Feeling a draft: A midseason ranking

Baseball America does a superb job covering the amateur draft, and its analysis is probably as sound a reflection of the scouting consensus as you're going to find.

The issue that arrived in my mailbox Monday contains the publication's midseason top 60 draft prospects, and it differs markedly (and not surprisingly) from its February take.

Then BA said there were five players ahead of the pack. In this list, one of those five has dropped to No.13 (Arizona State shortstop Deven Marrero), and a college right-handed pitcher (Kyle Zimmer of San Francisco) has leapt from No. 28 in February to No. 3.

The Twins, of course, draft second in June. I'll list BA's top seven, going that deep because it specifically mentions the seventh player as "a sleeper to go first overall":

1. Bryon Buxton, outfielder, Appling County High, Ga.
2. Mike Zunino, catcher, Florida
3. Zimmer
4. Mark Appel, RHP, Stanford
5. Kevin Glausman, RHP, Louisiana State
6. Lucas Giolito, RHP, Harvard-Westlake High, Calif.
7. Michael Wacha, RHP, Texas A&M

Buxton, Zunino, Appel and Giolito were all in the original BA top five. Giolito, as noted in this March post, sprained his elbow and is not pitching, but it doesn't seem to have wrecked his draft status.

Still plenty of time for all this to change, of course.