2022 MLB Mock Draft: 1st-Round Predictions for Where Top Prospects Will Land

The Baltimore Orioles appear to have narrowed down the field to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 MLB Draft.

Most mock drafts have Georgia high school outfielder Druw Jones, the son of former MLB star Andruw Jones, as the No. 1 overall selection.

Georgia high school infielder Termarr Johnson is the likely second option to Jones if the Orioles want to save some of their signing money set aside for the entire draft class.

Signing money plays a larger role in the MLB draft than it does in the other three major American professional sports drafts because baseball teams have an allotted amount of money to sign their draft classes with.

For example, the Orioles come into Sunday's MLB draft with the highest salary pool available at $16.9 million, per MLB.com, and the No. 1 selection comes with a slot value of $8.8 million.

Baltimore could take the best player in the draft class in Jones, or attempt to save some money by drafting Johnson, or another prospect, in order to land higher-quality players with the No. 33 and 42 selections.

The decision at No. 1, as it always does, will dictate the direction of teams directly beneath Baltimore. The Arizona Diamondbacks must be hoping for the Orioles to save some slot money that way they can go after Jones with the No. 2 overall pick.

2022 MLB 1st-Round Mock Draft

1. Baltimore Orioles: Druw Jones, OF, Wesleyan HS (Georgia)

2. Arizona Diamondbacks: Jackson Holliday, SS, Stillwater HS (Oklahoma)

3. Texas Rangers: Brooks Lee, SS, Cal Poly

4. Pittsburgh Pirates: Termarr Johnson, 2B, Mays HS (Georgia)

5. Washington Nationals: Jacob Berry, 3B, LSU Tigers

6. Miami Marlins: Kevin Parada, C, Georgia Tech

7. Chicago Cubs: Cam Collier, 3B, Chipola JC (Florida)

8. Minnesota Twins: Gavin Cross, OF, Virginia Tech

9. Kansas City Royals: Elijah Green, OF, IMG Academy (Florida)

10. Colorado Rockies: Justin Crawford, Bishop Gorman HS (Nevada)

11. New York Mets: Jordan Beck, OF, Tennessee

12. Detroit Tigers: Jace Jung, 2B, Texas Tech

13. Los Angeles Angels: Brock Porter, RHP, St. Mary's Prep HS (Michigan)

14. New York Mets: Daniel Susac, C, Arizona

15. San Diego Padres: Connor Prielipp, LHP, Alabama

16. Cleveland Guardians: Zach Neto, SS, Campbell

17. Philadelphia Phillies: Kumar Rocker, RHP, Tri-City ValleyCats

18. Cincinnati Reds: Dylan Lesko, RHP, Buford HS (Georgia)

19. Oakland Athletics: Gabriel Hughes, RHP, Gonzaga

20. Atlanta Braves: Cooper Hjerpe, LHP, Oregon State

21. Seattle Mariners: Cole Young, SS, North Allegheny HS (Pennsylvania)

22. St. Louis Cardinals: Dylan Beavers, OF, California

23. Toronto Blue Jays: Tucker Toman, 3B, Hammond HS (South Carolina)

24. Boston Red Sox: Drew Gilbert, OF, Tennessee

25. New York Yankees: Spencer Jones, OF, Vanderbilt

26. Chicago White Sox: Chase DeLauter, OF, James Madison

27. Milwaukee Brewers: Cade Horton, RHP, Oklahoma

28. Houston Astros: Sterlin Thompson, OF, Florida

29. Tampa Bay Rays: Peyton Graham, SS, Oklahoma

30. San Francisco Giants: Brock Jones, OF, Stanford

Druw Jones has become the consensus No. 1 overall pick in MLB mock drafts.

ESPN.com's Kiley McDaniel and MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo both have the high school prospect out of Georgia landing at the top of their most-recent mocks.

If Baltimore abides by the best player available strategy, Jones will hear his name called first on Sunday afternoon. Major League Baseball changed the date of the draft so that it could be a part of All-Star weekend.

McDaniel detailed that he believes Jones has a "2/3 chance" of being the top pick.

"I've been saying I think it's roughly a ⅔ chance of Jones and ⅓ chance of "other," with Johnson the overwhelming choice, but Jackson Holliday (likely priced between Jones and Johnson) also mentioned as the other leading candidate," McDaniel wrote.

The other option for the Orioles comes with the rest of the draft class in mind. Baltimore owns five of the first 81 selections in the draft. The Orioles pick 33rd and 67th in competitive balance rounds A and B along with their natural picks in the first three rounds.

Baltimore could approach the draft as using those five picks to build up another strong foundation to its farm system. Ryan Mountcastle and Adley Rutschman are recent graduates of the team's minor-league program and all five of their players in the MLB.com Top 100 prospects are at Double-A and Triple-A.

The Orioles could opt to take Termarr Johnson, or Jackson Holliday, at No. 1 and save $1-2 million in signing money in order to be aggressive with their next four picks. That strategy would keep the farm system flush with top prospects and keep them as a potential contender for quite some time.

The American League East side could also not overcomplicate its decision and land Jones, who is viewed as the top prospect in the draft class.

The supporting argument for drafting Jones is that the Orioles already have all of this top-tier talent at the majors, or ready to break through at the MLB level, and they can take their time developing Jones and the other prospects that come from the first three rounds and beyond.

Arizona will be waiting patiently to see what happens with Baltimore because it could either select Jones if he falls to No. 2, or build its future around another top-tier player.

Holliday, the son of former 7x All-Star Matt Holliday, is considered one of the top three high school prospects along with Jones and Johnson.

Arizona just drafted Jordan Lawlar with the No. 6 overall pick in the 2021 MLB draft and he is listed as a shortstop in the Diamondbacks system.

Some teams may not care about positions this early in a player's development because so many things can go right or wrong between the time they are drafted and hopefully make their major-league debuts.

Arizona's other option is to select either Cal Poly's Brooks Lee or Georgia Tech's Kevin Parada and accelerate their timelines to the majors.

Lee and Parada are the two best college hitters in the draft class and they will likely be chosen somewhere in the top five, and if not, shortly after.

The 2022 draft class is heavy on hitters and lacks a strong collection of pitchers at the top of it. There is a chance that a pitcher does not land in the top 10 because of the gap in talent between the hitters and hurlers at the top end of the draft class.