Joseph Gonzalez Scouting Report, Draft Projection, & MLB Draft preview

RHP Joseph Gonzalez missed the entire season but is still expected to be drafted on day two in next week's MLB Draft

Now that the college baseball season has ended, all eyes turn to the MLB Draft. MLB is unique in that both high schoolers and certain college players are eligible, so the draft impacts both recruiting and roster construction. College players who have completed three seasons of college ball OR are 21 on draft day are eligible and have until 5 PM EST on August 1st to reach agreements with their drafting teams or return to college for their senior seasons. More so than the other major sports, money is the ultimate deciding factor in the MLB Draft. Top 100 talents out of high school may fall too late rounds or go undrafted entirely based on expected bonus demands, and draft-eligible college seniors frequently receive smaller signing bonuses due to the lack of negotiating leverage they possess once exhausting their college eligibility. 

Let's continue our look at draft-eligible Auburn Tigers with RHP Joseph Gonzalez.

Joseph Gonzalez 2023 Season Recap

Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

There's not much to talk about here, actually. Slowed in spring by a recurrence of a shoulder issue that bothered him last winter, he was late making his intersquad debut but still got the ball on opening weekend against Indiana. After five innings with two hits and one strikeout on only forty-one pitches, a return of the shoulder pain caused him to be shut down from throwing. After numerous attempted restarts, the decision was finally made to have a small operation to relieve the issue and he was officially ruled out for the rest of the 2023 season. 

Only a junior, it is widely believed that he will be forgoing his remaining eligibility to enter the MLB Draft, although he does have the ability to return to Auburn should he not sign with a MLB team after being drafted.

Joseph Gonzalez's career statlines at Auburn

Photo credit: Jacob Taylor/Auburn Athletics

2023: 1 appearance (one start) with a 1-0 record and 0.00 ERA. 1 strikeout to 0 walks in 5.0 IP, opponent batting average allowed of .125
2022: 15 appearances (fourteen starts) with a 7-4 record and 3.22 ERA. 54 strikeouts to 15 walks in 78.1 IP, opponent batting average allowed of .276
2021: 21 appearances (five starts) with a 2-1 record and 6.17 ERA. 30 strikeouts to 10 walks in 42.1 IP, opponent batting average allowed of .293

Joseph Gonzalez's MLB Scouting Report

Eric Starling/Auburn Daily

"Prototypical pitchability righty with low-90s stuff. Slider is his best pitch, a two-plane breaker in the low 80s. Has a heavy low 90s fastball that can run up to 96 but doesn't miss a lot of bats. Has feel for a changeup and there's been a few curveballs in there. Very much a projection pick, as there's fantastic clay but he's far from a complete product. Great control, consistency, and mound presence, but has had injury issues in two seasons including an arm/shoulder issue in 2023, which caused him to miss virtually the entire season."

Joseph Gonzalez's MLB Draft rankings and projection

Eric Starling/Auburn Daily

Gonzo's the biggest wild card of the entire draft - he looked to have a high 4th-round or so floor as a back-of-the-rotation type control artist, but the lost 2023 season has scared some teams off. While I don't expect him to come back to college, it's a lot harder to know where he will be ranked by MLB teams on their boards. I've seen him as high as late 100s, while some other sites have him in the mid-to-late 200s. 

He's got additional data out there from his summer spent with Team USA, where he outpitched several projected 1st round picks like Rhett Lowder (Wake Forest), Hurston Waldrep (Florida), and Paul Skenes (LSU).  

I'm high on the makeup and character for Gonzalez, but the health is a concern and he'll need to go to an organization with a history of developing arms and building pitchers out of clay and tools - look for an analytical, model-heavy team like Cleveland, Los Angeles (Dodgers) or Tampa Bay to swoop in and take him. If you can add some velocity, refine the slider, and nail down a tertiary pitch, you have a #4 pitcher with the possibility of getting up into a mid-rotation type. 

Other Auburn baseball scouting reports:

SS Cole Foster

Other scouting reports to come this week

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