2021 MLB Draft Report: Updated Top 100 Rankings, Colson Montgomery, Jud Fabian, and College World Series Picks

This week, a busy MLB Draft Report as College Baseball begins Regional play this weekend, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel updated his Top 100 prospects, which shifts players up and down on the 2021 MLB Average Draft Rankings database, and a fan question about Colson Montgomery. Let’s get to it. 

Updated Top 100 Rankings

McDaniel updated his rankings on ESPN, which you can view here, and in a somewhat surprising fashion, he added new names to the database. Prospects that don’t even make Baseball America’s Top 400 list. Below is the updated Top 100 Average Rankings Prospects, which combines ESPN, MLBPipeline, Baseball America, and The Athletic’s lists. We are still waiting on FanGraphs to update their rankings. 

One of the big risers in the updated Top 100 is Indiana prep SS, Colson Montgomery. I wrote about Montgomery a couple of weeks ago as a prospect to follow as rumors consistently tagged the White Sox as an interested party in drafting him. In ESPN’s updated rankings, Montgomery shot up to the 17th ranked prospect in this draft class. There is helium in Montgomery’s draft stock.

This draft ranking update for Montgomery leads to the question we had in the comments section in last week’s MLB Draft Report from caseywsox:

To answer the hypothetical details first - yes, the White Sox could very well attempt to sign Montgomery under slot at Pick 22 to spread out the draft bonus pool money. Pick 22 has a bonus slot of $3,027,000, so if the White Sox could get Montgomery at $2.5 million, that’ll be an extra $500K they could use to pump up the Round 2 bonus slot (currently $1,243,600). 

What I’m curious about is if ESPN’s rankings are a shift of the industry’s thinking of Montgomery. We should be getting updated rankings from everyone at least one more time in a couple of weeks. Does Montgomery rise to the Top 30 prospects in the average rankings? If so, I’m a bit doubtful the White Sox could get Montgomery under slot because other teams might be interested in the late first-round who could offer close to $3 million. 

At this juncture, caseywsox, I’m still working with the idea that the White Sox are going in a different direction with Pick 22 selecting a player they will sign at slot value and then borrow from Rounds 4 - 10 to sign players over the slot in Rounds 2 and 3. That’s where Montgomery comes into the White Sox picture with the second-round pick. A similar strategy they used to add Jared Kelley into the fold last year. 

Jonathan Mayo Mock: Jud Fabian to White Sox at Pick 22 

Naturally, this leads to a follow-up question, “Who is most likely the White Sox first-round pick today?” Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com released another mock draft, and he had the White Sox taking University of Florida outfielder Jud Fabian. Maybe the most polarizing prospect in this draft class. With enormous power and ability to stick in center field, Fabian was a preseason Top-5 pick whose stock dropped considerably as the strikeouts piled up. His regular-season K% finished at 29.37%, more than 7% from last year. 

I’m a firm believer that if you strike out at a high clip in college, that will carry over to the minors. Fabian striking out close to 30% has me worried about his future ability to make enough contact to take advantage of his power. This draft profile was a similar situation when the White Sox entertained the idea of selecting Jeren Kendall in the 2017 draft. Kendall struck out at a 25% clip his Junior year at Vanderbilt, and since the Dodgers drafted him:

2018: 31.98% K

2019: 35.68% K

2021: 38.04% K

Kendall’s strikeout rate continues to get worse. Honestly, if we revisit Fabian’s progression in three years, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s striking out more than 35% of the time. I think there’s a pitch recognition issue with Fabian and his approach is all or nothing. Hence why he strikes out a lot, but also why he’s one of eight college hitters to bash 20 home runs in 2021. 

Fabian is one of the players that I think can help himself the most with a solid postseason performance with the Regionals starting this weekend. MLBPipeline has a good list of each school’s top draft prospect in Regionals that I recommend checking out. 

Josh’s College World Series Picks

Regionals is always a fun time to watch college baseball with non-stop action going on. If you’re a baseball junkie, the first set of games start at 11:00 am CT, and the last group starts at 9:00 pm CT. Add in the White Sox game at 7:00 pm CT, and one could watch baseball for 12 straight hours. I can’t think of a better way of spending my time. 

Here are my picks who will win each Regional, Super Regionals, and the College World Series. 

Fayetteville: (1) Arkansas 

Ruston: (3) Alabama

Stanford: (3) Nevada

Lubbock: (1) Texas Tech

Tucson: (3) UC Santa Barbara

Oxford: (1) Ole Miss

Greenville: (1) East Carolina

Nashville: (1) Vanderbilt

Knoxville: (1) Tennessee

Eugene: (1) Oregon

Columbia: (3) Virginia

Fort Worth: (2) Oregon State

Starkville: (1) Mississippi State

South Bend: (1) Notre Dame

Gainesville: (1) Florida

Austin: (1) Texas

College World Series Picks:

Bracket 1: Arkansas, Texas Tech, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt

Bracket 2: Florida, Mississippi State, Virginia, Tennessee

College World Series Championship: Arkansas over Mississippi State

Next week: Mock Draft 2.0 for Sox Machine Patreon supporters. Join at patreon.com/soxmachine with monthly plans starting at just $2.