Even though following the MLB draft can feel like getting invested in a snail race, it is fun to see prospects you started following in high school progress through their college careers and eventually become eligible for the MLB draft again. It’s a little like tucking away a favorite pair of winter pants, forgetting about them, and then finding them at the back of the closet the next season, sometimes with a twenty tucked in the pocket.
Way back in 2017, I wrote up then-highschooler RHP Tanner Burns as a possible draft candidate for the Mariners to take 17th overall (they of course picked Evan White, who now sits poised to make his MLB debut).