Major League Baseball's 2023 first-year amateur player draft will kick off on Sunday, July 9, or the beginning of the All-Star Break (as has become customary). The Pittsburgh Pirates will be making the No. 1 selection for the sixth time in franchise history, and the first since taking Henry Davis in 2021.
CBS Sports has already ranked the top 30 prospects in the class. Today, we're putting the spotlight on five players who might go later than expected. (Earlier this week, we covered the inverse subject: five players who could go higher than otherwise expected.) As always, keep in mind this is more of an art than a science, and do note that the players are presented in alphabetical order.
Let's get to it.
1. Maui Ahuna, SS, Tennessee
Ahuna is a good defensive shortstop who posted a .951 OPS as a left-handed hitter after transferring from Kansas to Tennessee. We've been the low vote on him dating back to the spring because of hit-tool concerns, and those were exacerbated this season despite his aforementioned OPS. Ahuna struck out in more than 30% of his trips to the plate overall, including more than 33% of those that came against SEC foes. For reference, only one qualified MLB shortstop this season has struck out as much as 30% of the time. Ahuna is still to have a professional career, but we wouldn't take him in the top 50.
2. Yohandy Morales, 3B, Miami
Morales has been a divisive prospect for some time. The idyllic outcome here has him developing into a slugging third baseman. Realistically, though, his skill set features some large potential holes. He really likes to swing the bat, even if the pitches are outside of the zone, and his in-zone contact rates have been lean enough to cause concern. It doesn't help matters that Morales had a confusing season. His overall strikeout-to-walk ratio was worse than the figure he posted in 2022, and while he homered a career-high 20 times, only three of those were launched against ACC foes. It takes only one team to really believe in him and his middle-of-the-order upside. We're not there.
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3. Will Sanders, RHP, South Carolina
Sanders entered the spring with a chance to position himself as a top-20 pick thanks to what scouts perceived as a low-beta skill set. He did not take advantage of that situation, to write the least. Instead, Sanders posted a 5.46 ERA and saw his in-conference walk rate balloon to 11.7%. We suspect that the lack of ceiling associated with Sanders' profile will cause teams to be even more bearish than they might if his game featured a few plus grades.
4. Travis Sykora, RHP, Round Rock HS (TX)
If there's one group of ballplayers whose collective stock has been damaged the most the last decade, it's probably right-handed prep pitchers. Sykora is a large Texan with big heat, but we think teams will have a hard time selecting him in the first round because of the attrition risks associated with the profile. It doesn't help Sykora's case that his arm action features a lot of elbow creep, or that his hand is usually late at foot strike -- that combination often robs pitches of command projection. We'll have to wait and see if Sykora goes high enough to pass on suiting up for the Longhorns next spring.
5. Brock Wilken, 3B, Wake Forest
Wilken had a phenomenal season overall, homering 31 times and cutting his strikeout rate from 24.2% to 16.7%. Some evaluators who spoke to CBS Sports still expressed reservations about his performance within conference play -- a proxy for how players in the power conferences fared against pro-caliber competition. There's something to it. Wilken batted .358 overall, yet just .269 against SEC foes. That represented a marked improvement over the .179 figure he posted last season, but we can understand if there's enough skepticism in draft rooms for him to go later than you'd expect given his tremendous season.
