Draft week is officially here! This is a week that so many players work so hard to get to. For 160 young players, their hard work culminates this week as they hear their names called and their dreams of becoming professional baseball players come true.
As we all know, the 2020 MLB draft will be one like we’ve never seen before. Similar to the NFL, this year’s draft is going virtual due to COVID-19. In an email interview with Newsday’s Tim Healey, Mets General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen compared preparing for this year’s draft to the specifics of individuals currently working from home.
The Mets’ front office staff is usually in Port St. Lucie to prepare for the draft, but instead they are embracing their new “virtual reality” and meeting over video calls multiple times per day to discuss the talent in this year’s draft class.
While it’s not the ideal situation for preparing for the draft, Van Wagenen explained to Healey that meeting virtually almost daily has allowed him to develop deeper relationships with many of the Mets’ scouts and evaluators, including Eddie Bane and Bryan Lambe, whose jobs have also been affected by the COVID-19 shut down of the sports world in March. Scouts would usually be on the road evaluating potential draft prospects throughout the Spring, however this year, video and data accrued are the main sources of evaluating this year’s draft class.
As we continue to get closer to Wednesday night’s draft and the Mets’ front office staff continues to narrow down their potential draft prospects, analysts from Baseball America and Fangraphs have both released their most recent mock drafts. Below we analyze both players and their stats from the past few seasons.
With the No. 19 overall selection in the 2020 MLB Draft, Baseball America has the Mets selecting Justin Foscue, a middle infielder from Mississippi State. Fangraphs has the Mets selecting Tyler Soderstrom, a catcher out of high school in California.
Foscue, 21, is the No. 36 overall prospect in the 2020 draft according to Baseball America’s draft rankings and the No. 32 overall prospect according to MLB.com. He helped the Bulldogs reach the College World Series in 2018 and 2019.
Standing at 6’0″, 197 lbs, Foscue is known for his strength, speed, pull-heavy approach, and aggressiveness at the plate to generate power from the right side of the plate. MLB.com predicts Foscue as a home run threat and a hard strike-out.
In 2019, Foscue had a .331 batting average with a .395 on-base percentage, slugging .564 in 275 plate appearances. He hit 22 doubles, 14 home runs, and had 60 RBIs, with just 32 strikeouts.
In the shortened 2020 season, Foscue posted a .321 batting average with a .464 on-base percentage, slugging .509. He had four doubles, two home runs, and 16 RBIs.
Soderstrom, a UCLA commit, is a player who analysts have also said could be a potential first-round pick for the Mets. The 18-year-old is the son of Steve Soderstrom, the San Francisco Giants’ No. 6 overall draft pick in 1993.
The younger Soderstrom is MLB.com’s No. 19 overall prospect in the 2020 draft and has a Perfect Game rating of 10. While Soderstrom has the chance to be drafted ahead of No. 19, history has shown that high school catchers tend to sometimes fall in the draft, which could land him a spot in the New York Mets organization.
Soderstrom played for the USA 18U National Team in 2019 and started all nine games in the Baseball Softball Confederation U-18 Baseball World Cup, hitting .364. Other impressive stats include hitting .500 with two outs and .353 with RISP, collecting 10 RBI’s in the U-18’s 2019 Baseball World Cup.
Soderstrom also played in the inaugural season the PDP league, an invite-only league for the country’s top high school players ahead of the 2020 Draft, where he was a part of Team Jones, captained by Chipper Jones. Soderstrom also participated in events like the Perfect Game All-American Classic. He was also named the Gatorade California Baseball Player of the Year for 2019-2020.
There will be a total of 160 picks over the course of five rounds in the 2020 shortened MLB Draft. The draft will be streamed live on MLB Network and ESPN, beginning with round one at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday night. Rounds two through five will be streamed on MLB Network and ESPN2 beginning at 5 p.m. ET on Thursday night. Mets Minors will also be following up with each of the Mets’ picks throughout the draft, including their No. 19 overall pick on Wednesday night.
