There is no surefire first-overall-pick type to headline this year's MLB draft class (as covered in my rankings update), but that doesn't mean there won't be future superstars coming off the board this July -- it just shifts the focus to trying to find standouts in riskier player demographics.
If the college ranks aren't handing teams a Paul Skenes or Wyatt Langford like in 2023, the natural pivot is to find the highest upside prep talents who could become that kind of player as they develop.
All of the scouts I've been speaking with this spring are focused on the top of the high school class, specifically trying to pick out which of the clear top four prep prospects will be the defining star of this draft.
That group includes three shortstops and one right-handed pitcher who all seem like locks for the top 10 picks, and I scouted all four of them in person in the past few weeks. Oklahoma high school infielders Ethan Holliday and Eli Willits faced each other in a three-game round-robin event last week while California high school teammates Seth Hernandez and Billy Carlson played in a four-day event featuring some of the nation's top talent in North Carolina earlier this month.
Here's what stood out most about the potential superstars of tomorrow from my scouting opportunities.
Ethan Holliday, SS, Stillwater (Oklahoma) HS