Luke Williams isn\u2019t shying away from the chaos that comes with being a MLB Draft prospect. He is leaning into it with gratitude and quiet confidence like he\u2019s been there before.<\/p>\n
The recent Franklin Regional graduate just finished a barnstorming tour, working out for nearly a dozen MLB teams as the draft nears July 11-12 in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
Next will be the MLB Draft Combine, for which he received an invitation, which is validation he is a high-round candidate who is firmly on the radar of pro teams.<\/p>\n
Williams had a chance to work out with 20 teams but narrowed the list, with the help of his advisors, to a manageable number of 11.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely has been a lot the past few weeks,\u201d the shortstop said. \u201cI\u2019m really trying to just take a step back and enjoy this process because you only go through it once.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams, a Vanderbilt signee, had a stat-heavy senior season for the Panthers, hitting a team-best .465 with a team-leading 33 hits, 33 runs, 33 stolen bases and 17 RBIs. He had eight doubles, four triples and four home runs.<\/p>\n
Scouts like his strong arm and twitchy quickness as well as his power and bat speed.<\/p>\n
He was set to compete at the invitation-only MLB Draft Combine June 22-27 at Chase Field in Phoenix. A total of 334 players are invited.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely been an awesome process, and I\u2019m excited, whether it is Vandy or the draft,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
Williams said the combine is about measuring up.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to showcase myself with the best high school and college players in the country and see where I stack up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Draft websites project Williams, whom they label as a five-tool player, getting picked in the top 50 spots, which means his name would be called in the first two rounds.<\/p>\n
JustBaseball.Com has him going at No. 29. ESPN has him as the 66th overall pick. And Perfect Game projects him as the No. 99 pick.<\/p>\n
MLB.com lists Williams as the 101st overall prospect.<\/p>\n
The draft is 20 rounds withroughly 600 picks \u2014 about 30 per round.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really know which teams like me the most, but I\u2019ve been slotted anywhere from, like, rounds 1 to 3,\u201d Williams said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a really cool experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Williams isn\u2019t shying away from the chaos that comes with being a MLB Draft prospect. He is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-752672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}