All You Need to Know About MLB Draft Top Prospect Andrew Vaughn

The 2019 MLB Draft is on Monday, and teams are finishing out their draft boards and finalizing which prospects they'll have their sights set on as we speak. Players like Bobby Witt Jr. and Adley Rutschman have arguably been the talk of the draft cycle, as fans towards the top of the first round dream of what these prospects could be for their respective teams. However, throughout the draft process, there's been one college bat who has arguably performed better than all the rest, making him an incredibly enticing early first-round pick: Cal first baseman Andrew Vaughn.

Apparently, he's still in play for the first overall selection in Baltimore.

The University of California product is a little undersized as a first baseman, standing at 6-0 and 214 pounds, and wasn't a heralded prospect coming out of high school. In his three years at California, he swung his way into the top prospect conversation, winning PAC-12 Freshman of the Year, and then nabbing the Golden Spikes Award, given to the nation's top star, as an underclassman.

Andrew Vaughn Stats

Vaughn has been an absolutely lethal hitter ever since stepping onto the field as a freshman, as he's hit a collective .377 with 50 homers and 162 runs batted in, as well as sporting a 116:72 BB:K ratio. His counting stats took a slight decline in his junior year, where he hit .385 with 15 homers and 49 runs batted in, mostly because of all of the out-of-zone pitches and breaking balls he saw, but it's still a better season than most college hitters put together in 2019.

Vaughn could very well be the best hitter in this class, with an incredibly advanced approach at the plate and a nose for barreling the ball to all fields. He profiles well as a potential cleanup hitter in the future at the highest level. Besides his hitting, Vaughn is a decent first baseman with good enough hands to play the position without too many issues.

The knock on Vaughn is that he's fairly unathletic. He's not the kind of first baseman who teams can play around with at different positions. Right now, Vaughn projects to be an average defender at first, so it would be a stretch for him to play, for example, a corner outfield spot. Just like it didn't work out for Rhys Hoskins, who moved back to first after the Carlos Santana trade, it likely won't work out for Vaughn if his future team tries to force him into a life of versatility.

Vaughn has an awesome swing, but the rest of his body and footwork leave a lot to be desired. It might honestly be best if he lands with a team that has a DH spot, so that he's not regarded as an eventual defensive liability.

Simply put, Vaughn has an elite hitting approach that has led to a ton of success in college, putting him in the conversation for best prospect in this year's class. However, because he's unathletic and an average defender at best, his draft stock could potentially take a hit. In many mock drafts, Vaughn is slated to go to either the Miami Marlins or the Detroit Tigers, but it's not a stretch to say he could fall to the Cincinnati Reds at seven, who could look past his issues with his athleticism, and simply focus on the high reward of drafting his incredible bat.