MLB Draft takeaways: Winners and losers from Day 1

The first 70 picks of the 2023 MLB Draft are complete. Let's break down the major storylines and pick out some winners and losers from Day 1 of the event, which opened the midsummer festivities in Seattle on Sunday.

MLB teams wising up to college approach

In the pandemic-shortened 2020 event, MLB teams really leaned into drafting college players, not wanting to incur the risk of prepsters not panning out with limited selections to work with.

Three years removed, front offices seem to be realizing that the risk of high schoolers isn't worth it no matter how many picks you have, cumulatively opting for 12 college players in the first 15 picks. In fact, prep players didn't go back-to-back in the event until the 22nd and 23rd selections.

There are a couple reasons for this, though, and it's not as simple as teams suddenly playing it more conservative.

First off, this is the fallout draft from the pandemic year. A ton of these college players were first eligible to be selected out of high school in 2020 but went completely unpicked or withdrew entirely from the event because of the five-round format and reduced signing pools. Those players are finishing up as juniors and are eligible once again, and they're causing an oversaturation of collegiate talent. It'll be interesting to see how this might carry over to future events, as the high schoolers passed over this year now go to college. Will the 2026 event follow a similar pattern to a slightly lesser extent?

Secondly, this could be a somewhat concerted and legitimate effort for teams to better insulate themselves from risk. While the ceiling is high on high schoolers, the risk is enormous, and they rarely pan out. It's one of the central tenets of Moneyball: don't waste picks on high schoolers.

Of course, every class is different, and there are a lot of factors shaping this particular one, but watching Arjun Nimmala, for instance, slip to the Toronto Blue Jays at 20th overall, or Colin Houck slide to the New York Mets at 32nd overall, was somewhat eye-catching. Do we see teams double down on this next year? Or do a handful of front offices, as they so often do, zig while others are zagging, and we see a run on high schoolers from teams willing to incur that risk? We'll have to wait and see.

Winners

Texas Rangers

This was truly the best-case scenario for the Rangers.

Wyatt Langford feels like exactly the type of player the Rangers want, and it wouldn't be shocking if they had him No. 1 on their internal board, ahead of both Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews.

In recent years, Texas has really shaken up drafts, selecting Kumar Rocker third overall last year, for example. However, they've also historically loved polished bats with plenty of pop, like Josh Jung, who went eighth overall in 2019 - though it should be noted that the selection was made before Chris Young took the reins.

This team is firmly entering a win-now window, investing heavily in free-agent stars, and it's paying immediate dividends. Drafting for need is not usually a good strategy in baseball and, if the top three college players happened to be off the board by the time the Rangers were on the clock, they likely would've gone with Max Clark or Walker Jenkins. But Langford flaunts the type of prodigious pop that we could quickly see reach the majors. Crews and Skenes rightly took a lot of headlines, but Langford got overlooked as a result, and he won't be when he's hitting moonshots as early as next year.

LSU

Speaking of Crews and Skenes, we gotta give it up to the collegiate program that got them here.

The two Tigers stars made history Sunday night that won't soon be forgotten in Baton Rouge, becoming the first teammates to be selected back-to-back at the top of the draft.

Whether you're a Pirates fan or a Nationals fan or just an LSU Tigers fan, the 2023 MLB Draft is a huge celebration. Louisiana State has a recent history of winning national championships and having its stars go first overall, with Joe Burrow going at the top of the 2020 NFL Draft to the Cincinnati Bengals. The expectations are sky high.

Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox were in a very unique position when they were finally on the clock for the first time at 14th overall, and Chaim Bloom had to fight the urge of taking a high-school infielder for the fourth straight year when there were plenty of options available.

They did the right thing and reacted to Kyle Teel slipping to a point where he represented incredible value. The Virginia catcher is very polished with an advanced approach, and he's universally beloved for his leadership abilities behind the plate. His best tool, though, is his arm, and with MLB's new rules leading to more stolen bases, that's a key asset.

Teel didn't have to wait too long, and this is the expected range for him, but MLB Pipeline did consider him the No. 7 prospect on the board, so Boston might end up with the steal of the draft here.

Miami Marlins

If you're looking for an example of how to react well to other teams' mistakes, look no further than the Marlins.

Everyone else was going college-heavy. And, even when other teams did opt for prep players, they were leaning heavily on bats. So, what'd the Marlins do? They got the top high-school arm in the class in Noble Meyer and topped it off with the top prep lefty in Thomas White.

As previously noted, there's plenty of risk in taking high-school pitchers. For every Clayton Kershaw, who went seventh overall as the top prep arm in 2006, there are a bunch of guys like Kasey Kiker (12th overall in 2006) who never make the majors. The Marlins will have to take it slow with Meyer and White, but their judgement of Eury Perez as a teenager seems to have gone very well. Both Meyer and White are 6-foot-5 and lean, and they could learn a lot from Perez, who stands 6-foot-8 and is listed at 220 pounds. The development will be even more key than the initial assessment, and the Marlins might have a new type.

The Naylor family

Come on down, Myles Naylor, you're the latest brother to have your name called on Day 1 of the draft.

They didn't best the Drew family, with Stephen, J.D., and Tim all getting selected in the first round, but the Naylors came about as close as possible.

First there was Josh Naylor, selected 12th overall in the 2015 draft. Then there was Bo, taken 29th in 2018. Both of them now play for the Cleveland Guardians. It was Myles' turn on Sunday, as he went 39th overall to the Oakland Athletics.

He won't have any bragging rights when the family gets together on holidays, at least until he makes the majors and outperforms the older siblings. But it's certainly something worth celebrating and a potentially huge step for Canadian baseball.

Losers

Seattle Mariners

It's tough to take a shot at the host team, but you have to criticize some of their selections on Day 1.

The Mariners entered the event with a unique leg up on the competition with the seventh-largest bonus pool of any team, despite not being on the clock until the 22nd pick. That's largely thanks to a new rule that afforded them another bonus pick after the conclusion of the first round, due to the fact they called Julio Rodriguez up at to start the 2022 season and he finished as the AL Rookie of the Year winner.

That type of spending ability in the draft affords a team a huge amount of flexibility to react when a player is slipping and an ability to go well over the suggested slot value. Instead, though, Seattle seemed to stick with its process. None of those selections were bad per se, but the team may have limited its ceiling.

As discussed earlier, other teams were really hammering college players, looking for prospects who are more MLB-ready. And the Mariners didn't buy into that, selecting three prep players with their first three picks. But the players they drafted indicated that they weren't reacting, they were just taking the guys they liked. Maybe that ends up panning out and perhaps Colt Emerson, Jonny Farmelo, and Tai Peete all end up hitting. For what it's worth, though, Emerson entered draft night as the No. 29 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, while Farmelo was 39th and Peete was 53rd.

Aidan Miller (No. 13) was on the board when Seattle picked Emerson at 22. Colin Houck (No. 12) was also available at the time, and he was still out there when the team took Farmelo and Peete 29th and 30th.

Then, to cap off their night, the Mariners opted to select third baseman Ben Williamson, who wasn't even ranked in Pipeline's top 250.

The Mariners could've done a slightly better job optimizing their strategy to get the most out of their three early picks. Instead, it feels like they stayed pretty rigid.

Dylan Crews

Going second overall is an incredible achievement, so this one is only slightly in the loser category. And Crews and his high-powered agent Scott Boras seemingly got what they wanted, which was to not be selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

However, with all due respect to the Washington Nationals, they haven't been much better.

Boras has had a number of high-profile clients on the Nationals and, in Stephen Strasburg's case, Washington spent lucratively to keep him. That's exactly what you want to see as an agent of a top-tier prospect who is hopefully getting selected by an organization that wants to build around him. That being said, Boras also represents Bryce Harper, and that former No. 1 overall pick was pushed out rather unceremoniously when it was time to pay him. In recent years, the team has also jettisoned multiple superstars, like Trea Turner and Juan Soto, in lieu of paying them.

The Pirates' most lucrative extension in franchise history was recently handed out to Bryan Reynolds for the relatively modest sum of $106.75 million over eight years. So, in all likelihood, the Nationals were a more preferred landing spot. But by how much? And was it worth it to guarantee you weren't selected No. 1 overall? Time will tell.