Baseball America mock draft has Rangers going college catcher

The latest 2020 MLB mock draft from Baseball America is out, and the folks at BA have the Texas Rangers going the college route with their first pick, the #14 pick of the draft.

The Rangers, who have been well known for tending to target prep players with their premium picks, took Texas Tech third baseman Josh Jung with the #8 overall pick in last year’s draft, then followed that selection up by going with Baylor infielder Davis Wendzel with their supplemental first round pick and UCLA lefthanded pitcher Ryan Garcia with their second round pick.

BA projects them to continue the college trend this year, projecting that Texas takes North Carolina State catcher Patrick Bailey at #14. A switch-hitting junior, Bailey is viewed as a glove-first guy who gets praise for calling his own game and who has enough bat to be viewed as a potential major league regular behind the plate.

While the MLB draft is always a weird and unpredictable crapshoot, it is even moreso in 2020, given that the draft is going to be dramatically shortened, and players basically won’t have played games in the months leading up to the draft. As a result, I would expect for teams to take more college players than usual, given that they have seen those players more and those guys have more of a track record, compared to high school players.