The Biggest Winners and Losers from Day 1 of 2023 MLB Draft

The picks are in. All 70 of them.

So, here's who won and who lost on Day 1 of the 2023 Major League Baseball draft.

Albeit with the obligatory caveat that it will be years before the story of the '23 draft is known in full, for now we've zeroed in on people and institutions who have come out of Sunday's proceedings looking like winners and losers. These concern players who didn't or didn't have their dreams come true, teams that lucked or missed out and more.

Without further ado, we have four of each to get to.

Winner: LSU Baseball

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Paul Skenes

Suffice it to say it's been a good couple of weeks for Louisiana State's baseball program.

Back on June 26, the Tigers won the Men's College World Series for the first time since 2009. And on Sunday, they saw ace right-hander Paul Skenes and Golden Spikes Award-winning outfielder Dylan Crews become the first teammates to ever go 1-2 in the MLB draft.

The Pittsburgh Pirates got a good one when they used the No. 1 pick on Skenes. The 6'6", 235-pound righty is fresh off posting a 1.69 ERA and he boasts both the best fastball and the best slider of any pitcher in this year's draft class.

If the rumors that Crews didn't want to play for Pittsburgh are true, then he surely didn't mind slipping to the Washington Nationals at No. 2. And because he's a five-tool dynamo who put up a 1.280 OPS this past season, the team obviously isn't about to complain either.

Further adding to LSU's banner day was when Ty Floyd, he of the 17-strikeout game in the MCWS, went to the Cincinnati Reds at No. 38 and when fellow righty Grant Taylor was picked by the Chicago White Sox at No. 51. Not that he needs it, but such results should only help LSU head coach Jay Johnson's recruiting efforts.

Loser: Oakland Athletics

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Rob Manfred (L) and Jacob Wilson (R)

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, we're not attaching the L word to the Oakland Athletics because they tabbed Jacob Wilson with the No. 6 pick.

On the contrary, he's a fine prospect. All the 21-year-old shortstop did in three seasons at Grand Canyon was hit .361, culminating in a .412 average in 49 games this past season. He's one of the best pure hitters in this year's class, and he's also said to have a high baseball IQ.

Rather, the A's are here because of what MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was hearing from fans as he announced the team's pick:

If two things can be true at once, Wilson didn't deserve to have his big moment undercut like that and the A's absolutely deserved the merciless mocking. More specifically, owner John Fisher did. It's on him that the A's are maybe the worst team ever, and also on him that the franchise is leaving a city that loves it for one where they don't even really fit.

Winner: San Francisco Giants

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Bryce Eldridge

If there's just one good reason to declare the Giants one of the winners of Day 1, it's that they took arguably the most interesting player in the draft class with their top pick.

This would be Bryce Eldridge, who they selected at No. 16. As far as what's interesting about him, oh, only the fact that he's an 18-year-old who stands at 6'7", 223 pounds and who's serious about living up to his mantle as "the American Ohtani."

"I know not many people can do it," the Virginia native told MLB.com's Anthony Castrovince of his aspirations of being a two-way star in the mold of Shohei Ohtani. "But it's something I'm super dedicated to."

Alongside 2022 first-rounder Reggie Crawford, there's now a pair of would-be two-way stars in the Giants system. Also set to join the system are prep shortstop Walker Martin and Kent State left-hander Joe Whitman, who were strong value picks at No. 52 and No. 69, respectively, on Sunday.

Loser: Seattle Mariners

AP Photo/Mike Caudill

Ben Williamson

By all rights, Sunday should have been an exciting day for Seattle Mariners fans. Theirs was the only team with four picks on Day 1 of the draft, much less three within the top 30.

But with the dust having cleared, here we are looking at MLB.com's draft prospects rankings and wondering if the Mariners committed not one, not two, not three, but four reaches.

They started by taking high schoolers Colt Emerson (No. 29), Jonny Farmelo (No. 39) and Tai Peete (No. 53) with the 22nd, 29th and 30th picks. When it came time to pick again at No. 57, they went off the board to draft Ben Williamson out of William & Mary. He doesn't appear in the aforementioned rankings, but he does in Baseball America's...at No. 243.

A hypothetical silver lining here is that the Mariners have likely saved precious money from their $13.2 million bonus pool. But while that may yet prove to be the case, for now it feels as if they squandered their chance to become one of the big winners of the 2023 draft.

Winner: Boston Red Sox

AP Photo/Ben McKeown

Kyle Teel

Kyle Teel went into Sunday with at least two notable distinctions: as the best catcher in the draft and, ergo, as a likely top-10 pick.

Which is to say that the Boston Red Sox got quite the steal when they nabbed Teel at No. 14.

The seventh-ranked Teel was the only one of MLB.com's top 10 prospects to get drafted outside the first 10 picks. And it's a hard one to explain, as this is only a strong-armed catcher who's fresh off hitting .407 for the Virginia Cavaliers we're talking about.

Within the Red Sox organization, Teel joins a promising core of position players that includes shortstop Marcelo Mayer, second baseman Nick Yorke and center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela. If all goes well, the Red Sox of the very near future are going to be very strong up the middle.

Loser: Kansas City Royals

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The Royals making their pick on Blake Mitchell

Though Teel was widely considered the best catcher in the 2023 draft class, he was not the first one off the board on Sunday.

That's because the Kansas City Royals took Blake Mitchell out of Sinton High School in Texas with the No. 8 pick. It wasn't the biggest reach in the abstract, but it nonetheless looks like the biggest gamble that any team made on Day 1.

Even setting aside the fact that they passed on Teel to take Mitchell, there's the less-than-inspiring recent history of prep catchers going in the top 10. Before Sunday, it had happened only twice in the previous 26 drafts. Joe Mauer obviously lived up to being the No. 1 pick in 2001. But Kyle Skipworth at No. 6 in 2008? Uh, less so.

Because Mitchell is seen as having solid hit and power tools in tandem with a truly excellent arm, there's certainly a non-zero chance of the Royals molding him into their catcher of the future. But there should be no mistake that it'll be a project with a real possibility of failure.

Winner: Shortstops

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Brice Matthews

While Sunday may have been a weird one for catchers, let's just say it was a very good day for shortstops.

A total of 18 players were chosen as shortstops on Day 1 of the draft, including 11 within the first 30 picks. For anyone who wasn't scoring at home—which, to be fair, was most of us—that had never happened before Sunday.

Naturally, there is the question of how many of these guys will actually stick at short in the long run. Not to name names, but Matt Shaw (No. 16 to the Chicago Cubs) more so has the arm of a second baseman and Brice Matthews (No. 28 to the Houston Astros) has plus speed that would be better suited to the outfield.

Still, it's not hard to sense a trend here. This is merely the latest occurrence of shortstops dominating the top of the MLB draft, an indication that the talent pipeline for the most important position on the infield is in good shape.

Loser: High School Pitchers

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Rob Manfred (L) and Noble Meyer (R)

Congratulations are in order for Noble Meyer, a prep right-hander who went No. 10 overall to the Miami Marlins on Sunday.

We'd love to also congratulate other high school pitchers who got chosen in the first round, but we can't. Because it's literally not possible, as Meyer was the only such pitcher who got picked that high on Sunday.

If this sounds unusual, that's because it's an actual first for the decades-long history of the MLB draft. Prior to this year, an average of eight high school pitchers got chosen in the first round. And many of them, up to and especially including Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, turned out well.

But before anyone falls into a panic about whether high school pitchers aren't what they used to be, this could prove to be a one-off. Because it's been three years since the shortened 2020 draft forced many talented high schoolers into the college ranks, this year's draft was abnormally strong with collegiate talent. That won't be the case every year.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference.