2023 MLB draft takeaways: Top teams and picks that stood out - ESPN

While the first round of the MLB draft gets most of the headlines, it's essential to see what teams do in the days that follow to truly understand how well they have executed their strategies for the year.

Now that we've seen which clubs have been able to turn what might have seemed like surprising first-round decisions at the time into potential savings to spread around on later picks, we can start evaluating this year's draft classes.

With that in mind, I've identified 10 teams whose 2023 draft hauls stand out to me.

Miami Marlins

The best organizations at drafting get their various departments on the same page, then settle on a point of view on what they scout and develop well — then lean into that as hard as they can. In the MLB draft, creating value is the name of the game, not trying to fill big league holes; you can use trades and free agency to do that.

So, sure, the Marlins could panic that they haven't picked or produced a ton of solid-average position players in the draft. But instead, they realized that they create value more reliably with high-ceiling pitchers and leaned hard into that, landing some great projects for pitching consultant Dave Wallace & Co.

In Noble Meyer and Thomas White, the Marlins took the top two prep pitchers with true frontline potential (in a year where most teams were scrambling to sort through the position players). Meyer and White alone would make a solid draft, but coming back with two position players with everyday upside in Kemp Alderman (80 raw power, above average speed) and Brock Vradenburg (late bloomer with a chance for an above average hit/power combo) rounds out a strong top of the draft. I would bet that at least two of their next four picks (lefties Emmet Olson and