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The 2020 MLB Draft is approaching fast and furiously. While it’s not quite the spectacle that the NFL draft annually has become, it’s still the next step in hundreds of collegiate athletes and often the final step of the baseball-playing careers.
For UCLA outfielder Garrett Mitchell, it’s a step that he could have taken a few years ago, exiting high school as one of the top players in the country. Instead, he forewent the draft in 2017 and instead chose to attend UCLA to further improve his game and further improve his draft stock.
Three years later, Mitchell is sitting pretty as an almost guaranteed top 10 pick in the 2020 MLB Draft.
Mitchell has been mocked everywhere from fifth to even as low as 20th, as rare as that may have been, but the one thing remains consistent, everyone understands that Mitchell is much more ready to go to the pros now than he was back out of high school. He honed in on every major potential ‘concern’ from his high school days and consistently improved in his tenure with the Bruins.
And now, that hard work has paid off, considerably.
MLB Pipeline has ranked Mitchell as the No. 6 overall prospect in this year’s draft class, describing him as a do-everything type of player for whichever MLB team is lucky enough to have him. They even spoke to UCLA head coach John Savage who went as far as to say that Mitchell is the best athlete that he’s ever coached.
“He’s the best athlete we’ve ever had, position player-wise,” Savage said.
Mitchell is likely to hear his name called early during the draft and that should be no surprise seeing the praise that Savage continued.
“I don’t think there’s any player in the country that possesses his skill set,” Savage said of Mitchell. “He’s our strongest guy, he’s our fastest guy. He’s a dynamic, full-fledged athlete.
“We’ve had really good players, really good pitchers. But Garrett possesses the most athleticism-slash-baseball tools that we’ve seen. You can’t help but see it right away.”
That’s great praise, for sure, considering the UCLA alum who are currently donning MLB uniforms and those past as well.
And as such, that should come as no surprise that MLB Pipeline has him at No. 6 overall even if that’s the highest we’ve seen him ranked.
The 2020 MLB Draft will take place on June 11-12 and air on MLB Network, ESPN/ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes virtually from Omaha, Nebraska.