The Pirates selected LSU’s Paul Skenes with the top pick in the 2023 MLB Draft

SEATTLE – Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews, the star teammates on the Men’s College World Series-winning LSU team, were selected with the first two picks in the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft on Sunday, becoming the first pair of teammates to go 1-2. in the draft history.

The Pittsburgh Pirates opened the draft by selecting Skenes, a hard-throwing pitcher, No. 1 overall, and the Washington Nationals followed with Crews, a powerful outfielder.

Skenes, whose selection was announced by Seattle Mariners legend Ken Griffey Jr., became the first pitcher to go No. 1 overall since Casey Mize was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in 2018.

“I was shocked when I heard,” Skenes said via video conference. “A year ago, two years ago, I never thought there would be a chance to be the first overall pick. I don’t know what I expected today, but it means a lot.”

Skenes, 21, went 12-2 with a 1.69 ERA and a Division I-leading 209 strikeouts, breaking the single-season SEC record with 122 innings pitched for the LSU Tigers. Skenes, a 6-foot-6 right-hander, became the sixth player – and the first pitcher – to win the MCWS Player of the Year and go No. 1 overall in the MLB draft. Phil Nevin (1992) is the only player to do both in the same year.

Crews, in turn, became the first player to win the Golden Spikes Award, a national title and finish in the top five in one year.

Skenes, ranked No. 3 by ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel , regularly throws his fastball into triple digits and pairs it with a plus slider, which could make him a major leaguer as early as 2024.

“I think I’m close,” Skenes said. “I don’t know exactly how close, but I’m going to do everything I can to get there as soon as possible.”

Crews, a complete hitter projected to bring above-average defense to center field, was a two-time SEC Player of the Year who slashed .426/.567/.713 with 18 homers in 71 games as a junior this past season. Nationals director of baseball operations Mike Rizzo called him “an impressive player and a guy who helps all types of lineups.”

“He can hit at the top of the lineup, he can be a middle-of-the-pack producer, he’s got the on-base percentages, he’s got the batting average credentials, he’s got the power numbers, he can steal a base, and he’s a two-way player,” Rizzo added. “You can’t get enough of players like that.”

Crews said he’s never been to Washington, but he saw a lot of Nationals champions growing up and watching Bryce Harper.

“To see him in a Nationals uniform, it was pretty awesome,” Crews said. “I’m going to play my game and hopefully have as much of an impact as he did. … He’s just a complete player.”

This is the third time a school has produced multiple top-three picks in the same year, following UCLA in 2011 (Gerrit Cole, first and Trevor Bauer, third) and Arizona State in 1978 (Bob Horner, first and Hubie Brooks, third). .

“There really wasn’t any heads on who was going to go 1 or 2,” Crews said.

Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford, whose team lost to LSU in the championship series, picked the Texas Rangers fourth. High school outfielders Max Clark and Walker Jenkins went third to the Tigers and fifth to the Minnesota Twins.

The Pirates picked first overall for the second time in three years — they took Henry Davis in 2021 and called him up to the majors three weeks earlier — and the sixth time overall, more than any other team. They entered the draft with the highest bonus pot, just over $16 million; the first-round pick is worth $9,721,000, but teams and players are free to negotiate their own bonus.

Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said he hopes a deal can be done quickly and Skenes could appear somewhere in the Pirates organization in 2023.

“It’s been a while since he last appeared in the World Series, and we want to make sure what that schedule and progression looks like [like] makes sense to him,” Cherington said.

MLB presents a draft of Lumen Field, located adjacent to T-Mobile Park and home to the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and MLS’s Seattle Sounders FC. The draft consists of 20 rounds and is played over three days. The first 70 selections will be played on Sunday. The Pirates were awarded the No. 1 pick after winning the first MLB draft lottery in December.

Grand Canyon University shortstop Jacob Wilson (Oakland Athletics), Wake Forest right-hander Rhett Lowder (Cincinnati Reds), high school catcher Blake Mitchell (Kansas City Royals), Tennessee right-hander Chase Dollander (Colorado Rockies) and high school right-hander. Noble Meyer (Miami Marlins) rounded out the top 10.

Meyer, from nearby Portland, was one of a handful of potential draft picks.

“It’s unbelievable,” Meyer said while wearing blue Nikes that coincidentally match his new team’s color scheme. “The fact that this is only 3 hours away from my house, that everything is happening, with all the fans here, it’s unbelievable. I love it.”

With the 16th pick, the San Francisco Giants selected Bryce Eldridge, a 6-foot-1 high school prospect who wants to follow in Shohei Ohtani’s footsteps and become a two-way player, and is expected to get a chance to hit and pitch professionally. . Arjun Nimmala, an Indian American high school shortstop with one of the highest ceilings in this draft, went 20th overall to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Two players who may have fallen a bit more than expected were Virginia pitcher Kyle Teel, who was ranked seventh in McDaniel’s latest rankings and eventually went 14th overall to the Boston Red Sox, and Ole Miss shortstop Jacob Gonzalez, who was sixth in McDaniel’s rankings and was selected 15 .Chicago White Sox.

There were big questions going into this draft about whether the No. 1 pick would be Skenes, widely considered the best pitching prospect since Stephen Strasburg, or one of four outfield prospects with similar ceilings. Like Eldridge, Skenes was a two-way star at the Air Force Academy, where he also contributed as a slugging catcher before transferring to LSU last season. He finished his stint with the Tigers, posting a 1.11 ERA in 32 innings in the Men’s College World Series, leading the school to its first baseball title in 14 years.

The Pirates had followed Skenes since he attended El Toro High School in Lake Forest, Calif., in the same program that produced Nolan Arenado and Matt Chapman.

“When you get to know Paul, you realize that with his background, you expect discipline and work ethic and a service-minded teammate — all those things that you kind of expect,” Cherington said. “But what you learn about Paul when you get to know him is that he has a thirst for healing.”

ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.