MLB mock draft: Pirates take Cornelius Randolph in BA's latest mock

Baseball America's latest mock draft has the Pirates taking Georgia high school shortstop Cornelius Randolph with the No. 19 overall pick.

Pittsburgh went off the board regularly in 2014, starting with Arizona prep shortstop Cole Tucker, and there’s little consensus to hold to in 2015.  They aren’t afraid of high school talents, and if national scouting supervisor Jimmy Lester likes Cornelius Randolph’s bat, his overall tools will endear him to the rest of director Joe Delli Carri’s staff.

This shouldn't be taken particularly seriously, of course -- not because BA doesn't know what it's talking about, but because there's no way to know who the Pirates will take this far down the draft and this far away. Getting a sense of who they might take when they were picking in the first four wasn't hard, but figuring out what they might do at No. 19 is pretty much impossible, particularly in a draft like this, where there isn't even all that much agreement on the top picks, much less the players who will be available when it's the Pirates' turn. But it's worth checking out the mock drafts to get a sense of who might be available. (Here's Kiley McDaniel of FanGraphs' latest mock draft, by the way. McDaniel sensibly stops his draft after the 13th pick.)

Anyway, McDaniel suggests Randolph will eventually move off shortstop (which means he likely won't get in Cole Tucker's way, not that the Pirates would rule him out on that basis), but could develop into a lefty power source. He's a Clemson commit, and his high school also produced 2008 No. 1 overall pick Tim Beckham, although MLB.com notes that Randolph is likely to become a better hitter than Beckham became. Here's some video.