Is Virginia catcher Kyle Teel a top 10 pick in the 2023 MLB Draft? A closer look at the Cavaliers' elite prospect

Kyle Teel is one of the top prospects fans are looking out for in the upcoming 2023 MLB draft. He is the number 10 ranked prospect by the MLB website ahead of the draft. His scouting grades, according to mlb.com, are as follows:

Hit: 55 | Power: 45 | Run: 50 | Arm: 65 | Field: 50 | Overall: 55

Teel’s high rating as a prospect goes back 3 years to 2020, when, as a high school prospect, he was rated among the top 100 talents. However, he passed on the opportunity to take part in the 2020 MLB Draft and instead decided to enroll at the University of Virginia, to which he had earlier committed.

Since joining the Virginia Cavaliers as a freshman, Teel has remained a starter. Although his stats as a freshman were much better than what he managed in his sophomore season, he still gets the nod as one of the top college backstops in 2023.

A recap of Kyle Teel's college career

In the summer of 2021, Teel was selected for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team. He became just the fourteenth player in the history of Virginia Baseball to make the team. He featured in 11 games for the national team and batted .223 with three doubles and one RBI.

He went ahead to start in 53 games out of the 54 he featured in for Virginia as a true freshman in 2021. The Virginia athletic department named him the male rookie of the year. He was on D1Baseball.com’s freshman All-America first team, Baseball America’s first team as well as Perfect Game’s second team.

He made the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team selection for the second consecutive season in the summer of 2022. He and Sean Doolittle are the two Virginia players who made it to the Collegiate National Team selection in two consecutive seasons.

In the 2022 season, he batted .276 with 12 doubles, three triples, six homers and 45 RBIs. He was included in the Greenville All-Regional Team. He also was on the Preseason Watch List of the USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award. D1Baseball.com included him in their Top-50 preseason power rankings and Preseason All-American second team.

This year, Teel was named in the All-American First Team by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper and voted the ACC Player of the year, making the All-ACC First Team selection as a catcher.

When Teel gets drafted this July, he will be going into the MLB three years after he passed on his first chance. Now, he is going in as a better and more experienced prospect who will be valuable to whichever team he ends up in.