This year’s MLB Draft should prove to be a much better experience for Virginia lefty Andrew Abbott.

A year ago, Abbott was regarded as UVa’s top prospect entering the draft, ranked as high as No. 116 in the class by MLB.com and No. 132 by Baseball America. But 160 players came off the board through the COVID-shortened five-round draft and Abbott never heard his name called. It was the first time since Brian O’Connor arrived in Charlottesville prior to the 2004 season that the program didn’t produce a single draft pick.

That won’t be the case again this year.

The three-day 2021 MLB Draft, which begins with the first round on Sunday evening, will feature 20 rounds across three days. Abbott is among four Wahoos who are likely to be selected by the end of Round 10 on Monday. Right-hander Mike Vasil and infielder Zack Gelof have also long been expected to come off the board in that stretch, while righty Griff McGarry’s stock is on the rise after his largely dominant postseason performance.

After spending his first three college seasons pitching primarily out of the bullpen, Abbott emerged as an All-American this spring after stepping into the role of UVa’s ace. He finished the year with a 9-6 record and 2.87 ERA, and his 162 strikeouts ranked third in the country. In his last outing, Abbott earned his first postseason win by striking out 10 in six shutout innings against Tennessee in Virginia’s lone victory at the College World Series.

His command improved as the season went on, and he added a more refined changeup to the fastball-curveball repertoire he had relied on as a reliever.

David Seifert, the director of college scouting for D1Baseball.com, was at Disharoon Park the night Abbott teamed up with Jake Berry and McGarry for a combined no-hitter against Wake Forest. He says Abbott proved to the scouting industry this spring that he can be a starter at the pro level.

“Obviously, he will need to maintain his starting success in pro ball to remain one,” Seifert said via email, “but with three pitches, good control, and high level athleticism, I like his chances.”

Seifert did acknowledge that a team could still like Abbott as a relief pitcher who could get to the big leagues after a rapid rise through the minors. A scout for one American League team agreed, saying “the versatility to do both (starting and relieving) is just as much of a benefit” to his long-term outlook.

With Abbott established as a starting pitching prospect, Seifert believes the lefty could come off the board as early as No. 30 overall on Sunday night. Most outlets project him as a solid second-to-third round prospect, ranked as high as No. 51 overall in the class by MLB.com. In his two-round mock draft released Friday morning, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel predicted San Diego would grab Abbott with at No. 71 overall, the final pick of Competitive Balance Round B before the start of the third round.

One evaluator has another UVa player ahead of Abbott in his prospect rankings: Keith Law of The Athletic has Gelof at No. 74 overall, nine spots ahead of Abbott. Most other outlets rank Gelof in the same vicinity as Law’s third-round projection, though McDaniels has the junior third baseman at No. 195 in his top 200.

Gelof and Pavin Smith are the only two players of the O’Connor era to start every game through the first three seasons of their UVa careers. Boosted by a 7-for-12 performance in the Cavaliers’ three games in Omaha, Gelof hit .312 this season. He finished tied for the team lead with nine home runs and tied for second on the Hoos with 41 RBI. The American League scout says “Gelof’s bat is among the safer college bats in the draft,” while MLB.com’s scouting report says Gelof has “some of the best raw power of any bat in this draft class, especially among college hitters.”

The question among scouts is whether Gelof will remain at third base in the pros. Seifert believes he has the ability to stay at the hot corner and “his athleticism should give him the versatility to play all over the diamond.”

“If I had to pick one spot,” Seifert added, “it would be right field with his arm strength and raw power.”

Gelof passed on signing with the Cleveland Indians after he was picked in Round 38 in 2018 in order to play at Virginia. Heading into that year’s draft, Vasil was projected as a potential first-round pick before emailing teams to tell them he intended to play for the Hoos. Three years later, the 6-foot-5 right-hander is projected to go somewhere in Monday’s fourth round.

McDaniel has Vasil at No. 110 in this year’s class, while MLB.com ranks him No. 111 and Baseball America puts him at No. 116. A mainstay in the weekend rotation for his three college seasons, Vasil went 11-11 with a 4.74 ERA in 34 career appearances in 32 starts. He finished 7-5 with a 4.52 ERA this season, capped by seven innings of two-run baseball against Texas at the CWS.

Seifert was watching that start against the Longhorns in Omaha on television. He was also in Charlottesville the day Vasil gave up five runs and walked four in just 2.1 innings against Wake Forest.

“I believe he’s a mix of those two looks,” Seifert said. “I realize he was once considered a first-round talent, but I’d consider him starting around the 4/5th round in this year’s draft.”

The wild card among Virginia’s draft prospects is McGarry, whose career numbers aren’t impressive—a 6-12 record and 4.84 ERA in 42 appearances, including 28 starts—but also don’t tell the whole story. UVa pitching coach Drew Dickinson has long lauded McGarry for having “the best stuff in the ballpark, if not the country.” That potential turned to more consistent production during the Cavaliers’ run to Omaha.

McGarry entered the NCAA Tournament with a 7.46 ERA and 33 walks in 25.1 innings pitched on the season. In 17.2 innings across three postseason starts, he posted a 2.55 ERA and walked nine. He took a no-hitter into the seventh inning of his super regional start against Dallas Baptist, and another into the eighth inning against eventual national champion Mississippi State at the College World Series.

That postseason turnaround prompted Baseball America to push McGarry up almost 150 spots to No. 311 in the most recent update to the site’s top 500 draft prospects list. ESPN’s McDaniels doesn’t have McGarry on his final top 200, but did include the right-hander on a ‘just missed’ list of players who could sneak into the top five rounds.

After watching “the ‘new’ McGarry” strike out the side to record the final three outs of that April no-hitter against Wake Forest, Seifert predicted the right-hander would be a fifth-round pick. Following the postseason, he has raised that projection to as early as the third round.

According to the American League scout, McGarry’s tantalizing potential—he averaged 14.44 strikeouts per nine innings this season, even better than Abbott’s 13.67 strikeouts-per-nine—will ultimately prove too good to pass on.

“There will come a point in the draft where you will not see any other names with that type of arm talent,” the scout said, “and somebody will take a chance that it will click for good because the upside is that high.”

A total of 612 players will be selected through the MLB Draft’s 20 rounds. A pair of juniors, right-hander Zach Messinger (No. 253) and shortstop Nic Kent (No. 453), are Virginia’s other draft-eligible prospects included on Baseball America’s top 500 list. The American League scout also mentioned third-year reliever Brandon Neeck (“He’s left-handed,” the scout explained) and fourth-year right-hander Kyle Whitten as potential picks.

Other senior prospects, like infielder Devin Ortiz and outfielders Alex Tappen and Brendan Rivoli, could be squeezed out since this year’s draft only expanded back to 20 rounds instead of the full 40.

Virginia’s recruiting class is also expected to be impacted by the MLB Draft. Benny Montgomery, an outfielder from Pennsylvania, is widely projected to go in the first half of Sunday’s first round. In his most recent mock draft for The Athletic released on Friday, Law has Montgomery going eighth overall to the Colorado Rockies. McDaniels predicted Montgomery to the Philadelphia Phillies at No. 13 overall.

Another UVa recruit, New Jersey right-hander Shane Panzini, could be in play on Monday’s second day. MLB.com has Panzini ranked No. 140 in the draft class, while ESPN ranks him No. 165 and Baseball America has him at No. 242.

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