Clemson baseball third baseman Max Wagner was drafted in the middle of the second round, forty-second overall, by the Baltimore Orioles, late Sunday evening.
Wagner batted .369 with 27 home runs and 76 RBI and improving his stock and bonus by multiples as he tied Kahlil Greene’s school home run record and finished second in the nation in slugging percentage.
The 42nd pick is slotted for a bonus of $1,861,000.
Wagner, once thought of a fringe first round pick, dropped a bit in pre-draft analysis, with one mock projecting him at 54th to the Cleveland Guardians.
Various pre-draft evaluations had Wagner going anywhere from the first round to late second/early third round
Prior to the draft Wagner was projected everywhere from the end of round 1 to the high 60’s on draft boards from the various sites.
Back in mid-June The Athletic had him at number 45, right around where he ended up, with this evaluation.All Posts
"Wagner is a draft-eligible sophomore who was undrafted out of high school in 2020 and hit just .214/.305/.345 as a sparsely-used freshman for Clemson, but he broke out in the Northwoods League last year and carried that into this spring, tying for third in Division I with 27 homers. He shortened up his path to the ball and stays inside it much better now, allowing the Green Bay native to make more contact and drive the ball consistently, with 60-70 power to his pull side and enough to hit a few out the other way. He doesn’t like the ball down, however, and the way his hands start makes him vulnerable to pretty much anything in the lower third of the zone and down. He’s rough defensively at third and probably ends up in an outfield corner, although he might be better at second base than he is at the hot corner. It’s big power with bat speed for someone looking for an upside play among the college hitters."
As mentioned above, despite being drafted as a third baseman, some think he’s better suited at second base, which makes sense given the body type of a prototypical MLB third baseman.