drafted on his bat

Drafted on bat alone! If he can rake...thats the hardest part. Plenty of hitters have been drafted with no real position.

Someone who can hit for high average or better than usual power numbers can easily be a designated hitter in the MLB.

A player who can be projected to be nothing more than adequate defensively can be drafted if he can hit and hit with power. He doesn’t need to have a good arm, or run fast.

Truth is that if he is one of the best at hitting and hitting with power, he is most likely to be drafted very early. It’s not so often that the best hitters (even without another plus tool) go later in the draft. The best hitters get picked early.

So, there has to be something else besides the bat (defense) that is at least playable. But the bat alone can be worth millions in that case.

Example of a couple first round picks…. Prince Fielder and Billy Butler! If they would have graded out below average as hitters… Their other tools would not have gotten them drafted. Both are good Major League hitters and that is the only reason why they are there. They are not there for any other reason, even though Prince is not a slow runner and Butler has a nice arm! When you see a player getting drafted and his draft position is listed as left field or first base… He got drafted because of his bat… anything else is just a bonus, for the most part.

Any way you look at it your being limited to American league teams for the most part. If you are projected as a monster at the plate and a liability in the field you better be a super monster.

I suppose that a player who will be drafted on his bat alone needs to be not only a super stud hitter in college, but also be projectable as an excellent hitter with wood. That's different than a player with draftable skills at a position, who would still have value even if he turns out to be an average hitter with wood.

A "hitter only" really needs to be in the top few dozen hitters in the country to actually have value to a MLB team.

I also wonder if a player who functioned primarily as a DH at a D1 college has much chance of being drafted? I personally know a player who was a college All-American but was not drafted. I think he was listed as 1B on the All-America team, but in reality he mostly was a DH.

Chris Carter from Stanford would be a solid example of a yes answer. He is now at the AAA level with the Red Sox and has been up to the MLB team several times. He was only a DH at Stanford for all practical purposes.
Ryan Garko, also from Stanford was drafted because of his bat even though he was a catcher in college. Most draft reports suggested he could not catch at the next level.
Garko has made himself a decent 1B, but his bat got him the chance.