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It's still hard to place Mitchell, but he has the best overall set of tools in this class. Chicago could also dive into the prep bat pool here.

The Cubs seem unlikely to take a high school pitcher, and other executives have speculated that they'd go college given the new scouting director and the need to get some players into the system faster.

Rumor has it the Cubs are targeting upside rather than a quick moving college pitcher who could help their MLB team in short order. Abel's high school did not play any games prior to the shutdown, but he's a potential top-10 pick on talent, and it's been a long time since a player with this high a ceiling has been available to Chicago. If not Abel, it could be Bitsko, or possibly even one of the prep outfielders if they're still on the board.

I think some of the teams picking in the middle of round one (Reds, Rangers, Cubs, Red Sox, D-backs) might be more motivated than usual to take a pitcher who they can plug and play in their bullpen sometime this summer, and the Phillies are perhaps the most needy of these. Tennessee lefty Garrett Crochet and Texas Tech righty Clayton Beeter (in the James Karinchak mold mechanically, 94-98 with a 70 slider) each have two pitches that would probably miss big league bats right now and would be good fits for this.

The Cubs have done a nice job signing and developing young amateur hitters, so it's no surprise that they get mentioned with prep bats such as Hassell, Hendrick, Howard and Soderstrom. They also need pitching help, so Crochet or the premier high school arms could make sense.

Mitchell is a consensus top-10 prospect by draft models, thanks to some very attractive components -- history of high contact rate, 70 speed, 55 raw power -- but he is much lower for many scouts due to some other qualities -- lack of improvement in college, lack of in-game power, choosing not to play in the fall his whole college career, generally playing below his tools since his high school underclass days. His Type 1 diabetes is another complicating factor that doesn't really have a precedent for everyday position players -- Sam Fuld is the most prominent example -- so Mitchell is not in play for some clubs. That full list hasn't come into focus yet, but the assumption is that someone will take him in the middle of the first round. The Cubs have a new voice at the helm of their draft in Dan Kantrovitz (formerly with Oakland and St. Louis), and clubs have noticed them showing more interest in upside types than they did at their top pick in recent years.