MLB Draft 2016: Miami Marlins consensus mock draft

The Miami Marlins did not have a strong 2015 season despite expectations for potential playoff contention. The injuries to Jose Fernandez (recovering from Tommy John surgery) and Giancarlo Stanton (hamate fracture) took away the team's top two talents for half a season each, and the club suffered in part because of that. As a result, the Fish own the seventh pick in the 2016 MLB Draft, and that will hopefully provide them someone new and productive with whom to work in a few years' time. By the time Thursday night rolls around, the Fish are hoping the draft brings them good luck.

We here at Fish Stripes could guess at whom the Marlins will select with their seventh pick in the first round, but we'd prefer to defer to the experts. The wisdom of the crowds is a trusted source of information, and when the crowd is a group of smart resources, I think we have the best chance of getting the information we want in terms of in whom Miami may be interested. Therefore we took a look at several sources for information for this mock draft: ESPN's Keith Law's latest mock, Jim Callis of MLB.com, Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com, John Sickels and cookiedabookie of Minor League Ball, and John Manuel of Baseball America. This gives us five big names as sources for our consensus selection for Miami. In addition, let's add the venerable Purple Row's mock draft along with Beyond the Box Score's to add some local SB Nation flavor as well.

What do these sources tell us? Let's look at the Marlins' selection for each team and the players a pick above and below.

A few names come up pretty consistently here in the draft. Braxton Garrett appears to be the most repeated name among the mock draft, and his profile fits perfectly in line with what Miami always has looked for. Garrett is a left-handed prep starting pitcher out of Florence, Alabama. He has a strong ceiling as a prep pitcher but a surprisingly high floor for a guy his age, as he profiles as a prototypical developing college lefty. He displays a strong curveball as part of his arsenal that appears to be plus, something that is not commonly seen in high schoolers. It has been said, however, that the downside for Garrett is that his ceiling is lowr than that of other prep starters in this class, notably Jason Groome and Riley Pint. The left-handedness of Garrett would fit Miami's never-ending desire to find homegrown left-handed starting pitching, with Adam Conley working out nicely after spending his career in the pen in college at Washington State University

The other name connected to Miami here is Delvin Perez. Perez is a prep shortstop from Puerto Rico who is full of tools galore. He has a strong chance of staying at shortstop due to excellent athleticism and good speed. However, he also has the problem of a lack of development yet at the plate, where he has bat speed and control but no strong ability to discern the strike zone yet. His edge is in youth and signability; he is just 17 years old right now and has no college commitment with which to compete.

It seems like the early consensus in this draft is that outside of the very top, prep players rule, and that seems to be likely where Miami will go. The Fish have a historical preference for prep talent, so this would fall in line with their usual choices. The Fish have selected prep players with their first pick in each of the last two drafts and four drafts in total since 2010. The two non-prep talents that the team picked, Andrew Heaney and Colin Moran, were subsequently traded with a surprisingly low patience. It seems the Fish would rather play the long game with their prospects, and there may be something to that in terms of aiming for upside given the club's barren prospects right now.

What does the top 10 look like in these seven drafts? We averaged the top ten rankings for several players and put them in order of selection.

Of course, this does not indicate necessarily that these teams will pick these players based on average rankings or that these rankings are a true evaluator of skill. Matt Manning is one of the top prep pitchers in the draft, but signability concerns may leave him dropping in the first round to as low as the 24th pick, not an indicator of his real talent. Likewise, Garrett was ranked 11th on this list, but drafts not picking him for the Marlins had him ranking as low as 29th in the first round.

Of course, these are just names to you right now. We'll discuss a few more of these types of players in which Miami has interest in the lead-up to the draft!