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SAN DIEGO – The Padres bolstered the organization’s arsenal of young pitching prospects Sunday in a draft class headlined by their top pick, right-handed prep star Dylan Lesko.
Lesko, an 18-year-old from Buford, Georgia, was selected with the No. 15 pick in the 2022 MLB Draft, the fourth pitcher off the board in a draft with plenty of star power. He was one of three pitchers picked by Friars on the draft’s opening night with Nevada high school lefty and LSU commit Robby Snelling at No. 39 and Iowa Hawkeyes right-hander Adam Mazur at No. 53.
Lesko was a coveted high school prospect with some even ranking him higher in the expected draft order before he underwent Tommy John surgery in April.
He was the first junior ever to win the Gatorade National Baseball Player of the Year award. Lesko was called “extremely advanced for an amateur” by MLB.com, which ranked his changeup as the best of his draft class.
A draft ranking from CBS Sports notes that Lesko has “all the right ingredients to become an above-average starter,” praising his changeup and his fastball in the upper 90s but raising concerns that his breaking ball could be a “potential bugaboo” once big league hitters take notice.
A Vanderbilt commit, Lesko also maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout his high school curriculum.
Snelling is both a “well-regarded baseball prospect” and a previous four-star linebacker recruit and a quarterback, according to CBS Sports, which had him as its No. 16 overall draft prospect. Baseball writer Keith Law had Snelling at No. 31 overall, noting he’d been pushed up draft boards this spring “thanks to his athleticism and one of the better curveballs in the class.”
The Reno Gazette Journal notes the lefty pitcher now faces a choice as to whether he will sign with the Padres or play college baseball at LSU.
In the club’s last pick, the Friars went with a bit more experience in Mazur, who was Iowa’s highest-selected player since 1990. He joined the Hawkeyes after transferring from South Dakota State, finishing with a 7-3 record and a 3.07 ERA in 15 starts and being named Big Ten Conference Pitcher of the Year.
Law ranked Mazur as his No. 24 prospect as “one of the only good college starters in the class to pitch every week this spring,” adding that he was a “no-doubt first-round pick for me.”
The MLB Draft continues Monday starting at 11 a.m. with rounds 3-10. It wraps up on Tuesday with rounds 11-20.
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