Seventy amateur baseball players can officially call themselves winners after Sunday night.
MLB teams made their initial picks in the 2023 draft, bolstering farm systems and changing lives by adding the latest round of professional players to baseball history.
Evaluating the draft classes on Night 1 can be challenging. Teams won't know what they have in certain prospects for several years, and analysts don't have a crystal ball to see the answers, either.
Still, there are teams that come away from draft nights looking better than others, and perhaps some players will feel like they landed in exactly the right — or wrong — situations.
MORE: Complete results, analysis for every pick from Round 1
With the first two rounds in the books, The Sporting News takes a look at some of the winners and losers from Day 1 of the 2023 MLB Draft. Here's what you need to know.
Winner: Nationals
Two months ago, it would have seemed ludicrous that anyone but Dylan Crews would go first overall. That wouldn't have been bad for the Nationals, who would have landed Paul Skenes. But luck shined on the Nats and they wound up landing Crews, a potential generational outfield talent, with the second overall pick. Washington has had its share of star outfielders in recent years with Bryce Harper and Juan Soto, and it didn't have to wait long to add a third.
MORE: The best players still available on Day 2
The reason Crews fell to second was because of his reported bonus asking price, which was apparently a deterrent to the Pirates, who wanted to save money to try to sign players to over-slot deals in later rounds.
Crews' bonus demand might not be an issue for the Nationals, who landed another sliding college performer, third baseman Yohandy Morales, at No. 40. Morales had been projected by many to be taken in the teens, but he found his way down to Washington at the start of the second round. Morales has a ton of raw power and would give the Nationals a high-upside, middle-of-the-order slugger to go along with their high-floor, top-of-the-order star.
It might just be two picks, but that's an impressive haul for the Nationals on Day 1.
Loser: Athletics
The Athletics have a barren farm system despite having sold off Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, Sean Murphy and others in recent years. If any team needed a home run-type swing, it was Oakland.
Instead, the A's made perplexing moves. They took Grand Canyon shortstop Jacob Wilson sixth overall; prep third baseman Myles Naylor 39th overall; and Rutgers outfielder Ryan Lasko 41st overall. All three picks graded as reaches on SN's big board, with Wilson coming in at 12th, Naylor at 62nd and Lasko at 88th.
Wilson is a player with an extremely high floor with some of the best bat-to-ball skills in the class, but he has limited upside due to a potential lack of power and average speed. Naylor is a shortstop with strikeout issues who will need to move to third base, where his limited range will play better. Lasko has similar hit-tool questions, which is more concerning coming from a college hitter, even if his other tools are all average or better. That's a lot of risk and not necessarily a ton of upside.
MORE: Naylor brothers may be welcoming a third to the majors in a few years
Winner: Reds
Cincinnati has had an exciting wave of young bats reach the big leagues and make a huge impact. The Reds are now looking to bolster the pitching depth in their system, and they did just that by grabbing two standout collegiate arms.
They began by taking Rhett Lowder, the Wake Forest ace who is the most polished pitcher in the 2023 draft class. What better way to counter the Pirates' selection of Paul Skenes than by taking the pitcher who matched him pitch-for-pitch in a thrilling College World Series duel? The Reds then went with the guy who set the College World Series single-game strikeout record: Ty Floyd, who fanned 17 Gators in eight innings to help lead LSU in Game 1 of the finals. He's a riskier pick than Lowder, but he gives Cincinnati both a high-upside arm to go with Lowder's high floor.
As if that wasn't enough, the Reds were able to get a prep shortstop to slide down the board and land at their top pick in the second round, No. 43. They took Sammy Stafura, a New York-area shortstop who has drawn comparisons to Anthony Volpe. Bolstering the pitching depth and getting a high-upside young shortstop? Not too shabby.
Loser: High school pitchers
This demographic has become increasingly less popular in the draft. Notable busts over the years have tended to come from prep arms, which has led teams to be more skeptical.
Of the 14 players ranked inside the top 70 on SN's big board that went undrafted, four were high school pitchers, accounting for 29 percent of the most notable fallers on the board. During the draft, just one prep pitcher who did not also hit was taken in the first 30 picks, and just seven of the 70 total picks were high school arms.
The Marlins wanted to do their part in making sure prep pitchers were well-represented on draft day, taking top right-hander Noble Meyer and top left-hander Thomas White, but it was clear that teams overall were avoiding taking high school pitchers early. That might change over the rest of the draft as teams start to feel more willing to take risks, but it's clear early that teams were feeling more risk-averse in 2023.
Winner: Bryce Eldridge
Eldridge has made it clear that he wants to be a two-way player in the pros. He landed with one of the few organizations that will give him the chance to do that.
Last year, the Giants selected UConn lefty Reggie Crawford, who was coming off Tommy John surgery, but showed upside on the mound and at the plate. This season, Crawford has been working out as a two-way player, making one-inning starts as he recovers from the procedure and taking a few swings.
When commissioner Rob Manfred announced Eldridge's selection, he called him a two-way player, signaling to the world San Francisco's intention to allow the "American Ohtani" to both hit and pitch. Eldridge has plenty of upside from both sides, with tons of raw power in his left-handed swing and a fastball that reaches 95 mph.
This is also a good place to mention the Giants' draft in general as being a winner. On top of Eldridge, prep shortstop Walker Martin and Kent State left-hander Joe Whitman is an impressive haul of players.
MORE: Get to know the 'American Ohtani'
Losers: Chase Dollander and Sean Sullivan
Dollander and Sullivan were drafted, and that's a huge accomplishment. But heading to the Rockies is not the most thrilling destination for pitchers.
The Rockies have drafted 24 pitchers in the first round in their history. Sixteen have reached the majors. Of those 16, only two have career ERAs below 4.00, while six have ERAs above 5.00. Riley Pint (2016) is the only first-round Rockies pitcher to reach the majors of the four drafted since 2015.
Coors Field is a difficult place to pitch because of the Denver altitude, and it takes a certain type of pitcher to succeed. Both pitchers have high velocity and lean on sliders as their top secondary pitches, which should help them more than fastball-curveball starters. But when it comes to landing spots for pitching prospects, the Rockies are almost always No. 30 among MLB teams.
Winner: Pirates fans
There has been plenty of angst in Pittsburgh lately as rumors swirled around whether the Pirates would look to cut a deal at the top and not take one of the LSU standouts. Talk radio around the city would have been blowing up with angry phone calls for days if the pick had been anyone who did not come away with a national championship in 2023.
Rest easy, Pittsburgh fans. You got your guy. Though many still wanted Crews to be the pick, no one is going to complain about the selection of Skenes. He's the best pitching prospect the sport has seen since Stephen Strasburg. He's armed with a triple-digits fastball and a filthy slider that is the best out pitch in the class.
The Pirates are on the verge of competing, with a core of Bryan Reynolds, O'Neil Cruz, Ke'Bryan Hayes, Henry Davis, Endy Rodriguez and Mitch Keller. While drafting a player like Max Clark or Walker Jenkins would have been a big upside play, the team likely would have had to wait several years for the player to reach the majors. Skenes might be on the Opening Day roster in 2024, and if not, he'll almost certainly be in the majors at some point during the season. And it won't be long until he's likely receiving Cy Young votes.
MORE: Why the Pirates drafted Skenes over Crews
Losers: Mets and Dodgers fans
This is not a knock on the teams' draft hauls. Mets fans should be rejoicing that their team landed Colin Houck and Brandon Sproat. Dodgers fans should love the Jake Gelof pick in the second round, and there's certainly some upside in Kendall George.
But because the two teams exceeded the competitive balance tax threshold by more than $40 million, these two fan bases had to wait until after several teams had picked twice (including the Mariners, who picked three times) because their picks were dropped 10 spots. That's a long time to have to wait to hear your team make its first pick in the draft.
At least Dodgers fans can enjoy the fact Los Angeles has taken a four-game winning streak into the All-Star Break to jump into a tie with the Diamondbacks for first in the division. Mets fans? Well, Houck is a steal at No. 32.