Kentucky Baseball Notebook: MLB Draft Decisions

The 2023 MLB Draft takes place from July 9-11 in Seattle. It’s an important time in college baseball as rosters for the 2024 season will be more precise in the days and weeks after the draft. 

Like most schools, Kentucky has a wide range of outcomes that will affect how the team is viewed next season. If it catches a few breaks and returns critical players who are draft eligible but not necessarily locks to sign for huge bonuses, it could project as a preseason top-15 team. However, if it loses a few 50/50 players, it could have too many question marks to be a consensus top-25 preseason team. 

The MLB Draft is a little more complicated to follow than the NFL or NBA Draft, so I’d recommend this video for a quick explainer of the basics. One of the more straightforward guidelines is that if a player is selected in the top 10 rounds, he will almost certainly sign. It’s not a 100% guarantee, but it’s very close. According to the Baseball America database, only two players selected in the top 10 rounds of the 2022 MLB draft did not sign. 

One other thing to know is what’s called leverage. High school seniors, junior college players, and collegiate players with multiple years of eligibility remaining have more leverage, meaning they can return to college for another year and still have a good shot at a high signing bonus in the next draft. Players who are out of college eligibility or would be out of eligibility following the 2024 season have the least leverage, meaning they would have to sign for whatever is offered. 

According to a source, Kentucky is not concerned about any of its 15 high school signees being picked in the draft. Because of that, I will not include them in this story. I’m also not going to include the eight seniors on this team with no remaining eligibility. Those players include righthanded pitcher Darren Williams, lefthanded pitcher Tyler Bosma, first baseman Hunter Gilliam, righthanded pitcher Ryder Giles, third baseman Jase Felker, infielder Isaiah Byars, catcher Chase Stanke and center fielder Jackson Gray. 

Kentucky’s draft-eligible players 

(Parentheses indicate how many years of eligibility a player has remaining) 

• DH Rebuen Church (1)
• RHP Austin Strickland (1)
• LHP Mag Cotto (1)
• RHP Ryan Hagenow (1)
• RHP Logan Martin (2) 
• SS Grant Smith (1)
• RHP Seth Chavez (1)
• RHP Zack Lee (1)
• C Devin Burkes (2)
• RHP Zach Hise (2)
• LHP Evan Byers (2)
• OF Nolan McCarthy (2) 
• RHP Mason Moore (2)
• OF James McCoy (3) 

In addition, each of Kentucky’s five incoming transfers is draft eligible. However, the only one who seems possible to sign is Deleware State transfer Trey Paige. Paige attended the MLB Draft Combine in Arizona and plays in the 2023 MLB Draft summer league. He’s only played in 13 games to this point, but the results haven’t been good. Paige is slashing .207/.273/.241 in 33 plate appearances. Still, he’ll be someone to watch during the draft. 

The biggest decisions 

As of today, two players are most likely to sign: Austin Strickland and Mag Cotto. Each will be selected in the top 10 rounds and will sign with the team that selects them. That leaves three crucial decisions: Mason Moore, Logan Martin, and Devin Burkes. 

Mason Moore

Moore emerged as the top bullpen arm on Kentucky’s roster this season and put together one of the strongest seasons in the SEC. The Morehead native finished with a 1.80 ERA in 22 appearances, and batters hit just .154 against him. Even though he’s a true sophomore, Moore is 21 years old, making him draft-eligible because of the date of the MLB draft. 

The hope for Kentucky is that Moore will return for his junior season and show scouts he can perform as a weekend starter in the SEC. With a season similar to this, Moore would almost certainly move into top-five round territory, pushing his signing bonus safely into the $350,000 range but potentially more. For example, former Kentucky shortstop Ryan Ritter signed with the Colorado Rockies for $530,000 in the fourth round of the 2022 draft. 

However, a team may like Moore’s potential enough and sign him to a contract in the $350,000 range this year rather than wait to see how he develops next season. Moore’s decision will be one of the most important developments that head coach Nick Mingione will be watching over the first few days of the draft. 

Devin Burkes

Burkes turned it on in the season’s final month and finished with a .292/.423/.502 slash line with 18 doubles, one triple, nine home runs, and 53 runs batted in over 61 games. I’m told Burkes has a firm number in mind, and he’s unlikely to stray far from it, so a team will have to meet his price to sign him. He could return to school and potentially be one of the top catchers in the SEC in 2024, but the fact that he just turned 21 last month puts him in a good spot. MLB clubs prefer to get players in their system as young as possible for development purposes. However, turning 22 next year around draft time would not hurt his potential earnings. 

If he returns, Burkes would be a middle-of-the-order bat at a premium position that Kentucky could build the lineup around. If he leaves, the Wildcats could look to the transfer portal to fill his position or rely on internal development for redshirt freshman Austin Fawley. 

Logan Martin

Martin entered the season as Kentucky’s Friday night starter but threw just 26.1 innings as he dealt with injuries. He didn’t complete more than three innings in any of his final six appearances of the year. Martin flashed a 97-mile-per-hour fastball in the NCAA regional against Indiana, so he seemed to be healthy again by the end of the year.

Although he just finished his fourth season of college, Martin technically has two years of eligibility remaining since he played at a Division-III program before transferring to Kentucky. That helps his leverage as he could turn down money this year, return to Kentucky and improve his stock following the 2024 draft. However, Martin was on the radar of MLB clubs last season before he came to Kentucky and could be someone teams are ready to take a chance on. Like Paige, Martin attended the MLB Draft Combine but only participated in interviews. 

One source I spoke to was optimistic that Martin would return to Kentucky to start on the weekends again, but it will come down to how much money a club is willing to spend on him if selected.