With the 19th pick of the first round of the 2020 MLB Draft, the New York Mets selected Pete Crow-Armstrong, the 18-year-old, left-handed outfielder out of Harvard-Westlake High School in Los Angeles, Calif.
Crow-Armstrong was a Vanderbilt commit and is ranked 20th in the MLB pipeline rankings. His high school, Harvard-Westlake, has gained a reputation as a baseball factory in recent years after producing pitchers Max Fried, Jack Flaherty, and Lucas Giolito.
In his COVID-shortened senior year, Crow-Armstrong was batting .514, and his junior year he hit .426. He doesn’t just hit against high schoolers though, in the U18 Baseball World Cup, he slashed .364/.405/.606. Crow-Armstrong also showed off his defensive ability in that tournament, reportedly robbing multiple home runs.
On top of his ability to swing the bat, he also has remarkable speed, running the 60-yard dash in 6.51 seconds, and a strong arm, throwing 93 miles-per-hour from the outfield. That already impressive arm strength and his exit velocity (99 mph) could both improve even further as he grows and gets stronger, as the 6-foot-1 outfielder only weighs 175 pounds.
As always with draft picks out of high school, we probably will have to wait a few years to see him make a major league impact, but he certainly has the talent to make a difference on the Mets two or three years down the line.
