Right-hander Carter Stewart was No. 2 on my draft board last spring and went No. 8 overall to the Atlanta Braves in the 2018 draft, but didn’t sign with the team after a disagreement over something that arose in his post-draft physical. Stewart never missed any time and decided to attend junior college rather than going to Mississippi State, where he had committed, a move that allows teams to draft him again this year.
I saw Stewart on Wednesday at Eastern Florida State College, right near his home in Melbourne, after hearing very mixed reports on him from his first half-dozen outings. He’d come into the spring in worse condition, although he seems to have worked himself into shape and I thought his body looked fine. He’s had outings where scouts said he looked like he was a top-15 pick, and some where he didn’t look like a first-rounder. Wednesday’s outing was the latter, as Stewart walked five in four-plus innings and didn’t show the same stuff he’d shown last year that made him the top prep player on my board.