​This is the third and final edition of the consensus rankings. If you’re curious about the previous versions, the June Top 200 and the April Top 100 are linked here so you can track how players have progressed over the last few months. There are a few changes this year. Notably, the list expands from a Top 200 to a Top 500. Additionally, the number of included lists drops from seven to six because the Keith Law/Athletic list is relatively short (only Top 100) and its rankings diverge significantly from the others, which would skew the results at the top and in the 75–150 range. A smaller change from the last edition is the removal of the player-movement section; there wasn’t enough time to compile that data and publish this draft ahead of the draft itself since these lists were released late.
The six lists used are Baseball America, Pipeline (Top 250 only), Perfect Game, ESPN/Kiley McDaniel (Top 250), Overslot/Mock Draft Simulator, and my own. A player ranked No. 1 on any list earns 500 points toward the consensus total, while the No. 500 position earns one point. In total, 695 players received at least one point. All of these lists have been recently updated, so nothing in these rankings is outdated. Two of the lists don’t reach Top 500, which means the remaining four lists will carry more weight in the bottom half of the rankings.
Please note that these rankings are a composite of all sources; aside from my own rankings being one component of the six, I have not personally influenced the results. When players are tied in points for a given position, the tie is broken by the higher number of lists in which the player appears; the next tiebreaker is the best individual list ranking, followed by the total number of lists a player appears on, and finally, if still tied, the player with the lower individual list ranking loses.
I’ll include some notes below on notable patterns in the composite and will break the results into tiers based on the points each player accumulated.
Tier 1
Roch Cholowsky, SS, UCLA – 2996 points
Grady Emerson, SS, Texas HS – 2995
Vahn Lackey, C, Georgia Tech – 2991
The expectation that Cholowsky would be a consensus top pick has shifted; he leads Emerson by just a single point. Cholowsky topped three lists, Emerson two, and Lackey led on the remaining list and was second in another. It’s clear these three are very close to one another and clearly separated from the group that makes up the next tier.
Tier 2
Jackson Flora, RHP, UC Santa Barbara – 2978
Eric Booth Jr., OF, Mississippi HS – 2974
Jacob Lombard, SS, Florida HS – 2972
These three are tightly grouped in the rankings, underscoring a very close departure from the rest of the field and highlighting the depth at the top of the board.