Detroit Tigers select high school outfielder Max Clark with No. 3 pick in 2023 MLB draft
The Detroit Tigers selected Franklin Community High School (Franklin, Indiana) outfielder Max Clark with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft.
Before Clark, the Pittsburgh Pirates added LSU right-hander Paul Skenes with the first pick and the Washington Nationals followed by taking LSU outfielder Dylan Crews with the second pick.
The Tigers passed on Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford.
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Clark, 18, hit .646 with six home runs, 30 walks and eight strikeouts in 29 games as a senior with Franklin Community High School. He was named the Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year.
He was named Indiana Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year as a sophomore and junior in high school, as well, when he served as an outfielder and a pitcher. Clark also played football as a wide receiver.
The Tigers, under new president of baseball operations Scott Harris, wanted to select a college position player with the No. 3 overall pick and were believed to be most interested in Crews and Langford at the top of the draft.
The No. 3 overall pick, used on Clark, came with an MLB-determined bonus slot value of $8,341,700.
Clark is represented by Wasserman agent Sam Samardzija.
The Tigers have $15,747,200 to spend on their 21 draft picks this year, the second-most in baseball. Teams are allowed to exceed slot value for picks by 5% before paying a 75% fine on the overage. No MLB team has exceeded the 5% limit since the slots were created.
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The Tigers have selected in the top five in five of the past six drafts.
Those five picks were used to select Clark (2023), high school right-hander Jackson Jobe (2021), college first baseman Spencer Torkelson (2020), high school outfielder Riley Greene (2019) and college right-hander Casey Mize (2018).
The Tigers also picked Texas Tech second baseman Jace Jung with the No. 12 overall pick in the 2022 draft.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers select Max Clark with No. 3 pick in 2023 MLB draft
