At various times, in various mocks and draft rankings Clemson baseball star Max Wagner has been projected as a fringe first round pick.
As time has moved past his performance on the field to picking apart his swing and fielding Wagner’s stock has fallen a bit in both the ESPN Draft Rankings and latest Mock Draft.
ESPNs Kiley McDaniel as the 45th best prospect in the 2022 draft as of July 8 and the Mock Draft 3.0 that came out July 15th has Wagner going 54th to the Cleveland Guardians.
From the ESPN Draft Rankings:
"I literally didn’t know Wagner’s name in March despite living a few hours away from Clemson, while scouts were turning him in as a fifth- or sixth-rounder. He went on a tear for the ages in the second half and has markers for continued growth (Wisconsin-born as Northern prospects tend to develop later, young for the class, hit-first profile), along with the chops to play a decent second base, but the upside is limited by his fringy power."
The most interesting part to me is that McDaniel projects Wagner to second base, which makes sense when you think about the prototypical Major League third baseman.
The “markers for continued growth” is a significant portion of the evaluation, as the belief is Wagner’s skills have been slower to develop since he’s from north so there’s more than the typical growth for a college player to come.
While he may have fallen a bit in recent evaluations and mock drafts Wagner is still looking at a huge bonus if selected where expected
Either forty-fifth or fifty-fourth would place Wagner in the second round, which is still a massive improvement over his fifth or sixth round projection in March.
For those curious, the 45th pick belongs to the Washington Nationals and the slot bonus for the pick is $1,733,900.
What a season Wagner had, batting .369 with 27 home runs and 76 RBI and improving his stock and bonus by multiples.
Each of the first 68 picks in the upcoming draft have a slot value of more than a million dollars, so even if Wagner should drop a bit further on draft day, he won’t be hurting too much.
There are two Clemson commits on the list: (44) Brock Porter, right handed pitcher and Tristan Smith a left handed pitcher, who was included but not given a specific number.