Phillies select Aiden Miller with the 27th overall pick

The Phillies had a much lower pick in the first round this year thanks to their run at the World Series in 2022, which is a trade off anyone would make without hesitation. Today, they made their first pick of the 2023 draft.

Here’s a scouting report via Fangraphs of Miller:

Miller has among the fastest hitting hands in the entire 2023 draft, his bat speed gives him impressive present power and his frame portends more. He also has a gnarly bat wrap that his bat speed currently enables. As fun as it is to watch him swing, it’s often tough for hitters to have such an extreme wrap and succeed against upper-level velocity, but that’s still a long way off for Miller. He already swings underneath his fair share of in-zone fastballs because of the looped path his bat takes through the zone, and there are past examples of prospects succeeding with swings like this until they reach the big leagues and then struggling to make adjustments, like Carter Kieboom. Despite the bat wrap, Miller still managed a 2-to-1 ball in play-to-swinging strike ratio against showcase foes according to Synergy, but at some point in the future it might require a tweak. Miller will be 19 on draft day, but he still has one of the more projectable frames in the class and is likely to continue adding power, so much that he has the margin for error to have a below-average hit tool and still profile at third base because of his power.

That makes four high school picks from the first round in the last four years. Interesting, but what do I know? The next pick for the Phillies comes in the 3rd round.